hereās what I suspect happened. Great apes came down from the trees, we lost our tails and got big. At this stage you have a character creation slider. You can walk on all fours like a tetrapod, or you can be a squatting creature that walks on its hind legs. nature developed both branches. Humans are closer relatives to chimps than too gorillas: we are in the leggy category.
At this point an emergent interaction with the planet earth occurs: apes can hold and carry objects they find on the ground. this is an accident of history combining the monkey ability to climb trees followed by the capability to walk on the ground. Any animal that evolves from the trees to the plains will probably find things to do with its hands. The ground is like a tree branch. You only need two limbs on it. A held object is like a tree branch.
One species specializes in long walks. Itsbone geometry has changed through use. The animal can hold its body in a staple configuration and take long, loping, two legged strides all across the landscape. The muscle it would have put in four legs, it now puts in two.For the first time on earth, an ape has two hands-free pretty much all the time. The animal has manipulator hands from its tree climbing background. A held object is like a tree.
The new animal has plenty of free time. As it tracks across the savannah in pursuit of animals to eat, they have plenty of time to hold organic matter in their hands, fiddle with it, play with it, twist it. They began to pick up rocks off the ground and bang pieces off to use as tools. They learned to light fires. these are the animals from which you descend.
Human competition is now in striding across the land, so humans develop big butts. The other field of competition is handiworks. (many fine stone knives survive from this period.) the human that is more creative when that human makes crafts out of organic material and stones, that person will give their whole tribe a better chance of survival. Humans develop extravagantly beautiful hands full of dexterity, the finest hands on this side of the animal kingdom. The amount of creativity meat in the brain case triples. humans pick up a synergistic perk. The pelvis structure needed to pass big brain babies enable a new, more durable stride. humans develop the animal kingdomās most beautiful butts.
groups of humans stabilize their cultures and form increasingly complex traditional handicraft. atlatl, mobile home, metalworking, simple machines. you are here. these humans are identical to you in body and dna.
something unexpected happens very late in the game. on a parallel track, humans have been developing an old trait from their time in the trees. Monkey tribe hunting calls communicate information about a members position and intentions. The vocalizations of the human have grown complex and loaded with meaning. The handy, creative human crafts a new tool: a physical representation of the things it says. this is called writing. you are currently looking at an instance of this tool. and thatās the last thing that happened in what white people call āprehistoryā
