We would want to add “in his behaviour”, to “in his bodily form” and Wade shows us how new light is being cast on human behaviour. From our apelike forebears we follow not only the story of human form but human behaviour too. Was it to gain reproductive advantage or to defend their territory that certain genes evolved? What was the significance of the male – female bond which emerged 1.7 million years ago? And what difference to our social and cultural lives did the evolution of language from 50,000 years ago bring? When we could share precise thoughts, social interaction at a deeper level became possible. Organised warfare, reciprocity and altruism, exchange and trade and our ability to immerse our independence in the religion of our community have developed and shaped society. All were there in the hunter-gatherer societies of the Upper Palaeolithic but only 15,000 years ago with the first settlements, as aggression diminished, social life formed the complex institutions.

What drives us? We see the contradictory impulses of aggression and conciliation. Warfare is a way of life which is universal, a norm in pre-static societies. 30% of adult chimps die of wounds, a Mohave war party expected to loose 30% of its warriors, at Gettysberg the Confederates lost 30% of their numbers. E. O.Wilson writes of “the human pre-disposition for socially approved aggression”. A nuclear family allowed all males to procreate and aggression diminished. Parallel to that is an ability to cooperate with more than family members which led to a cohesive society. Fairness and reciprocity with their associated trust and guilt, led to trade and allowed cities and large urban societies to develop. Defence against freeloaders, who would take advantage of trust, led to religion, Wade believes. Religion is communal, it bonds, it excludes those who cannot be trusted. It too has a wired-in basis. E. O. Wilson believes we have a predisposition to accept truths with a deeper meaning. Language is used to deceive and in religious ritual – so religion and language co-evolved.

Wade identifies four glues that hold human society together – reciprocity, language, religion and pair bonding in a family unit. Taken with warfare that is remarkable close to the four “Drives” identified by Lawrence and Nohria in their book “Driven – How human nature shapes our choices” published by Jossey-Bass in 2002: to defend, to bond, to acquire and to learn.

Coincidences in archaeological evidence and genetic calculation as humans developed a “fixed abode” are fascinating. Three quarters of Europe’s population today comes from 40 identifiable lineages the oldest of which can be dated to about 50,000 years ago, just when the exodus from Africa of our ancestors happened. The oldest archaeological site in Europe is dated at 45,000 years ago and is in Bulgaria. Linguistic evidence too, often fits the new developing patterns.

Changes in the social order follow sedentism. Defence, agriculture, and intellectual skills of calculation, abstract thought, symbolic notation and writing. With these there seems to have been a set of evolutionary adaptations – thinner skulls and genetic change, disease resistance and lactose tolerance for example. The gene that produces sickle-cell-anaemia developed as a protection against malaria. The ability to digest milk had disappeared in animals and early humans in adulthood but persists throughout life in northern cattle breeding Europeans and in some groups in Africa too. So, alongside the core of humanity from its common source, are continuing changes in specific groups.

“Human nature”, Wade suggests, “is a set of adaptive behaviours which have evolved in the human genome we see today”. E. O. Wilson writes “The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.” All the findings are not and will not be comfortable for us but, like the question of intelligence and the Ashkenazi Jews or Jefferson’s secret family, the past should not be suppressed. That would be “a retreat into darkness” says Wade. We know human evolution was shaped by the environment in which the species struggles to survive, and society is an important environmental feature – so to some extent man has shaped his own evolution and continues to do so, for the picture is not complete.

Questions remain. Was change gradual or in bursts? What will we learn when a language gene can be clearly identified and we can trace back to a common language? This is not a story with an end. Wade follows continuing human evolution, new genetic findings casting light on today’s races, on our developing resistance to disease and new cognitive powers. The studies inter-related here are fascinating in themselves. But they are more than that. They also illuminate the past and promise increasing insight in the future as the shadows are lit one by one and we fill in more and more of the fascinating story of “Who am I?” Here is a story every human needs to know, surely an essential part of a new Curriculum for Humankind.

Pages: 1 2

More articles by Janet Lawley