The First Human Tribe

250,000 years ago, deep in the jungles of Africa, or maybe the savannah, a little monkey was born that was not quite like the other little monkeys. This little monkey in particular had defective DNA. The code of life that tells the body’s cells how to work had made a mistake. Instead of the defective DNA hindering our little monkey friend, it gave it an extra edge for survival. We’re not exactly sure which gene or which chromosome was changed, but there is speculation that it had to do with brain size and mental capacity. Whatever it was, it helped our monkey survive and become more attractive to the opposite sex. Our monkey took advantage of the situation, mated, and produced children with the same defective gene that gave the monkey a better chance to survive. These monkey children were different enough from the rest of the monkeys that they became something else entirely. This was the first tribe of humans.
If you’ve ever seen chimpanzees hunting as a group on the Discovery Channel, you have a pretty good mental image of what the first tribe of humans acted like. There are two main differences between the chimps on TV and the first tribe of humans. For starters, they are a lot hairier than we were. Though we were most likely hairier, the first tribe looked distinctively human. If we saw them today we would probably tell them that they looked like cavemen. We would be right.
The second difference is that the first tribe of humans were much better at hunting than the chimps on the discovery channel. There is speculation as to whether this is because of increased mental capacities or better communication skills.
No matter what made that tribe of humans better hunters, they quickly replaced the monkeys they had just evolved from. These monkeys didn’t really look like monkeys, they looked a lot like us. The scientists call them Homo Erectus. They also italicize their name for some reason. I just call them Erectus. And yes, the name has lended itself to numberless jokes. We don’t know whether the first human tribe directly killed Erectus or if they just hunted better and ate all of Erectus’ food and took the best hunting grounds. Either way, Erectus died out shortly after humanity was born.
Here is a brief history of the late great Homo Erectus. Chimpanzees and Humans share a common ancestor from about 3.5 million years ago. We know this because of DNA. DNA changes very slowly, but it also changes very punctually, give or take a few thousand years. Scientists can look at DNA from humans and chimpanzees and tell how many differences exist in DNA’s code. Because the mutations happen punctually, that is, they happen every so often and always at about the same intervals, scientists can determine how long it’s been since chimps and humans have shared a common ancestor. The time of our most recent common ancestor would have marked the time that Chimp’s ancestors and Humanity’s ancestors took different evolutionary paths.
From what can be told, 2.5 million years of evolution later, about 1 million years ago, the monkeys that would eventually become humans evolved into Homo Erectus. Erectus evolved in Africa, but the species migrated and settled throughout the world with the exception of the Americas and Antarctica. It is disputed, but some archaeologists have found evidence that Erectus was the first to control fire and make tools. These were traits that the first tribe of Humans took with them when they became their own distinct species.
Different groups of Erectus lived in different geographical parts of the world. Over hundreds of thousands of years, these different geographical groups evolved differently. Some became Neanderthals, some became Humans, and, though it is disputed, some archaeologists claim to have found Hobbits on islands in East Asia. These groups lived in different parts of the world until they naturally became extinct or until they came into contact with Humans. After contact with the Humans, the Humans either outright killed them all or just took their traditional sources of food. Scientists are fairly sure that there was no interbreeding that has produced mixes of Humans and any other descendants of Erectus, though some scientists have not given up and are still looking for evidence.
Erectus evolved into Humanity and over the course of the next 250,000 years Humanity has become the dominant lifeform on planet Earth. Humans have been writing for less than 6,000 years, so there is a lot that we don’t know about our own Human history between that first Human tribe and the present. We do know that the tribe grew, it separated, and fanned out to every part of the planet Earth and have even visited the Moon. Now, in the present day, for the first time in 250,000 years, the separation that occurred when the first tribe of Humans split is about to be rejoined. Globalization, the accessibility of the internet in the farthest reaches of the globe, and communication among different cultures is bringing humanity together in an unprecedented way. In many ways, we are once again one tribe. For the second time in our history, Humanity is joined as one tribe working together for the same goals.