Sapiens Part 1 Final Exam Flashcards
Periodization in History
What are Harari’s definitions of “history” and “prehistory?” How does it compare to the textbook definitions?
Harari’s version of “history” started after the cognitive revoluton (70K years BP), with the creation of culture. His version of “prehistory” is biology.
In the textbook, history started when humans developed the ability to record things, and prehistory included everything before we could write our history down.
Periodization in History
Harari’s three revolutions
Harari’s three revolutions were the cognitive, agricultural, and scientific revolution (in that order).
Periodization in History
The Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras
(And what divides them)
The Paleolithic Era, or the “Old Stone Age,” came before the cognitive revolution around 2.5 million years ago BP, and ended at the agricultural revolution (Neolithic Era) 12,000BP.
Paleo - Old, Lithic - Stone
Neo - New
Periodization in History
Important timeline dates
(And their significance)
- 13.8 billion years BP: the big bang
- 2.5 million years BP: start of the old stone age/paleolithic era
- 70,000 BP: start of the cognitive revolution
- 12,000 BP: start of the agricultural revolution/neolithic era
- 3000 BCE (5000 BP): when fire was created
- 1500 CE (500 BP): start of the scientific revolution
An “Animal of No Significance”
What are the significances of this chapter title and each of its subsections? (Skeletons in the Closet, The Cost of Thinking, A race of Cooks, Our Brother’s Keepers)
Skeletons in the closet: “Something you are trying to hide”, theres many species of humans that we possibly killed, there were many kinds of humans and now there are only one (us), the joke is that other humans are literally skeletons and we are trying to hide their existence, we aren’t the only humans that have existed. We are trying to put the skeletons of other types of homo’s in a closet, to hide their existence.
Our brother’s keepers: Sapiens are part of a big family, and our “brothers’’ died. Like the Cane and Abel story from the bible. We killed our brothers.
An “Animal of No Significance”
The differences between “humans” and “sapiens”
(And why this distinction is significant)
- All humans all belong to the genus homo
- Sapiens are a type of human that belongs to the genus homo (as well as Neanderthals, homo erectus, etc)
- Homo is the larger category that all primates and apes fall under. It’s the bigger family we all fall under.
An “Animal of No Significance”
Why does Harari describe “humans” (members of the genus Homo) as “animals of no significance?”
We are animals of no significance because at the time, we had no ecological impact on the environment, and we were in the middle of the food chain- we were scavengers.
An “Animal of No Significance”
What are the defining characteristics all “humans” share?
- Big brains — Humans have extraordinarily large brains compared to other animals
- Bipedalism — Humans walk upright on two legs (although there was a price to pay for this)
- Humans can perform intricate tasks with their hands
- Humans are born prematurely compared to other animals, and human babies need longer time to develop
An “Animal of No Significance”
What are the important effects that the defining characteristics of humans have had on our subsequent history and psychology.
Overall, those characeristics have given us both major and minor advantages and disadvanages over other animals.
Bipedalism — allowed us to scan the horizon easier; freed up our hands for tool usage and other complicated tasks like writing; narrowed our hips which led to harder childbirth
Big brains — made us smarter; helped us jump to the top of the food chain because of that knowledge; allowed us to have a wider emotion range that ended up greatly influencing our modern society (for example, our fears and anxieties despite being at the top of the food chain)
An “Animal of No Significance”
What is the significance of the domestication of fire on the development of “humans” (and eventually “Sapiens”)?
Our ability to use fire gave us many advantages over other animals.
For example, because of fire we were able to cook our own food, and therefore spend less energy eating cooked food and more energy in doing other things. This also helped us eat healthier, and digest our food better.
Fire also provided warthm and light during the cold nights, and protected us by giving us the ability to wield the fire to scare predators away or kill them.
We could also burn forests as an alternative to hunting as we could scavenge for food in a safer way.
An “Animal of No Significance”
What are the two potential scenarios Harari identifies for the relationship of Sapiens to other “human” species?
Interbreeding theory: Our sapiens from East Africa spread around the world and bred with human populations (interbreeding). Some present humans, such as Eurasians, would not be pure Sapiens, but rather a mix of Sapiens and Neanderthals. Chinese and Koreans would be a mixture of Sapiens and Erectus.
If this theory was right, there would be genetic differences between Africans, Europeans, and Asians that go back hundreds of thousands of years.
Replacement theory: Sapiens and other human types would have little sexual interest in one another due to their differences (and would be unable to produce fertile children if they did), so when the Neanderthals died out, their genes died with them. Sapiens were the only species that remained, and we would all be pure Sapiens.
If this theory was right, all living humans would have roughly the same genetic baggage.
The “Tree of Knowledge”
What are the significances of this chapter title and each of its subsections? (The Legend of Peugeot, Bypassing the Genome, History and Biology)
Bypassing the genome is called that because Sapiens bypassed their DNA — we are the only animals able to change our behaviors without changing our DNA or evolving. We do this by changing our cultures, or imagined realities (something animals cannot do or think about).
The Legend of Peugot talks a lot about imagined realities, using examples of the Peugot car company and the Stadel Lion man. The word “legend” goes hand and hand with imagined realities, because imagined realities only exist in our mind and are very hard (if not impossible) to prove its existence.
For example, a Peugot-branded car can exist, but the car brand itself only exists in our mind. onda cars exist, A thousand cars could be destroyed, but Peugot would still exist. The Peugot symbol also looks similar to the Stadel Lion Man, another imagined reality.
The “Tree of Knowledge”
What are the important characteristics of the development of language in Homo Sapiens that we have come to call the “Cognitive Revolution,” especially the ability to construct “imagined realities?”
What makes Sapiens use of language unique?
Although all animals can use language, we use it in a more unique way. The important characteristics of our language are:
1) Our language is very flexible, and we can give other Sapiens very detailed information.
2) We can create imagined realities, or stories, through our language.
Sapiens use of language is unique because we can talk about very specific things. Harari uses the example that green monkeys have a limited language because they could only say, “look, a lion!” But Sapiens can say, “I saw the lion lying in the grass, northwest from here. It was by a fig tree”.
Sapiens ability to construct imagined realities comes from our unique ability to tell stories of fiction. or things that only exist in our minds. Collective imagination allows Sapiens to connect with another and form big groups, because they all believe in the same thing. We can also trust eachother more (eg. two cathlics in a room are more likely to trust another than one catholic and one hindu).
The “Tree of Knowledge”
What are the consequences of the “Cognitive Revolution?”
- We were able to plan and carry out more complex actions, like avoiding lions and hunting bisons [due to the ability to transmit larger quantities of information about the world]
- We had larger and more cohesive groups (~150 individuals) [due to the ability to transmit larger quantities of information about Sapiens social relationships]
- We were able to cooperate between a very large number of strangers, and had a rapid innovaiton of social behavior [due to the ability to transmit information about things that do not really exist]
The “Tree of Knowledge”
What is the relationship between “history” and “biology,” according to Harari?
The relationship between history and biology according to Harari is that biology is the “prehistory” before the cognitive revolution, the beginning of “history”.
In the first part of the “History and Biology” section, Harari uses the Cognitive Revolution to define the point where “history” declares its independence from “biology.” He tells us that biology alone is not enough to understand the interactions of genes, hormones, and organisms, nor it is not enough to understand how Sapiens behave. However, the academic discipline is not completely redundant either, and still maintains a relationship with history regardless by setting the basic parameters for the behavior and capacities of Homo sapiens, which the entirety of history takes place in.
