Why Are We The Only Humans Left?

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Part 2 of our special series on Human Ancestry. Watch it all: http://bit.ly/OKTBSHuman
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In part 2 of our special series on human ancestry, we ask why we are the only surviving branch on the human evolutionary tree. Just 50,000-100,000 years ago, Earth was home to three or four separate human species, including our most famous cousins: the Neanderthals. New research has shown that Neanderthals were not the brutish, unintelligent cavemen that cartoons make them out to be. They were creative, smart, social, and perhaps even had complex language. So why did they go extinct as soon as Homo sapiens moved into their territory? Does any trace of them live on today? Why don’t we have Neanderthal neighbors?

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REFERENCES:

Papagianni, Dimitra, and Michael A. Morse. The Neanderthals Rediscovered: How Modern Science Is Rewriting Their Story. Thames & Hudson, 2015. http://amzn.to/2oov6GG (Library: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/923279213)

Stringer, Chris. “Lone survivors: How we came to be the only humans on earth.” Macmillan, 2012. http://amzn.to/2oIFg3q (Library: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/855581724)

Tattersall, Ian. “Masters of the planet: the search for our human origins.” Macmillan, 2012. http://amzn.to/2pOZrKS (Library: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/733231407)

Walter, Chip. “Last ape standing: the seven-million-year story of how and why we survived.” Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2013. http://amzn.to/2pP2liy (Library: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/872121723)


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It’s Okay To Be Smart is hosted by Joe Hanson, Ph.D.
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