THE TRILOGY: "Conquering the world" Chapter 1

Long range weaponry and social affairs

Scientists have always asked themselves why our species has gone so far, why it was us and not another one. Many reasons have been given like our intelligence, cruelty or luck. The truth is that a combination of all of them was what created the world we stand on today.

First of all, we have to understand what gave our species and not the rest of the Homo genus the ability to expand almost everywhere. Modern investigations show that there two main characteristics gave our species an edge over the rest:

• Long range firepower

• Hipersociability

The first one is important due to the possibility of avoiding melee combat risks. When a group of humans went to hunt they will probably prefer to kill their prey from a distance, in order not to be injured by the last stand of the animal, that way the group will not loose valuable manpower. Researchers have also found, how weapons like the spear-thrower and subsequent inventions meant that hunt was easier, as a result the populations would increase in size faster than other species who would not have adopted these tools.

Also it is not difficult to understand how this new weapons could be used in combat for land and supremacy against inferior humans, just because they could kill their enemies more efficiently.

As for the second characteristic it is easy to realize how well different humans can cooperate, even if they do not share a language, for a common cause. We can work together in great numbers and we do not necessarily have to know these people, we can trust outsiders and create a big family where blood ties are not important as long as you are useful for the community.

For example, this was supposed not to be the norm in Neanderthals and subsequently big groups of Homo sapiens would easily overwhelm the Neanderthals and conquer their territory. Even if direct confrontation did not take place in large scale, modern humans would occupy and exploit the new land resources faster than other species. Hypersociability is not common in animals and this is something that changed the way of colonizing the world. In less than 100,000 years, humans dominated the entire world and the rest of the animals.

The expansion was incredible and we may question ourselves what were the first humans thinking when they went out of Africa. It is a continent full of resources so, why would they bother to cross deserts, jungles and mountains? Was it worth it? Was that the start of the decay for our planets biodiversity?

Those questions and even more will be answered in the next chapter of Conquering the world.

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