Clear evidence of a Great Leap Forward shows up suddenly in Europe about sixty thousand years ago, at the same time that anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, arrived from Africa. Art appeared, along with technology based on specialized tools for various uses. Human cultures began showing differences across time and place. Whatever caused this leap, it must have used only a tiny fraction of our genes. We still differ from chimps in just 1.6 percent of our genetic makeup, and most of that difference formed before our Great Leap in behavior. My best guess is that the Leap was triggered when we became capable of language.
These first modern humans bore noble traits, but they also bore two traits that lie at the root of our modern problems. One is our tendency to murder each other in large numbers. The other is our tendency to destroy our environment and our resource base. If the seeds of self-destruction have been closely linked to the rise of advanced civilizations in other solar systems as well, it is easy to understand why we have not been visited by any flying saucers.
At the end of the last Ice Age, ten thousand years ago, the rise of our civilization gained speed. We occupied the Americas—at the same time that many large mammals disappeared from those continents. Soon agriculture began. A few thousand years later, the first written texts appeared. Our early writings record our progress and inventiveness, but they also show that addiction and genocide were already part of human life. Habitat destruction started to undermine many societies. The first human settlers in Polynesia and Madagascar caused mass exterminations of species. Histories written since that time have traced our rise and fall in detail.
Since the 1940s we have had the means to blow ourselves up overnight. Even if we don’t blunder into that quick end, starvation, pollution, and destructive technology are increasing. Farmland, food stocks in the sea, and other natural resources are decreasing. So is the environment’s ability to absorb wastes. As more people with more power scramble for fewer resources, something has to give.
What is likely to happen?
There are many reasons to fear the worst. Even if all humans vanished tomorrow, our environment is so damaged that it would keep degrading for decades. Too many species to count already belong to the “living dead”— individuals remain, but their numbers are too few to keep the population going.
Despite what we could have learned from our past self-destructive behavior, many people who should know better think there is no reason to limit our population numbers or to stop assaulting our environment. Some join that assault for profit or out of ignorance. Many more are desperate to survive, and don’t have the luxury of thinking about the future. All these facts suggest that destruction is unstoppable and that we humans, too, are among the living dead, with a future as bleak as that of the other two chimpanzees.
This grim view is captured in a sentence written in 1912 by Arthur Wichmann, a Dutch explorer and professor. Seeing explorers in New Guinea make the same mistakes over and over again, leading to unnecessary suffering and death, Wichmann predicted that future explorers would continue to make the same mistakes. “Nothing learned,” he wrote, “and everything forgotten!”
But I believe our situation is not hopeless. We are the only ones creating our problems, so it’s completely within our power to solve them. We are the only animals that can learn from the experiences of other members of our species living in distant places or in the past. Among the hopeful signs are many realistic ways to avoid disaster, such as by limiting human population growth, preserving natural habitats, and adopting other environmental safeguards. Many governments are already doing some of these things.
Awareness of environmental problems is spreading. Many countries have lowered their rate of population growth. Genocide has not vanished, but the spread of communication technology may reduce our xenophobia, making it harder to see distant people as subhuman or different from us. I was seven years old when the A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. I remember that for decades afterward, people felt that nuclear destruction could happen at any moment. But that risk now seems more remote than at any time since those bombs fell. These are reasons for hope.
We don’t need new, still-to-be-invented technology to solve our problems. We just need more governments to do many more of the same things that some are already doing. And the average citizen is not powerless. In recent years, citizen groups have helped fight the extinction of many species. Commercial whaling and the hunting of big cats for fur coats are just two examples of harmful activities that have been greatly reduced because of changes in the public’s attitudes.
I see us facing serious problems and an uncertain future, but I am cautiously hopeful. Even Wichmann’s grim prediction turned out to be false. Explorers in New Guinea since his time have learned from the past and avoided the disasters of those who went before.
A better motto for our future may come from Otto von Bismarck, a German statesman who worked in European politics for decades. Even though he had seen many errors and much stupidity, Bismarck still believed it was possible to learn from history. He wrote about his life and dedicated the work “to [my] children and grandchildren, towards an understanding of the past, and for guidance for the future.”
This is the spirit in which I dedicate this book to my young sons and their generation. If we learn from the past that I have traced, our future may be brighter than that of the other two chimpanzees.
Glossary
anatomy the study of the structure of organisms, or the inner and outer shapes of plants and animals
anthropology the study of human beings; various branches of anthropology focus on human origins, on the biological and social features of human populations, on the relationships of people with their environments and with other groups of people, on family structures, and on the differences and similarities among cultures
archaeology the study of past human cultures through their physical remains, such as fossils, skeletons, buildings, and objects they made and used
artifact something made by humans, such as a tool, a household utensil, or a piece of clothing or jewelry
biogeography the study of how the different species of plants and animals are distributed, or spread, across the earth’s surface
colonize to settle in a new territory and establish political control over it
Cro-Magnon a member of an early population of humans first identified from forty-thousand- year-old skeletons found in a cave called Cro-Magnon in southern France; they were modern humans belonging to the same species as people today, Homo sapiens
DNA short for deoxyribonucleic acid; the set of molecules that contain the genetic code for each living thing, and that are the basis for genetic traits passed from parents to their offspring; DNA is made up of genes grouped into strands called chromosomes
ecology the study of the connections and relationships among living things and their environments
ethical having to do with ethics or morality, which is the consideration of what is good and bad, or right and wrong, behavior
Eurasia the large land mass that contains the continents of Europe and Asia
evolution the changing pattern of life forms over time as new species arise because of mutations, and old species become extinct
exterminate to destroy, kill off, or wipe out something, usually by a deliberate effort
extinct died out, no longer in existence
first contact to anthropologists, the first meeting between two peoples or cultures when one is more technologically advanced than the other; first contacts usually lead to dramatic changes in the less advanced culture’s way of life
fossil something from a past time in earth’s history that has been preserved by being turned to stone; bones, plants, and footprints are among the traces of ancient life that have survived as fossils
gene a distinct series or sequence of nucleic acids, part of the genetic code carried in DNA
genetics the branch of biology that studies the ways DNA causes variety an
d heredity in living things
genocide a deliberate, often organized, attempt to destroy a particular group; populations have been targeted for genocide because of their race, religion, national or ethnic origin, or for other reasons
heredity in genetics, the passing of features and traits from parents to offspring; traits passed on in this way are called inherited traits
hunter-gatherers people who follow a lifestyle called hunting and gathering, which means living by hunting game animals and gathering wild food plants; for most of human history, everyone was a hunter- gatherer, and a few small groups still are
lineage the line of descent from an ancestor; every organism whose origins can be traced to the same shared ancestor belongs to one lineage
mammal a member of the class of warmblooded animals that have a backbone, nurse their young from the mother’s mammary glands, and usually have some hair on their skins
millennium a thousand years
molecular biology the branch of biology that studies the chemical makeup of living organisms and their cells, with special interest in the molecules that create proteins in organisms and those involved in heredity
mutation in genetics, a change in the structure of a gene or chromosome that leads to an organism having traits or features that its parents did not have; a mutation may have no noticeable effect, or it may be harmful to the organism, or it may be favorable and improve the organism’s chances of survival; evolution is a drive by favorable mutations that leads to the development of new species
Neanderthal a member of an early population of humans first identified in skeletons from the Neander Valley in Germany;Neanderthals were a different species than modern humans
paleobotany the study of fossil plants or of plant life in earlier eras
paleontology the study of life in past eras of earth’s history, mostly based on fossils
paleopathology the study of ancient diseases and physical ailments
physiology the study of how biological structures, such as blood, skeletons, and internal organs, work
polygamy type of marriage in which a spouse can be married to multiple partners at the same time
polygyny type of polygamy in which a man can be married to more than one woman
primate a member of the group of mammals that includes humans, apes, monkeys, and various small animals such as lemurs, tarsiers, and bush babies; primates have hands and sometimes feet that are well developed for handling and picking up objects, with opposable thumbs and sometimes opposable big toes; most primates have flat nails, not claws, on their hands and feet
protohuman having to do with an early form of humans or with the ancestors of humans
syntax the part of grammar that has to do with the way words are joined together to create meaningful phrases or sentences; different languages may have different syntaxes, as shown in word order—for example, some languages put verbs at the ends of sentences
toxic poisonous or damaging
xenophobia fear and dislike or hatred of those who are different or foreign
zoology the branch of biology that studies animal life
PHOTOGRAPH AND ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Alamy: DNA, Hermanta Raval; Cave Drawings, Glasshouse Images; Family Life, Glow Asia RF; Seals, Images & Stories; Aboriginal Child, Susanna Bennett; Vervet Monkeys, Jake Lyell; Bowerbird, Cultura RM; Leaf- cutter Ants, Redmond Durrell; Malekula Diver, Danita Delimont; Acorn Woodpecker, William Leaman; Dani Man and Children, maggiegowan. co.uk; New Guinea Carving, Peter Horree; Teosinte and Corn, nsf; Child in Museum, Mike Goldwater; Pueblo Bunito and Easter Island Statues, Robert Harding Picture Library Ltd.
Bishop Museum: Hawaiian Schoolchildren, Photographer unknown
Corbis: Moken Diver, Pierre Perrin/Zoko/Sygma/Corbis
Getty: Man & Woman Hugging, Photofusion; Juan Ponce de León, Hulton Archive; Congo the Chimp, John Pratt; War of Worlds Headline, New York Daily News Archive; Hernán Cortés, Hulton Archive; Cattle Grazing, Michael Nichols/National Geographic
Granger: Irish Famine, The Granger Collection, NYC
National Library of Australia: “Who Really Killed Tasmania’s Aborigines? / Cobern, Patricia” from The Bulletin
Peter Menzel Photography: Mammoth Skeleton, Peter Menzel
San Diego Air and Space Museum Library and Archives: Archbold Expedition
Wikicommons: Skeletons, Brehms Tierleben, Small Edition 1927; Skeletons, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins; Stone Tools, public domain; Map of Indonesia, http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/ PDFFILES/MAPS/idn_mzn67_2009.jpg; Joseph Smith and Family, Photographer unknown/Utah Quarterly Journal 73(3): 212, taken from Widtsoe Collection, Utah State Historical Society; Great Blue Herons, PhotoBobil; HMS Queen Mary, Photographer unknown, Der Weltkrieg 1914–1918 in seiner rauhen Wirklichkeit, likely from German War Film & Photo Office; Creole Sign, Kim Hansen; Gazelle, Yathin sk; Ishi, Photographer unknown/Online Archive of California; Petra, Berthold Werner; Cyprinid, Photographer unknown; Barro Colorado Island, Christian Ziegler
About the Authors
JARED DIAMOND is professor of geography at the University of California, Lost Angeles. He has published over 200 articles in Discover, Natural History, Nature, and Geo magazines. His is the author of several books including Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and has sold over 1.5 million copies, the international bestseller Collapse, and the recently published The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
REBECCA STEFOFF is the author of a biography of the Shawnee chieftan Tecumseh and a tenvolume series of historical atlases, among many other books for children and young adults. She has adapted Howard Zinn’s celebrated A Young People’s History of the United States and Ronald Takaki’s A Different Mirror for Young People. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
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