"denisovans" - 1 õppematerjal

Reasons why human beings are unique

And then our brains got bigger. Physically we are another primate, but our bigger brains are unusual. We don't know exactly what led to our brains becoming the size they are today, but we seem to owe our complex reasoning abilities to it. It is likely that we have our big brain to thank that we exist at all. When we ­ Homo sapiens ­ first appeared about 200,000 years ago we weren't alone. We shared the planet at least four other upright cousins; Neanderthals, Denisovans, the "hobbit" Homo floresiensis and a mysterious fourth group. The human brain is advantageously big (Credit: Thinkstock) The human brain is advantageously big (Credit: Thinkstock) Evidence in the form of stone tools suggests that for about 100,000 years our technology was very similar to the Neanderthals. But 80,000 years ago something changed. "The Neanderthals had an impressive but basically routine material record for a hominid. Once H. sapiens started behaving in a strange, [more