This Is What Makes Us Human (Hint: It Isn’t Productivity Or Opposable Thumbs)
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
-
Richard Wrangham
8 min read
The article cites Wrangham as the authority behind the cooking hypothesis. Understanding his background as a primatologist and his broader research on human evolution and violence would add valuable context.
-
Origin of language
18 min read
The article's core claim connects cooking to the development of complex language. This Wikipedia article explores the various scientific theories about how human language evolved, providing deeper context for Wrangham's social bonding hypothesis.
This Is What Makes Us Human (Hint: It Isn’t Productivity Or Opposable Thumbs)
Scientists widely agree that complex language is what makes us human. Which is why writing is a metaphor for living. But what allowed us to develop complex language?
I mean, clearly our big brains are involved, but how and why did we develop such big brains in the first place?
Luck?
An evolutionary glitch?
The way we use our opposable thumbs to make stuff?
Nope.
It was cooking together.
At least that’s the argument of British primatologist Richard Wrangham in his book Catching Fire,. He says the advent of cooking led us to develop complex language by creating a surplus of time and increased brainpower. Cooking achieved this by making food easier to chew and digest, which freed up time for other activities like socializing. This, Wrangham asserts, is what spurred the development of more complex communication, including storytelling and language as we now know it. Fire and cooking, he says, also fostered social structures, pair bonds, and a division of labor, which further encouraged th…
This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.