And then, there was silence
The story you probably read in school, or saw in a documentary, is that humans first started migrating out of Africa around 150–200,000 years ago. You likely assumed that all humans indigenous to regions out of Africa are the direct descendants of this migration. But, in fact, none of them seem to be. This was only one migration of many. From the most up-to-date studies we currently have (though possible to change), is that all indigenous humans outside Africa are the descendants of a second migration that occurred 60–80,000 years ago. Despite this finding, which seems to hold true according to DNA and mitochondrial evidence, there are numerous records of human settlements as far as Polynesia tens of thousands of years before this migration.
So what happened?
Some human settlements may simply not survive. Humans are smart, but not that smart. But it would seem a severe coincidence that all previous settlements should die out. We see a similar story for protohuman species. A collection of different hominid species once lived here. From Europe, to Africa, to Asia, and into Polynesia. Some as recent as 13,000 years ago. What happened to them? An average species survival can be millions of years. These near-humans were capable of basic forms of intelligence, possibly very close to human. It seems unlikely that they, too, would all just die out. There is some small amount of near-human DNA in some surviving humans, as well as a small amount of DNA in some humans from the first migration out of Africa. But not much. Not enough to simply assume inter-tribal relationships caused the two groups to become one. Far from it.
The most likely explanation is that they were wiped out. The near-human species were exterminated by humans. And the first humans to migrate were all exterminated by the most recent migration. What is unsettling is how thorough this genocide was. From Northern Europe to islands in Polynesia. You might think there would be some secluded group of surviving near-humans somewhere in the world, but there are not. For stone-cutters with limited knowledge of the environment, early humans still made for very effective butchers. Given that this happened to both near-humans and a previous migration of humans, this seems to be some kind of generalization. Other intelligences sharing the same environment as you is unstable, as the power games accelerate, and eventually one group executes a winning move. And the simplest winning move is removing the other pieces from the board.
Some might say that humans have some kind of mechanism that makes them uniquely prone to violence, which is why this occurred. But that’s zooming in. It doesn’t actually matter why humans executed a series of violent moves. Inevitably, out of many near-human species, one would emerge that had the mechanisms to end the game. If it hadn’t been humans, it would have been another species. If you zoom out, you can see it.
Needless to say, this is not the situation we want. We do not want a game where removing other players is the optimum strategy. It is not the world, or the future, that would be a nice place to live in. But refusal to see it does not help anyone. As we introduce a new intelligent species into our environment, we need to remember history. And find methods and strategies which prevent history from repeating itself.
