When Humans Were Prey
Vložit
- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to to.pbs.org/DonateEons
↓ More info below ↓
Not too long ago, our early human ancestors were under constant threat of attack from predators. And it turns out that this difficult chapter in our history may be responsible for the adaptations that allowed us to become so successful.
Thanks to Julio Lacerda and Studio 252mya for the illustrations of the Taung Child. You can find more of Julio's work here: 252mya.com/gallery/julio-lacerda
Produced for PBS Digital Studios.
Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible: Katie Fichtner, Anthony Callaghan, Renzo Caimi Ordenes, John Vanek, Neil H. Gray, Marilyn Wolmart, Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle, Gregory Donovan, Ehit Dinesh Agarwal, الخليفي سلطان , Gabriel Cortez, Marcus Lejon, Robert Arévalo, Robert Hill, Kelby Reid, Todd Dittman, Betsy Radley, PS, Colin Sylvester, Philip Slingerland, Jose Garcia, Eric Vonk, Tony Wamsley, Henrik Peteri, Jonathan Wright, Jon Monteiro, James Bording, Brad Nicholls, Miles Chaston, Michael McClellan, Jeff Graham, Maria Humphrey, Nathan Paskett, Connor Jensen, Daisuke Goto, Hubert Rady, Yuntao Zhou, Gregory Kintz, Tyson Cleary, Chandler Bass, Maly Lor, Joao Ascensao, Tsee Lee, Sarah Fritts, Ruben Winter, Ron Harvey Jr, Jacob Gerke, Alex Yan
If you'd like to support the channel, head over to / eons and pledge for some cool rewards!
Want to follow Eons elsewhere?
Twitter / eonsshow
Instagram / eonsshow
References:
humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/h...
humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/h...
humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/h...
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/na...
time.com/5424347/remains-neand...
scienceinpoland.pap.pl/en/news...
Berger, L. R. (2006). Brief communication: Predatory bird damage to the Taung type-skull of Australopithecus africanus Dart 1925. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 131(2), 166-168.
Berger, L. R., & Clarke, R. J. (1995). Eagle involvement in accumulation of the Taung child fauna. Journal of Human Evolution, 29(3), 275-299.
Berger, L. R., & McGraw, W. S. (2007). Further evidence for eagle predation of, and feeding damage on, the Taung child. South African Journal of Science, 103(11-12), 496-498.
Blumenschine, R. J., Stanistreet, I. G., Njau, J. K., Bamford, M. K., Masao, F. T., Albert, R. M., ... & Fernández-Jalvo, Y. (2012). Environments and hominin activities across the FLK Peninsula during Zinjanthropus times (1.84 Ma), Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution, 63(2), 364-383.
Brain, C. K. (1970). New finds at the Swartkrans australopithecine site. Nature, 225(5238), 1112.
Brain, C. K. (1983). The hunters or the hunted?: an introduction to African cave taphonomy. University of Chicago Press.
Bunn, H. T. (1991). A taphonomic perspective on the archaeology of human origins. Annual Review of Anthropology, 20(1), 433-467.
Dart, R. A. (1949). The predatory implemental technique of Australopithecus. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 7(1), 1-38.
Dart, R. A. (1953). The predatory transition from ape to man. Brill.
Dart, R. A. (1958). The Minimal Bone-Breccia Content of Makapansgat and the Australopithecine Predatory Habit. American Anthropologist, 60(5), 923-931.
Hart, D. (2018). Man the hunted: Primates, predators, and human evolution. Routledge.
Hart, D., & Sussman, R. W. (2011). The influence of predation on primate and early human evolution: impetus for cooperation. In Origins of Altruism and Cooperation (pp. 19-40). Springer, New York, NY.
Njau, J. K., & Blumenschine, R. J. (2006). A diagnosis of crocodile feeding traces on larger mammal bone, with fossil examples from the Plio-Pleistocene Olduvai Basin, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution, 50(2), 142-162.
Njau, J. K., & Blumenschine, R. J. (2012). Crocodylian and mammalian carnivore feeding traces on hominid fossils from FLK 22 and FLK NN 3, Plio-Pleistocene, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of human evolution, 63(2), 408-417.
Pickering, T. R., Schick, K. D., & Toth, N. P. (Eds.). (2007). Breathing life into fossils: taphonomic studies in honor of CK (Bob) Brain. Gosport, IN: Stone Age Institute Press.
Tobias, P. V. (1990). When and by whom was the Taung skull discovered. Para conocer al hombre: homenaje a Santiago Genovése. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma da Mexico, 207-213.
Washburn, S. L. (1957). Australopithecines: the hunters or the hunted?. American Anthropologist, 59(4), 612-614.
Zuberbühler, K., & Jenny, D. (2002). Leopard predation and primate evolution. Journal of Human Evolution, 43(6), 873-886. - Věda a technologie
That’s why I leave my kitchen window drapes open. I let the birds see me scramble eggs just so they know what I’m capable of.
I want that Juice friend ..
r/cursedcomments
*i am birb*
Now THAT was funny!!!
Keep them in check
"When Humans were prey." As an Australian, I am pretty sure that was last Thursday.
Also if you're like me .
I like to camp in the Carpathians Mountains and the forests are full of wolves and bears.
Now just imagine the sounds at night plus the ones from the owls.
Yeah, except Aussies are hunted by magpies with anger issues, not giant eagles looking for a snack.
No
Lmao nice
@@Takeshi357 the saltwater crocodile (aka the most violent present-day dinosaur) enters the chat.
Imagine being bullied and eventually leveling up so much you can destroy the entire planet
Yeah
This is the way
hold on a second...are we the baddies? :O
@@robertroux6001 yes but no
The planet should've watched his step
Early humans: “Ahh call an ambulance!”
*picks up sharp stick*: “ but not for me”
NGL had us in the first half
Underrated meme
So, Ahh is the name of the other early human, right?
@@furakanoabira7111 lol
Early humans: "ae ooh ahh"
*Picks up sharp stick*: "ooh ahh rah"
When you bullied humans for centuries and now you're on the takeout menu.
Rami Daskeo their ancestors will have to take their place
This video should be shown to vegans
Damn, what do chickens and pigs ever do to us
@@Chris-hp9be ever seen a wild boar?
Karma
Everybody in the animal kingdom playing gangsta till a human sharpens a stick
😭😂😂😂
Nuke
Yep😂😂😂
And when the struck two rocks together 😂
😂😂😂😂😂
dog species: eat humans for centuries
humans: evolve into the strongest animals in the world
dog species: switch teams
Can’t beat em join em
Hyenas are not related to dogs, foxes wolves etc. They're closer to mongoose and weasels.
@@freedomm I thought hyenas were more related to Felines than Canids
INdeed wolfes and Neanderthaler often shared their common prey, and this might be why the dogs evolved.
@@iammeltedvengence1234 yes mongoose and weasels are feliforms
Imagine running around in a field and getting scooped up by a 20ft bird.
Don’t need a 20 footer. An adult eagle can easily carry off children up to maybe 8 years of age. Considering that humans were much smaller back in the day, that could have been an adult by size. You ever see videos of eagles hunting mountain goats/sheep? Yea we were easy pray.
P.S. humans still taste like chicken.
Takes out Guns* Glory to humanity*
Imagine flying freely in the skies as an apex bird of prey only to get 360 no-scoped by a hairless ape launching a pebble-sized chunk of lead.
@@badmonkey91 u slow
@@4philipp No dude eagles at most can carry half of thier weight, anything more than that and they no longer can fly
Imagine being killed by a leopard just to be called sk 54
😂
At least he wasn't called A-55.
@@karnak333 at leas he wasn't called X Æ A-12
"Genie, I want the world to remember me."
They say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing and the other one is a little later, when someone tells your name for the last time.
Guess that man hasn't died yet..
Humans: **looks at dogs** "You're ok. Don't show up to the savannah tomorrow."
Murders whole savanna
Dogs: I wait for my share
We are the quiet kid.
Hahahahahhahahhahaha
@@uncanny3637 *Pumped up kicks plays from a distance*
You know when you're outside and a shadow quickly passes over you and you get this flash of dread and you flinch? The Taung child knows why.
hahahahaha
So true. I just had that when I was nearby an airport...
knew* jk
That didn't age well
@@VERGILGASM why
I can only imagine how terrifying large predator birds would’ve been to early humans. At any moment you could get picked up off the ground and you would never hear them coming.
Maybe that's why humans lived in caves alot
@@bananafone1414 And also, eventually learnt to build roofed huts?
Well that may explain the fascination many people have with flying and the desire of having wings
naw they be coming down blasting their stuka sierens
Saw some videos about eagles. Including flying with a sheep or goat. (Weight may be 15 kg)
A young human child in the open is still now in danger when an eagle is hunting. It can fly away with toddlers.
human: starts picking up rocks
other animals: why do i hear boss music?
LOL
@Solgaleo wrong, they invented the first butt plugs
@Solgaleo eat you up
😆😂🤣
And I'm the 1000 person to like the comment...
Now its time for me to disappear from this comment section.
becoming large, smart, and powerful over a few million years just to give a big evolutionary middle finger to the animals that used to eat us is the most human thing ever.
Yes.
Yes.
im so proud
Yup....and few of us are are currently floating around in zero gravity inside the International Space Station.
hoorayimhelping ong
Hawk: *eats a person*
Victim's brother: *sharpening a rock* Omae wa mou shindeiru.
Shiwa star belic
Hawk: nani
Omaua mo no shindiro*
@@moath3810 bruh
@@raindoset5408 nice gun
So glad to be alive during the apex predator stage of human evolution
lel
Better yet, time when the world was so peaceful most people died to old age than murder.
Then you should be glad that you'll die for the same reason
There was no such stage of mankind, we were apex from the beginning.
The video source is bunch of ancent monkeys
💯
Nature: bully humans
Humans: invent sharp stick and dominate everything
Nature: suprised pikatchu face
Nature: create storms every year global warming
Humans: waaahhh😯
this was really funny
Jokes like this is the reason why I think we should've all gone extinct.
Pikachu not pikatchu
I actually laughed out loud
Some little ape kid running around in Taung: (minding its own business)
Giant predatorial bird: *_Y O I N K_*
Didn't listen to his mother when she said "don't go out without your spiked hat".
@David Hernandez swoppy...??
Spearman: Yeet a spear uba gugga. Oh too late
hippity hoppity your child is now my property
Leopard eating a hominin on the tree: enjoying his meal
Bones falling off: *Y E E T*
Speaking of humans back when they were prey...
*One of the most frightening things I've heard is when someone pointed out that the existence of the uncanny valley implies that at some point there was an evolutionary reason to be afraid of something that looked human but wasn't.*
monke
Perhaps they were hunted by other hominid species?
That's an interesting thought
Yes but the uncanny valley is from when we had to recognize signs of sickness, where they didn’t look like humans but were and that was super dangerous (you know cuz plagues and stuff)
Yes but the uncanny valley is from when we had to recognize signs of sickness, where they didn’t look like humans but were and that was super dangerous (you know cuz plagues and stuff)
Animals: You can’t defeat me
Humans: I know. *pulls out sharp stick* But he can.
this*
Imagine walking to work and suddenly you're getting picked up by a huge Eagle
Imagine walking to work and getting attacked by birds... wait.... thats just Australia and MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGPIEEEEEEEEEES
Lol
If it makes you feel any better, that could still kind of happen. CZcams search "eagle takes goat off a cliff" and you'll learn that anyone up to the size of a middle-sized child could not only be attacked but flown away by a very large bird. Eagles and the like can carry at least twice its own weight. If it's a fifty-pound eagle, it can carry a hundred-pound person. The bird carried it away holding nothing but the horns in one video Sweet Dreams >:)
I'd grab its wing and wed both fall and die.
@@myheartiswriting ..yh I've seen it😲😲
Animals: what are you gonna do you're slower,weaker, and you have no claws
Human: ahem (pulls out stick with pointy thingy)
best invention ever
If it wasn't those sticks we wouldn't be here
We got da big brain which led to late game dominance
cocks shotgun
And now the humans are destroying the planet. Thr dumbest species on earth.
I really appreciate how you pointed out that the researchers' work was influenced by having lived through the World Wars. It's important to remember that science isn't something that exists in some pocket dimension unaffected by the rest of history, it's something that people do, and those people are both influenced by the world around them, and (especially in fields fraught with as much importance as human origins) they are aware of how their theories will influence the world in return.
And now we even have a saying illustrating this :
"two birds one stone"
- Taung child's brother
Before this: 2 humans 1bird
So to sum it all up, humans are the nature equivalent of that quiet kid that gets bullied in school and the next day he starts counting down.
Precisely:)
Not always the case i hate how people say the quiet kid is the bad one
And he tells his domesticated friends not to come to school tomorrow
@@battlebuddy4517 I guess it's just a meme lol, oh well
@@battlebuddy4517
Not the bad one, necessarily. The most dangerous one. That doesn't mean he's bad. It means he's not one to be taken lightly.
Everybody gangsta till the bullied species starts slamming sticks and stones together
I thought that was about sex oof
And starts making guns
Random stuff? U made aircraft shark
Yeah but how far up the evolutionary chain did we start to defend ourselves ? I could imagine our ancestors being hunted went on for quite some time . Although I imagine our ancestors might have been least favorite for predators to hunt due to maybe not looking right or tasting right .
Austrolapithecus be like: "You're alright, zebra. Don't come to class tomorrow..."
Damn we went from being shaped by our environment to shaping the environment as we see fit
If we're shaping the environment you could prevent climate change.
@@mohammedubed7000 thing is we could have prevented climate change its just that we didnt with is why things got so bad now
i mean we are on a feedback loop at this point
@@mohammedubed7000 bruh we are shaping the ecosystem around us to our needs
@@mohdzainlonewe are slowly fixing it.
Similar evolution to prairie dogs, stand upright, communicate effectively about predators, but unfortunately humans don’t yippee once the predator goes away. Also, we’re too big to dig holes to get away from predators like prairie dogs so we had to come up with tools. I think it worked out well for us
"Monster is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We're just used to being the cat." - Dr Henry Wu
Frank Fedison
Heard that quote many times. So chilling true.
What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly. Really demonstrates the concept of moral relativism.
Or from jurrasic world lol
True but if you were a Maori some 500 or so years ago you would have had to deal with the "Hartz eagle" the largest eagle to have ever lived.Hartz eagle hunted large game like Moas which weighed upto 500 pounds!.As New Zealand was heavily forested once a kill was made the eagle would hang around eating its way thru the kill.Anything trying to scavenge as people are want to do would be attacked and probably killed.Hartz eagle weighed up to 25lbs thats more than big enough to kill woman children and probably men!
Later we'll all die said the gator to the fly
Other animals when the ape fodder starts sharpening rocks: "I have a bad feeling about this"
That ape fodder was like the original school shooter reaching into his bag. "I've had enough!"
Rich Homie Gon when the quiet ape in the back of the troop says *grunt* and reaches into his patch of grass.
*scared everything else noises*
We excuted order 66 on nature
“Jedi do not sharpen rocks. Only Sith sharpen rocks. Sharpening rocks goes against the will of the universe.” :3 *sharpening intensifies*
We have GUNS
You can find videos right now of Golden Eagles attacking Mountain Goats and carrying them off. That blew my mind seeing that years ago. I never thought that Eagles were big and strong enough to carry that size and heavy a prey. So the idea of our ancestors' children getting picked off by large birds of prey was quite easy for me to believe.
As a South African who speaks Sotho, the way he pronounces 'Taung' is so hilariously adorable😂
"tong"
Animals: Is strong af capable of killing humans
Humans: *Uno Reverse Card*
Thats still there.
@@blankblank5409 a unarmed human sure depends on the animal, but nothing beats a disciplined armed human
@@ivonunes3937 Depends what you're armed with
Ivo Nunes I’d say a swarm of bugs can beat a human as long as the human doesn’t have a specialized weapon
@@wolfnerd4984 easily yes but a swarm of bugs can kill almost all land creatures
Man-eating animals: nooooo you cant just start killing us off and driving us to extinction
early humans: haha sharp stick go stab
Modern humans: haha descendants go chopchop
Yumyum
haha big brain go smart smart
That's not how that meme works
Actually, if humans stayed in Africa they wouldn't have evolved as much as they did. We evolved so much because we moved out of places that were dangerous. If humans stayed in Africa they most likely would have gone extinct as the environment was too harsh for our ancestors.
I always found it so fascinating how humans managed to survive against all odds and finally turned out to be able to flip the entire world on its head. Even if this dramatic rise of humans already paved the way for our self-caused downfall, it's still amazing nonetheless.
Just go alone at night in a jungle (in SE Asia, South America or Africa) and you will really feel what it's like not to be on the top of the food chain. No need to go back in time.
Intellectual is what makes human top of food chain at the end, if you go to jungle alone for no reason, which mean you don’t use brain which apparently your advantage compare to any other animal..
South Asia too
Might be that our fear of monsters and such, manifested in countless stories dating back a looong time, comes from a time, where we were actually hunted by monsters.
That makes a lot of sense🤔
Yeah, it's the residue of our instinctual fear.
Our ancestors fled.first and asked questions after, which is also why many people believe that they saw inexplicable and terrifying phenomenons when it was probably just a tree branch casting a shadow.
About the Archetypal Framework we possess or inherit from our ancestors making up our Collective Unconscious, well that’s how myths were shaped and formed. Superstitions are also a product of the unknown.
well, duh! hahaha
And the saying: safety in numbers. We humans have an instinct to stick together when the sh*t hits the fan
This guy spoke as many words in 10 mins as I would say in 2 days.
i had to to keep telling myself to stfu and listen
Double tap is my friend
He's definitely had a couple too many espresso shots
様David ikr
Me a week
When I lived in the high desert region of Arizona vultures would start circling above whenever you'd stop moving, if sat down to fish at the watering hole or you were resting while on a hike you could look up and they'd there waiting for you to get a free meal. After awhile they'd sometimes start landing near by and you can see the look in their little round eyes, big birds still want to eat us.
Popeyes and KFC prove that the feeling is very mutual.
Vultures won't attack you unless you're already a corpse.
Its pretty incredible how humans went from being prey to literally being able to annihilate the world with nuclear weapons
Predators back in the day: *eats human*
Human’s evolutionary response: “kill or be killed.”
Human’s today: “I think we went a little overboard.”
Earth: You think
God: you kids have seen nothing
Under rated comment
Universe: There was something called life during my existence?
Runaway evolutionary traits are literally a thing. See Giant Irish Elk and ridiculous antlers getting sticking in ever increasing forests at the end of the last Ice Age
The Killer Ape Theory. Awesome band name.
I agree
I'm gonna start a grunge band by this name.
Now the killer apes have guns....
The psycotic ape theory is as well
Like the big bang theory but better
Sometimes I wonder who I would be if videos like this were available when I was younger. I enjoy these so much.
Thanks, there is so much i want to say regarding this subject. Appreciate the efforts of archeologists and this moderator and channel for explaining the science of our evolution and capacity for thriving against other competitors.
birds, how dare you betray me like this
Alfred Hitchcock was right ;)
🐤🐦 *shriek*
Birdemic was true, you know!
Never look at your parakeet the same will ya...............
we got our revenge
*looks at domesticated bird make an idiot of itself in my kitchen*
haha, what an idiot bird
@@coreytaylor447 I'm currently watching my cockatiel make a "nest" in his food bowl and yeah... he's an idiot bird
*Looks at my pet chickens with worry*
Better eat them before they eat you!
Many people don't believe it, but chickens are savage.
Persphonefallen be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
don't sleep on those dinosaurs, they will have no mercy
You never see a pack of chickens tearing apart a mouse. Welcome to farm life.
That leopard's soul smiled after being recognized 2.8 million years later
I remember 3 million years ago when the Flintstones and the Croods who lived across the quarry from us called noise control on my uncle Captain Caveman.
Geez, that was your family? You always made a ruckus. Was hard to sleep at night.
turns out I still feel like a prey when my cat looks at me in a strange and threatening way.
@Gxngex too late :x
@@renatoigmed Lmao. It's a house cat. Just punt the damn thing.
Victor Akhmedshin and you just a person so im gonna put you down uwu
@@battlebuddy4517 And you're not even a person, let's put you down.
Bro just give it to a pet shelter if you dont want it
Fun fact: Dr. Leakey who discovered the Habilis fossil was also the professor who urged Jane Goodall, Birute Galdikas, and Dian Fossey to study primates in the wild. They were jokingly called Leakey's Angels.
My parents bought a dog from him in Dar es-Salam in the 1950's.
@@Nilguiri Wow.. That's pretty awesome!
Most people forget about Birute. Nice to see you know of her. And, for the sake of correctness, it was Dian Fossey. No E on the end of Dian.
@@MasterJedi86
Yeah, it almost makes me famous by association! haha. ;)
@@ascetic3312 fixed thanks. I knew I'd get somebody's name wrong
How can you not mention the discovery and control of fire? It removed all previous natural predators in one fell swoop. This facilitated mankind himself filling the ecological niche vacated by other predators. It directed our tribal behaviour, our nocturnal (night owl) tendencies (looking after the fire), and freed us from the daily drudge of finding food / not being food, which gave us the free time to look at stars and wonder what they might be. Which no other species ever has done.
They have a video on that.
Thank you for making this video. There is so much about human history that seems unknown!
One of the theories for why baby mobiles work involves the instinct to be still and quiet when a predator flies overhead.
This is as terrific as finding out dog toys squeak to simulate dying animal noises.
Can you give me a source? For the baby mobile?
What is a baby mobile?
@@chinmaypani348 small toys hanging over the bed of a baby, they can spin and the calm the baby
Terrifying an infant to keep it quiet is definitely a tactic a tired parental figure would finally resort.
"Ey remember when Timmy got fetched by a giant eagle?, yeah good times."
Ur talking about Mr. Leyhe?
We’re gonna need another Timmy! I like TPB, as well.
Is you a guy ?
I don't know is it a boy or a girl
Why am I imagining that in an Australian accent even though you’ve given me no indication you’re from there? 🤔
“We may be who we are today because of the time when we were pray”
Yeah that’s why I have anxiety
I’m an anthropology student and I love this content
Humans: *gets bullied by animals*
Also Humans to Animals: You've yee'd your last haw
Lol
It's funny how we still make the distinction between humans and animals when there was and is no distinction, even the video tells of us caving eachothers heads in with rocks on a regular basis
@@geedee1264 he later explained in the video that those marks were likely from a leopard or other big predator bird
@@geedee1264
Its because there really isnt a much better way for the average person to differentiate human from non-human than to say animals, even if we are part of the animal kingdom too.
@@geedee1264 the video is actually to specify that we didnt cave holes in the heads of each other... but animals did it to us....
[slowly moves to parakeet cage and double checks the lock]
Jackpot! You just want to flex
"Two cockatiels and 2 budgies" I can't even live with one bird what the heck
@@blakestalnaker4932 odd flex..
😂😂😂😂😂
🤣
Crazy how the zeitgeist influences how findings are interpreted
???
The flapper dress is based on deep genetic memory of the grass and feather wing suits our ancestors used to slip free of their talons. We would flap frantically as we fell which had no effect but sometimes we landed in water.
Nature: lol humans little weaklings
Humans: *evolves*
Nature: wait what
Coronavirus laughs
@@toomanysandwiches8665 Laughs in 99%+ survival rate
@@-Sharky- that’s still 2 million people
@@Shrimpfriedpee imagine being a pandemic and still having a negative kd ratio 😳
@@-Sharky- if you get medial help. Other wise its around 3-5% chance. Overall. But its more like a 8% if your 50. Thats pretty bad odds to me
"When humans were prey."
"Ooh... I don't like those words."
Fascinating how warped our perception of prey and predator and overall reality becomes when one individual comes out with an unargued study
Probably why we have so much anxiety now.
Stephanie Putnam and fear of the dark.
@Thomas Long i prepare my fists when im in the dark or alone in the morning.
Anxiety would be more useful if we were still in the wild, too much anxiety, not really enough life threatening huge predators to tear your face off. I’m allright with that though lol
I'm sure our ancestors had fears but not anxiety. I think the reason for our anxiety is the opposite: When humans have the time to stand and relax, they tend to develop anxiety.
@@lolitaras22 They definitely had anxiety, its a survival tactic, and fear is a form of anxiety.
It makes sense that after thousands or years of playing against natures best predators we would eventually learn the matchup
Its not even a matchup i had a gun and im at the forest i will kill all predetors idc if they go extinct
@@Manu-sk7qx ...Bruh,why you gotta be like that
@@Manu-sk7qx lol u can always spot an American just by their comments
@@lvla9513 no we dont claim them
Love this comment hehe
Predators: "Hahaha human prey, silly weak human"
Humans: *Sharpens Stick*
Predator: "Dont 😩"
This makes so much sense, explains why humans are so quick to violence on each other rather than kindness
Or how kindness can be weaponized and cruel.
Being an intellegent predator is tricky; inside and out.
*Looks slowly at the sparrow standing on the tree next to my window*
I picture that scene from Jurassic Park where the game warden goes "clever girl..." before being torn to shreds by a Velociraptor.
If you haven't seen Hitchcock's Birds movie you have no idea how terrifying birds can be
Yanuchi Uchiha: Anime, Games and Ramdomness
*Sparrow slowly turns his head to stare back at you.*
‘Intense music insues’
Maybe it wasn't a sparrow, but a psychopomp preying on your soul 👻💀☠
😂😂😂
Apologies to my extremely late ancestors who were eaten by birds, but there's something delightful about there being a grain of truth to the "cavemen running away from a hungry dinosaur" cartoon trope
+
If they were eaten by birds then they wouldn't have been your ancestors
@@grrmonkey
Yes they could. You're assuming they were eaten before mating.
@@captainbonkerang didn't think of that, thanks
Technically they were... from FLYING dinosaurs- what, from the way the video describes it, was apparently some now-extinct species of giant eagle or something.
Great video! Your video was so informative. Thank you so much!
I love how well meme comments and science go together.
All this makes me wonder what currently held beliefs we have about ancient humans right now will be considered silly a hundred years from now.
the paleo diet
Some things will probably stick if they were right
Religion...
@Pecu Alex But who knows what the future can hold.
Young-Earth Creationism
Two words : fire control.
That was a huge evolutionary key.
Pointy sticks and Co-op are not enough.
Most predators ruled the nights, with the fire we took away that advantage from them, along other things that came after learning how to use it.
Also being able to cook food meant we could effective gain more energy and nutrients from food. Leading to the theory that first cooking food led to increased intelligence in hominids
When did fire control begin
Damn, sharp stick on fire must've been a really op weapon back then
@@rowanmelton7643
yeah
it's like 2 in 1 major benefit
so the invention of fire could be a huge revolutionary of intelligence
@@marcusrogers9441 no one knows, but evidence suggests around 2 million years ago, though possibly much before.
It’s also said that the Taung child may have died from tooth abscess / infection. And that it had died near a swamp or body of water that may have helped it preserve.
I can't even begin to describe how badly I want a time machine. Honestly, I would spend my whole life visiting events in the past. Meeting Andrew Jackson, checking out the Dinosaurs, Nero, Caligula, assassination of Caesar. I'm a huge true crime guy, so I would go to the scene of so many disappearances. If only..
EDIT: Roswell, of course, and others like it
why would you wanna meet some slave owner?
One mistake and ur done for without modern hospitals
Animals bullies humans
Humans after thousands of years : hi customer do you want buy this alligator hat
And they’ve been here long before us
Humans count as animals as well tho
@@sometf2player752 The animals bullied animals.
Lmao
I feel cringe about my comment
"Look what you did. You took a perfectly good ape and gave it anxiety." I wonder how much of such conditions today are maladaptive holdovers, considering that it wasn't that long ago, evolutionarily speaking, that the nervous buggers were the ones more able to spot and run away from the leopards.
Maybe. But would also be the ones more capable of scaring prey away and attract unwanted attention.
Or run towards them. That's free meat!
All of them! It's something still mostly ignored by most psychologists but it is the root of all our emotional problems.
@@Metal0sopher So you believe you know more than the majority of the worlds psychologists?
@@lucasblomgren1975 I feel like the rise in anxiety outbreaks and disorders has more to do with increasing worries about job security and fears of being able to make ends meet due to growing competitiveness caused by globalization and technological advancement rather than the resurgence of vestigial behavioral traits.
The best underdog comeback story of the last 10 million years.
I think its pretty intuitive that prey animals are the ones to develop intelligence, predators don't really need to be smart as long as they can kill well. If you could trace any one vague trait as an evolutionary precursor to intelligence, it seems like it would be having less physical ability than something one is competing with or being attacked by
Also fear being such a key component of the human condition lol
Whales, octopus, and dolphins would like to speak to yoy
Aren't prey famously stupid? Aren't predators famously cunning? Sheep are intelligent? Foxes are stupid?
@@TOnySchAnneL9000 sheep are different, they are domesticated so they evolve uselessly as long as we provide them protection lol your analogy is right, as long as you don't use a domesticated animal
5:23 it was later discovered that, while they could’ve hunted hominid infants, leopards were too small to hunt the bigger adults. Another cat called Dinofelis, a member of the sabre-toothed cat family, was discovered to also match the tooth marks in SK 54, and they were bigger than leopards. So while there were some animals, like leopards, hyenas and eagles, that only hunted young hominids, there were bigger animals, like Dinofelis and crocodiles, that would hunt the strong adults.
DAMMMNnnn u smart :)
Omfg that's hilarious, we and the predators evolved to fill different niches
Leopards are more than capable of taking down large prey.
@@ayoubmonno9662 Yes they are, and they are stealth specialists! Besides that, they can haul prey that weighs 3 times what they weigh, up high in a tree and out on branches strong enough to hold the prey and the leopard, but where heavy lions cannot go out on those smaller branches. Once in a while, a lion tries that and down the branch goes, with the leopard, it's prey, and the lion! Then the lions and hyenas fight over the prey while the leopard runs off to try again another day!
There had to be a time early on, when the hominids were prey for many carnivores, even omnivores. That's how they probably learned to defend themselves with spears that they used for hunting at some point! Be it hominids, homo sapiens or Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrids, they were probably all prey at some point in early history. If they weren't prey, they wouldn't have had to learn to defend themselves against them!
“Plus with our hands freed up, we can use them to throw things at potential predators which chimps still do today, *although not as well as we can*
Weird flex but okay
XD
Not so weird even you consider how now that we have our brains freed up by endless information on the internet, we've begin to toss devastating comments at one another.
@@sabrinusglaucomys Not really. Chimps don't have the same arm rang of movement as we do so that overhead throw with accuracy and strength? We got it, they don't.
Dodgeball is such a beautiful human game
I thought he meant it in the sense of WHAT we would throw. Like spears or something.
0:27 literally aang from avatar the last airbender
i was born in a place 40 years ago where we basically were living like pre-industrial era. I can tell by experience that the feeling of risk of being pray was alive for all humans until recently. we were afraid of wolfs, wild boars, bears and snakes.
Same
I first heard about the Taung child in an episode of Radiolab, and they posited that behaviors like looking up at planes or helicopters (and I would argue, even bird watching) are evolutionary remnants of these days when our ancestors were subject to bird attacks.
I wonder, eh? Working with birds of prey requires a weird relationship, and it's odd how we went from being hunted by them, to individuals hunting cooperatively with them.
@@silvesby Yes but it doesn’t know Junt with gonyajack.
Humans: *being bullied for millions of years by predators*
Ape is evolving! Ape has evolved into: Human!
Human: *Sees ape kid getting carried away by bird*
Human: *peace was never an option*
Peace is just a silly delusion humans created.
Dodo bird left the chat!
@DarkFaize lol so true
Now we have scrambled eggs 🥚 🍳
Execute order 66
THANK GOODNESS OUR THOUGHTS ON THIS SUBJECT EVOLVED TOO , WELL DONE
This is apparently how dance and music evolved we did a scary dance together as a huge group to scare of prey
“When Humans were prey.” *Polar bear would like to know your location.*
Pull Submachinegun out of my conceal and carry, "so polar bear, wanna dance with an american."
Greg Pincus I don’t know whats so funny about that but ok
*Polar bear would like to know your location*
**HUNTERS AND TROPHY STANDS WOULD LIKE TO KNOW POLR BEAR'S LOCATION.**
Climate change: *_ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF_*
A Russian wants to know the Polar Bear's location
I've been playing cells to singularity for the past few days and it really made me think. Humans are just animals, like all other animals which evolved from a single prokaryote cell. Maybe in the future one day intelligent creatures will look at us like we look at ardipithecus or australopithecus
'And what do you know, these hairless apes use currencies made from leaves to trade things!'
'Awww thats adorableeee!!'
Yeah fr
I'm pretty sure it'd gonna be some new species that originated from humans though, as we are the only known animals that are sentient.
Thanks now I have a new game to play
@@jeanneann3545 we have so much written down knowledge even if they are a bit more advanced than us I think it would be impossible for them to also be intelligent and not respect all that we have accomplished. I mean our species opened the door for space travel for crying out loud hard to pretend like that isn't a big deal.
I went for a walk somewhere obscured from anyone else, and I looked up and saw a hawk circling really high above. And this weird feeling came over me, I wanted to hide. Could that possibly be an ancient fear coming to the fore 😂😱
Man... I wanna hear more about these giant birds!
>Nature bullies humans
>Humans level up, retaliate against nature
Everyone in 2020: "Stop punching him, you're going to kill him!!!"
@TNTDannyDynamitaTNT Nature bullies everyone bro🤦🏾♂️
Lil. Dxnk r/wooosh
@@aldairmartinez5001 shut it
Cut to that clip from the simpsons of the kid yelling "stop he's already dead"
@@aldairmartinez5001we bullied nature😈😈😈💪💪💪
This is 3 years ago😭😭😭
Video idea 💡 Can you do a video about the megafauna of Australia?
I take native animals into schools and kindergartens and it’s amazing to me that the average Australian doesn’t know much about our own natural history
We had all sorts of cool animals like giant kangaroos and 7 meter long goannas that no one seems to know about
Giant kangaroos like the giant sloth?
Megalania is a popular creature what are you talking about
Don’t forget the amazing Marsupial Lion
I was thinking of the Haast's eagle too when I saw the clipart.
sounds solid
Simply amazing. That's so cool
I love this channel so bad, what a discovery
Almost blows my mind that those researches saw it and instantly concluded murder rather than the much more likely scenario of being preyed upon. Especially in an area with such dangerous predators even today that will still prey on humans when given the chance.
Yeah considering we didn't even have pointy sticks back then.
@@bulthaosen1169 they definitely had rocks and pointy sticks back then, but yea they probably didnt use them as well as later hominins. Still though, they were trying to use those sites as proof saying that we did "have pointy sticks", so saying it wasnt the case because we didnt is kind of redundant. And like the video said, the world wars were happening, so it felt pretty intuitive that humans just like to kill
Nature: Bully's human
Humans centuries later: hippity hoppity your nature is now my property
@@porky8001 *SOVIET ANTHEM INTENSIFIES*
8:42 Idk about that. Last weekend I was at the zoo and most the chimps were up on this balcony and another chimp was trying to climb up on the rope. And then one of the chimps that was already up reached out his hand and then the other chimp grabbed it and then he pulled him up. So, they do help others sometimes.
Great video! However, your claim that chimps do not help others even when there is no cost to do so is by no means definitive. Chimp altruism has been observed in a plethora of scientific studies and is notably highlighted Jane Goodall's work.
I concur.
I discovered this channel by pure chance and i´m hooked. my inner nerd is so freacking happy, keep up the great work!
I just realized I do have an inner nerd in me because of finding this channel yesterday. It's answering all my "but why?" questions I couldn't ask as a kid