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Humans ( Homo sapiens) or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus Homo. They are Hominidae characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and high intelligence. Humans have large Human brain, enabling more advanced Cognition skills that enable them to thrive and adapt in varied environments, develop highly complex Tool, and form complex Social structure and . Humans are Sociality, with individual humans tending to belong to a multi-layered network of cooperating, distinct, or even competing social groups – from families and peer groups to corporations and political states. As such, social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, , and traditions (collectively termed institutions), each of which bolsters human society. Humans are also highly curious: the desire to understand and influence Phenomenon has motivated humanity's development of science, technology, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other frameworks of knowledge; humans also study themselves through such domains as anthropology, social science, history, psychology, and medicine. There are estimated to be World population.
Although some scientists equate the term "humans" with all members of the genus Homo, in common usage it generally refers to Homo sapiens, the only Extant taxon member. All other members of the genus Homo, which are now extinct, are known as archaic humans, and the term "modern human" is used to distinguish Homo sapiens from archaic humans. Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, evolving from Homo heidelbergensis or a similar species. Migrating out of Africa, they gradually replaced and interbred with local populations of archaic humans. Multiple hypotheses for the extinction of archaic human species such as Neanderthals include competition, violence, interbreeding with Homo sapiens, or inability to adapt to climate change. Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–60,000 years ago. For most of their history, humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The Neolithic Revolution, which began in Southwest Asia around 13,000 years ago (and separately in a few other places), saw the emergence of agriculture and permanent human settlement; in turn, this led to the development of civilization and kickstarted a period of continuous (and ongoing) population growth and rapid technological change. Since then, a number of civilizations have risen and fallen, while a number of sociocultural and technological developments have resulted in significant changes to the human lifestyle.
and the environment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology, disease susceptibility, mental abilities, body size, and life span. Though humans vary in many traits, humans are among the least genetically diverse species. Any two humans are at least 99.5% genetically similar. Humans are sexually dimorphic: generally, man have greater body strength and woman have a higher body fat percentage. At puberty, humans develop secondary sex characteristics. Females are capable of pregnancy, usually between puberty, at around 12 years old, and menopause, around the age of 50. As omnivorous creatures, they are capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material, and have used fire and other forms of heat to prepare and cooking food since the time of Homo erectus. Humans can survive for up to eight weeks without Human food and several days without water. Humans are generally Diurnality, Sleep on average seven to nine hours per day. Childbirth is dangerous, with a high risk of complications and death. Often, both the mother and the father provide care for their children, who are Altricial.
Humans have a large, highly developed, and complex prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain associated with higher cognition. Humans are highly Intelligence and capable of episodic memory; they have flexible facial expressions, self-awareness, and a theory of mind. The human mind is capable of introspection, private thought, imagination, volition, and forming views on existence. This has allowed great technological advancements and complex tool development through complex reasoning and the transmission of knowledge to subsequent generations through language.
Humans have had a dramatic effect on the environment. They are , being rarely preyed upon by other species. Human population growth, industrialization, land development, overconsumption and combustion of fossil fuels have led to environmental destruction and pollution that significantly contributes to the ongoing mass extinction of other forms of life. Within the last century, humans have explored challenging environments such as Antarctica, the deep sea, and outer space. Human habitation within these hostile environments is restrictive and expensive, typically limited in duration, and restricted to Science, military, or industrial expeditions. Humans have briefly visited the Moon and made their presence felt on other celestial bodies through human-made robotic spacecraft. Since the early 20th century, there has been continuous human presence in Antarctica through research stations and, since 2000, in space through habitation on the International Space Station.
Human is a loanword of Middle English from Old French humain, ultimately from Latin hūmānus, the adjectival form of homō ('man' – in the sense of humanity). The native English term man can refer to the species generally (a synonym for humanity) as well as to human males. It may also refer to individuals of either sex.
Despite the fact that the word animal is colloquially used as an antonym for human, and contrary to a common biological misconception, humans are animals. The word person is often used interchangeably with human, but philosophical debate exists as to whether personhood applies to all humans or all , and further if a human can lose personhood (such as by going into a persistent vegetative state).
The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus. Though Human fossils from the transition are scarce, the earliest members of Homo share several key traits with Australopithecus. The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia, and the earliest named species are Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago. Homo erectus (the African variant is sometimes called Homo ergaster) evolved 2 million years ago and was the first archaic human species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia. H. erectus also was the first to evolve a characteristically human body plan. Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from a species commonly designated as either H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis, the descendants of H. erectus that remained in Africa. H. sapiens migrated out of the continent, gradually replacing or interbreeding with local populations of archaic humans. Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–70,000 years ago, and possibly earlier. This development was likely selected amidst natural climate change in Middle to Late Pleistocene Africa.
The "out of Africa" migration took place in at least two waves, the first around 130,000 to 100,000 years ago, the second (Southern Dispersal) around 70,000 to 50,000 years ago. H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Eurasia 125,000 years ago, Australia around 65,000 years ago, the Americas around 15,000 years ago, and remote islands such as Hawaiian Islands, Easter Island, Madagascar, and New Zealand in the years 300 to 1280 CE.
Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species. Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution. DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non sub-Saharan-African populations, and Neanderthals and other hominins, such as , may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non sub-Saharan-African humans.
Human evolution is characterized by a number of morphological, developmental, human physiology, and Human behavior changes that have taken place since the split between the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. The most significant of these adaptations are hairlessness, obligate bipedalism, increased brain size and decreased sexual dimorphism (neoteny). The relationship between all these changes is the subject of ongoing debate.
Access to food surplus led to the formation of permanent , the domestication of animals and the Chalcolithic for the first time in history. Agriculture and sedentary lifestyle led to the emergence of early civilizations.
In the 5th century BCE, history started being Historiography, which provided a much clearer picture of life at the time. (2024). 9780429763151, Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780429763151 Between the 8th and 6th century BCE, Europe entered the classical antiquity age, a period when ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished. Around this time other civilizations also came to prominence. The Maya civilization started to build cities and create Maya calendar. In Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum overtook the declining Kingdom of Kush and facilitated trade between India and the Mediterranean. In West Asia, the Achaemenid Empire's system of centralized governance became the precursor to many later empires, while the Gupta Empire in India and the Han dynasty in China have been described as golden ages in their respective regions.
In the Americas, between 200 and 900 CE Mesoamerica was in its Classic Period, while further north, complex Mississippian societies would arise starting around 800 CE. The Mongol Empire would conquer much of Eurasia in the 13th and 14th centuries. (2024). 9781861899712, Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781861899712 Over this same time period, the Mali Empire in Africa grew to be the largest empire on the continent, stretching from Senegambia to Ivory Coast. Oceania would see the rise of the Tuʻi Tonga Empire which expanded across many islands in the South Pacific. By the late 15th century, the Aztecs and Inca had become the dominant power in Mesoamerica and the Andes, respectively. (1984). 9780521318969, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521318969
The late modern period (1800–present) saw the Technological and Industrial Revolution bring such discoveries as imaging technology, major innovations in transport and energy development. Influenced by Enlightenment ideals, the Americas and Europe experienced a period of political revolutions known as the Age of Revolution. The Napoleonic Wars raged through Europe in the early 1800s, Spain lost most of its colonies in the New World, while Europeans continued expansion into Africawhere European control went from 10% to almost 90% in less than 50 yearsand Oceania. In the 19th century, the British Empire expanded to become the world's largest empire.
A tenuous balance of power among European nations collapsed in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War, one of the deadliest conflicts in history. In the 1930s, Great Depression led to the rise of authoritarian regimes and a Second World War, involving almost all of the world's countries. The war's destruction led to the collapse of most global empires, leading to widespread decolonization.
Humans are one of the most Adaptation species, despite having a low or narrow tolerance for many of the earth's extreme environments. Currently the species is present in all eight biogeographical realms, although their presence in the Antarctic realm is very limited to research stations and annually there is a population decline in the winter months of this realm. Humans established nation-states in the other seven realms, such as for example South Africa, India, Russia, Australia, Fiji, United States and Brazil (each located in a different biogeographical realm).
By using advanced tools and clothing, humans have been able to extend their tolerance to a wide variety of temperatures, humidity, and altitudes. As a result, humans are a cosmopolitan species found in almost all regions of the world, including tropical rainforest, desert, extremely cold , and heavily polluted cities; in comparison, most other species are confined to a few geographical areas by their limited adaptability. The human population is not, however, uniformly distributed on the Earth's surface, because the population density varies from one region to another, and large stretches of surface are almost completely uninhabited, like Antarctica and vast swathes of the ocean. Most humans (61%) live in Asia; the remainder live in the Americas (14%), Africa (14%), Europe (11%), and Oceania (0.5%).
Estimates of the population at the time agriculture emerged in around 10,000 BC have ranged between 1 million and 15 million. (2024). 9782760515888, Presses de l'Université du Québec. ISBN 9782760515888 (1975). 9780822101666, Dickenson Pub. Co. ISBN 9780822101666 Around 50–60 million people lived in the combined eastern and western Roman Empire in the 4th century AD. , first recorded in the 6th century AD, reduced the population by 50%, with the Black Death killing 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa alone. Human population is believed to have reached one billion in 1800. It has since then increased exponentially, reaching two billion in 1930 and three billion in 1960, four in 1975, five in 1987 and six billion in 1999. It passed seven billion in 2011 and passed eight billion in November 2022. It took over two million years of prehistory and human history for the human population to reach one billion and only 207 years more to grow to 7 billion. The combined biomass of the carbon of all the humans on Earth in 2018 was estimated at 60 million tons, about 10 times larger than that of all non-domesticated mammals.
In 2018, 4.2 billion humans (55%) lived in urban areas, up from 751 million in 1950. The most urbanized regions are Northern America (82%), Latin America (81%), Europe (74%) and Oceania (68%), with Africa and Asia having nearly 90% of the world's 3.4 billion rural population. Problems for humans living in cities include various forms of pollution and crime, especially in inner city and suburban .
Humans share with chimpanzees a Vestigiality tail, appendix, flexible shoulder joints, grasping fingers and . (2024). 9780202366562, Transaction Publishers. ISBN 9780202366562 Humans also have a more barrel-shaped chests in contrast to the funnel shape of other apes, an adaptation for bipedal respiration. Apart from bipedalism and brain size, humans differ from chimpanzees mostly in smelling, hearing and digesting proteins. While humans have a density of comparable to other apes, it is predominantly vellus hair, most of which is so short and wispy as to be practically invisible. Humans have about 2 million spread over their entire bodies, many more than chimpanzees, whose sweat glands are scarce and are mainly located on the palm of the hand and on the soles of the feet.
It is estimated that the worldwide average Human height male is about , while the worldwide average height for adult human females is about . Shrinkage of stature may begin in middle age in some individuals but tends to be typical in the extremely Old age. Throughout history, human populations have universally become taller, probably as a consequence of better nutrition, healthcare, and living conditions. The average Body weight of an adult human is for females and for males. Like many other conditions, body weight and body type are influenced by both genetic susceptibility and environment and varies greatly among individuals. (2024). 9781597454001, Humana Press. ISBN 9781597454001
Humans have a far faster and more accurate throw than other animals. Humans are also among the best long-distance runners in the animal kingdom, but slower over short distances. Humans' thinner body hair and more productive sweat glands help avoid heat exhaustion while running for long distances. Compared to other apes, the human heart produces greater stroke volume and cardiac output and the aorta is proportionately larger.
While no humansnot even monozygotic twinsare genetically identical, two humans on average will have a genetic similarity of 99.5%-99.9%. This makes them more homogeneous than other great apes, including chimpanzees. This small variation in human DNA compared to many other species suggests a population bottleneck during the Late Pleistocene (around 100,000 years ago), in which the human population was reduced to a small number of breeding pairs. The forces of natural selection have continued to operate on human populations, with evidence that certain regions of the genome display directional selection in the past 15,000 years.
The human genome was first sequenced in 2001 and by 2020 hundreds of thousands of genomes had been sequenced. In 2012 the International HapMap Project had compared the genomes of 1,184 individuals from 11 populations and identified 1.6 million single nucleotide polymorphisms. African populations harbor the highest number of private genetic variants. While many of the common variants found in populations outside of Africa are also found on the African continent, there are still large numbers that are private to these regions, especially Oceania and the Americas. By 2010 estimates, humans have approximately 22,000 genes. By comparing mtDNA, which is inherited only from the mother, geneticists have concluded that the last female common ancestor whose genetic marker is found in all modern humans, the so-called mitochondrial Eve, must have lived around 90,000 to 200,000 years ago.
Compared with other species, human childbirth is dangerous, with a much higher risk of complications and death. The size of the fetus's head is more closely matched to the pelvis than in other primates. The reason for this is not completely understood, but it contributes to a painful labor that can last 24 hours or more. The chances of a successful labor increased significantly during the 20th century in wealthier countries with the advent of new medical technologies. In contrast, pregnancy and natural childbirth remain hazardous ordeals in developing regions of the world, with maternal death rates approximately 100 times greater than in developed countries.
Both the mother and the father provide care for human offspring, in contrast to other primates, where parental care is mostly done by the mother. (2024). 9780199586967, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199586967 Altricial, humans continue to grow for some years, typically reaching sexual maturity at 15 to 17 years of age. The human life span has been split into various stages ranging from three to twelve. Common stages include Infant, childhood, adolescence, and old age. The lengths of these stages have varied across cultures and time periods but is typified by an unusually rapid growth spurt during adolescence. Human females undergo menopause and become Infertility at around the age of 50. It has been proposed that menopause increases a woman's overall reproductive success by allowing her to invest more time and resources in her existing offspring, and in turn their children (the grandmother hypothesis), rather than by continuing to bear children into old age. (1997). 9780465031276, Basic Books. ISBN 9780465031276
The life span of an individual depends on two major factors, genetics and lifestyle choices. For various reasons, including biological/genetic causes, women live on average about four years longer than men. , the global average life expectancy at birth of a girl is estimated to be 74.9 years compared to 70.4 for a boy. There are significant geographical variations in human life expectancy, mostly correlated with economic developmentfor example, life expectancy at birth in Hong Kong is 87.6 years for girls and 81.8 for boys, while in the Central African Republic, it is 55.0 years for girls and 50.6 for boys. The developed world is generally aging, with the median age around 40 years. In the third world, the median age is between 15 and 20 years. While one in five Europeans is 60 years of age or older, only one in twenty Africans is 60 years of age or older. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians (humans of age 100 or older) worldwide.
| + ! colspan="5" | Human life stages | |||
| Infant boy and girl | Boy and girl before puberty () | Adolescent male and female | Adult man and woman | Elderly man and woman |
Until the development of agriculture, Homo sapiens employed a hunter-gatherer method as their sole means of food collection. This involved combining stationary food sources (such as fruits, grains, tubers, and mushrooms, insect larvae and aquatic mollusks) with wild game, which must be hunted and captured in order to be consumed. It has been proposed that humans have used fire to prepare and cooking food since the time of Homo erectus. Human domestication of wild plants began about 11,700 years ago, leading to the development of agriculture, a gradual process called the Neolithic Revolution.} These dietary changes may also have altered human biology; the spread of dairy farming provided a new and rich source of food, leading to the evolution of the ability to digest lactose in some adults. The types of food consumed, and how they are prepared, have varied widely by time, location, and culture.
In general, humans can survive for up to eight weeks without food, depending on stored body fat. Survival without water is usually limited to three or four days, with a maximum of one week. In 2020 it is estimated 9 million humans die every year from causes directly or indirectly related to starvation. Childhood malnutrition is also common and contributes to the Disease burden. However, global food distribution is not even, and obesity among some human populations has increased rapidly, leading to health complications and increased mortality in some developed and a few developing countries. Worldwide, over one billion people are obese, while in the United States 35% of people are obese, leading to this being described as an "obesity epidemic." Obesity is caused by consuming more than are expended, so excessive weight gain is usually caused by an energy-dense diet.
Human hair ranges in color from Red hair to blond to Brown hair to Black hair, which is the most frequent. Hair color depends on the amount of melanin, with concentrations fading with increased age, leading to Grey hair or even white hair. Skin color can range from Dark skin to Light skin, or even nearly white or colorless in cases of albinism. It tends to vary Clinal variation and generally correlates with the level of Ultraviolet in a particular geographic area, with darker skin mostly around the equator. Skin darkening may have evolved as protection against ultraviolet solar radiation. Light skin pigmentation protects against depletion of vitamin D, which requires sunlight to make. Human skin also has a capacity to darken (tan) in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation.
There is relatively little variation between human geographical populations, and most of the variation that occurs is at the individual level. Much of human variation is continuous, often with no clear points of demarcation. Genetic data shows that no matter how population groups are defined, two people from the same population group are almost as different from each other as two people from any two different population groups. Dark-skinned populations that are found in Africa, Australia, and South Asia are not closely related to each other.
Genetic research has demonstrated that human populations native to the African continent are the most genetically diverse and genetic diversity decreases with migratory distance from Africa, possibly the result of bottlenecks during human migration. These non-African populations acquired new genetic inputs from local admixture with archaic populations and have much greater variation from Neanderthals and Denisovans than is found in Africa, though Neanderthal admixture into African populations may be underestimated. Furthermore, recent studies have found that populations in sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly West Africa, have ancestral genetic variation which predates modern humans and has been lost in most non-African populations. Some of this ancestry is thought to originate from admixture with an unknown archaic hominin that diverged before the split of Neanderthals and modern humans.
Humans are a Gonochorism species, meaning they are divided into male and female . (2010). 9780521879484, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521879484 The greatest degree of genetic variation exists between males and females. While the nucleotide genetic variation of individuals of the same sex across global populations is no greater than 0.1%–0.5%, the genetic difference between Man and woman is between 1% and 2%. Males on average are 15% heavier and taller than females. On average, men have about 40–50% more upper body strength and 20–30% more lower body strength than women at the same weight, due to higher amounts of muscle and larger muscle fibers. Women generally have a higher body fat percentage than men. (2024). 9783319701776, Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783319701776 Women have lighter skin than men of the same population; this has been explained by a higher need for vitamin D in females during pregnancy and lactation. As there are chromosomal differences between females and males, some X and Y chromosome-related conditions and Disease only affect either men or women. After allowing for body weight and volume, the male voice is usually an octave deeper than the female voice. Women have a longer life span in almost every population around the world. There are intersex conditions in the human population, however these are rare.
Humans have a larger and more developed prefrontal cortex than other primates, the region of the brain associated with higher cognition. This has led humans to proclaim themselves to be more intelligent than any other known species. Objectively defining intelligence is difficult, with other animals adapting senses and excelling in areas that humans are unable to.
There are some traits that, although not strictly unique, do set humans apart from other animals. Humans may be the only animals who have episodic memory and who can engage in "mental time travel". Even compared with other social animals, humans have an unusually high degree of flexibility in their facial expressions. Humans are the only animals known to cry emotional tears. Humans are one of the few animals able to self-recognize in and there is also debate over to what extent humans are the only animals with a theory of mind.
During sleep humans dream, where they experience sensory images and sounds. Dreaming is stimulated by the pons and mostly occurs during the REM phase of sleep. The length of a dream can vary, from a few seconds up to 30 minutes. Humans have three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven. Dreamers are more likely to remember the dream if awakened during the REM phase. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of , where the dreamer is self-aware. Dreams can at times make a Creativity thought occur or give a sense of inspiration.
The process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses is known as cognition. The human brain perception the external world through the , and each individual human is influenced greatly by his or her experiences, leading to subjectivity views of existence and the passage of time. (2024). 9783030036331, Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783030036331 The nature of thought is central to psychology and related fields. Cognitive psychology studies cognition, the mental function underlying behavior. Largely focusing on the development of the human mind through the life span, developmental psychology seeks to understand how people come to perceive, understand, and act within the world and how these processes change as they age. (2024). 9781138846951, Routledge. ISBN 9781138846951 This may focus on intellectual, cognitive, neural, social, or moral development. Psychologists have developed intelligence tests and the concept of intelligence quotient in order to assess the relative intelligence of human beings and study its distribution among population. (2004). 9780126574104 ISBN 9780126574104
Emotions are biological states associated with the nervous system (1994). 9780195089448, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195089448 brought on by Neurophysiology changes variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or Suffering. They are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, creativity, and motivation. Emotion has a significant influence on human behavior and their ability to learn. Acting on extreme or uncontrolled emotions can lead to social disorder and crime, with studies showing criminals may have a lower emotional intelligence than normal.
Emotional experiences perceived as pleasure, such as joy, interest or contentment, contrast with those perceived as suffering, like anxiety, sadness, anger, and despair. Happiness, or the state of being happy, is a human emotional condition. The definition of happiness is a common philosophical topic. Some define it as experiencing the feeling of positive emotional affects, while avoiding the negative ones. Others see it as an appraisal of life satisfaction or quality of life. (2024). 9781478722595, Outskirts Press. ISBN 9781478722595 Recent research suggests that being happy might involve experiencing some negative emotions when humans feel they are warranted.
Humans can fall anywhere along a continuous scale of sexual orientation, although most humans are heterosexual. While homosexuality behavior occurs in some other animals, only humans and Sheep have so far been found to exhibit exclusive preference for same-sex relationships. Most evidence supports nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation, as cultures that are very tolerant of homosexuality do not have significantly higher rates of it. (2024). 9780199752966, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199752966 (2024). 9780199838820, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199838820 Research in neuroscience and genetics suggests that other aspects of human sexuality are biologically influenced as well.
Love most commonly refers to a feeling of strong attraction or emotional attachment. It can be impersonal (the love of an object, ideal, or strong political or spiritual connection) or interpersonal (love between humans). (2024). 9780060958282, Harper Perennial. ISBN 9780060958282 When in love dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin and other chemicals stimulate the brain's pleasure center, leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and Insomnia, and an Euphoria.
Language differs from other forms of communication in that it is modality independent; the same meanings can be conveyed through different media, audibly in speech, visually by sign language or writing, and through tactile media such as braille. (2024). 9781137587466, Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 9781137587466 Language is central to the communication between humans, and to the sense of identity that unites nations, cultures and ethnic groups. There are approximately six thousand different languages currently in use, including sign languages, and many thousands more that are extinct language. (1996). 9780816033881, Facts on File. ISBN 9780816033881
Art is a defining characteristic of humans and there is evidence for a relationship between creativity and language. The earliest evidence of art was shell engravings made by Homo erectus 300,000 years before modern humans evolved. Art attributed to H. sapiens existed at least 75,000 years ago, with jewellery and drawings found in caves in South Africa. There are various hypotheses as to why humans have Adaptation to the arts. These include allowing them to better problem solve issues, providing a means to control or influence other humans, encouraging cooperation and contribution within a society or increasing the chance of attracting a potential mate. The use of imagination developed through art, combined with logic may have given early humans an evolutionary advantage.
Evidence of humans engaging in musical activities predates cave art and so far music has been practiced by virtually all known human cultures. There exists a wide variety of and ; with humans' musical abilities being related to other abilities, including complex social human behaviours. It has been shown that human brains respond to music by becoming synchronized with the rhythm and beat, a process called entrainment. Dance is also a form of human expression found in all cultures and may have evolved as a way to help early humans communicate. Listening to music and observing dance stimulates the orbitofrontal cortex and other pleasure sensing areas of the brain.
Unlike speaking, reading and writing does not come naturally to humans and must be taught. Still, literature has been present before the invention of words and language, with 30,000-year-old paintings on walls inside some caves portraying a series of dramatic scenes. One of the oldest surviving works of literature is the Epic of Gilgamesh, first engraved on ancient tablets about 4,000 years ago. (2024). 9780192835895, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192835895 Beyond simply passing down knowledge, the use and sharing of imaginative fiction through stories might have helped develop humans' capabilities for communication and increased the likelihood of securing a mate. Storytelling may also be used as a way to provide the audience with moral lessons and encourage cooperation.
China developed paper, the printing press, gunpowder, the compass and other important inventions. The continued improvements in smelting allowed forging of copper, bronze, iron and eventually steel, which is used in railways, and many other products. This coincided with the Industrial Revolution, where the invention of automated machines brought major changes to humans' lifestyles. Modern technology is observed as progressing exponentially, with major innovations in the 20th century including: electricity, penicillin, , internal combustion engines, the Internet, Fertilizer, , , Car, contraceptive pills, nuclear fission, the Green Revolution, radio, scientific plant breeding, , air conditioning, television and the assembly line.
Religion manifests in diverse forms. Religion can include a belief in life after death, the origin of life, the nature of the universe (religious cosmology) and its ultimate fate (eschatology), and morality or Religious ethics. Views on transcendence and immanence vary substantially; traditions variously espouse monism, deism, pantheism, and theism (including polytheism and monotheism).
Although measuring religiosity is difficult, a majority of humans profess some variety of religious or spiritual belief. In 2015 the plurality were Christians followed by Muslims, Hindus and Buddhism. As of 2015, about 16%, or slightly under 1.2 billion humans, were irreligious, including those with no religious beliefs or no identity with any religion.
Aristotle has been described as the first scientist, and preceded the rise of scientific thought through the Hellenistic period. Other early advances in science came from the Han dynasty in China and during the Islamic Golden Age. The scientific revolution, near the end of the Renaissance, led to the emergence of modern science.
A chain of events and influences led to the development of the scientific method, a process of observation and experimentation that is used to differentiate science from pseudoscience. An understanding of mathematics is unique to humans, although other species of animals have some numerical cognition. (2024). 9781107011168, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107011168 All of science can be divided into three major branches, the formal sciences (e.g., logic and mathematics), which are concerned with formal systems, the applied sciences (e.g., engineering, medicine), which are focused on practical applications, and the empirical sciences, which are based on empirical observation and are in turn divided into natural sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology) and social sciences (e.g., psychology, economics, sociology).
Philosophy is a field of study where humans seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves and the world in which they live. Philosophical inquiry has been a major feature in the development of humans' intellectual history. It has been described as the "no man's land" between definitive scientific knowledge and dogmatic religious teachings. Major fields of philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and axiology (which includes ethics and aesthetics).
Gender roles are often associated with a division of social norm, practices, clothing, social behavior, rights, duty, privileges, social status, and power, with men enjoying more rights and privileges than women in most societies, both today and in the past. As a social construct, gender roles are not fixed and vary historically within a society. Challenges to predominant gender norms have recurred in many societies. (2024). 9780763756413, Jones & Bartlett Publishers. ISBN 9780763756413 Little is known about gender roles in the earliest human societies. Early modern humans probably had a range of gender roles similar to that of modern cultures from at least the Upper Paleolithic, while the were less sexually dimorphic and there is evidence that the behavioural difference between males and females was minimal.
Pair bonding is a ubiquitous feature of human sexual relationships, whether it is manifested as serial monogamy, polygyny, or polyandry. Genetic evidence indicates that humans were predominantly Polygyny for most of their existence as a species, but that this began to shift during the Neolithic, when monogamy started becoming widespread concomitantly with the transition from nomadic to sedentary societies. Anatomical evidence in the form of second-to-fourth digit ratios, a biomarker for prenatal androgen effects, likewise indicates modern humans were polygynous during the Pleistocene.
Governments create and policies that affect the citizens that they govern. There have been many forms of government throughout human history, each having various means of obtaining power and the ability to exert diverse controls on the population. Approximately 47% of humans live in some form of a democracy, 17% in a hybrid regime, and 37% in an authoritarian regime. Many countries belong to international organizations and alliances; the largest of these is the United Nations, with 193 member states.
Early human Economy were more likely to be based around Gift economy instead of a system. Early money consisted of Commodity money; the oldest being in the form of cattle and the most widely used being cowrie shells. Money has since evolved into governmental issued coins, Paper money and electronic money. Human study of economics is a social science that looks at how societies distribute scarce resources among different people. There are massive inequalities in the division of wealth among humans; the eight richest humans are worth the same monetary value as the poorest half of all the human population.
The willingness of humans to kill other members of their species en masse through organized conflict (i.e., war) has long been the subject of debate. One school of thought holds that war evolved as a means to eliminate competitors, and has always been an innate human characteristic. Another suggests that war is a relatively recent phenomenon and has appeared due to changing social conditions. While not settled, current evidence indicates warlike predispositions only became common about 10,000 years ago, and in many places much more recently than that. War has had a high cost on human life; it is estimated that during the 20th century, between 167 million and 188 million people died as a result of war. War casualty data is less reliable for pre-medieval times, especially global figures. But compared with any period over the past 600 years, the last ~80 years (post 1946), has seen a very significant drop in global military and civilian death rates due to armed conflict.
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