Empathy predates thinking and language

Oochy-coochy-ugg: caring predated thinking

Jonathan Leake Science Editor Published: 22 February 2015

Early humans’ development of caring behaviour meant they worked better together and so improved each other’s survival chances. The change drove brain growth and the evolution of intelligence, scientists suggest.

EARLY humans developed kindness, compassion and a sense of beauty long before the emergence of intelligence, new research claims.

As long ago as 3m years australopithecines, which had brains just a third the size of ours, were carrying pebbles shaped like babies’ faces. By 1.5m years ago, with brains still only 60% of their size today, Homo ergaster was caring for the ill, while Homo heidelbergensis, which lived 450,000 years ago, appear to have nursed disabled children.

By contrast, intelligence and language skills, as seen in modern humans, are thought to have emerged only in the past 500,000 years and possibly as late as 150,000 years ago. “Human evolution is usually depicted as driven by intelligence, with empathy and deeper emotions following,” said Penny Spikins, who researches human origins at York University.

‘However, the evidence suggests it happened the other way round. Evolution made us sociable, living in groups and looking after one another, even before we had language. Our success since then, including the evolution of intelligence, all sprang from that.’

Spikins, who is publishing her findings in a book, How Compassion Made Us Human, points to archaeological finds hinting that even pre-humans had unsuspected emotional depths. Among the earliest is the Makapansgat pebble, a small rock with pits and markings resembling a baby’s face, found in South African cave with australopithecines, dating back 3m years.

Australopithecines, our direct ancestors, were widely depicted as the ‘killer ape’ because skulls and bones in the cave had been smashed in what the 1930’s archaeologists who found them assumed was early warfare. The discovery indpired the early scenes in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which suggested that fighting helped apes to evolve into humans. But Spikins says australopithecines were hunted by other animals and survived by co-operating rather than fighting.

‘What is remarkable is that this pebble was carried several miles back to its cave by an australopithecine. Did it remind them of a baby? It is impossible to tell for sure but this is not the only tantalising sign of something perhaps approaching tenderness,’ she said.

Other signs include tracks made in east Africa 3.5 million years ago that show two adults were followed over an ash field by a child walking, apparently playfully, in their footprints.

By 1.6m years ago the evidence gets stronger. this includes the remains of a female Homo erectus in Kenya who was cared for during a long illness, and a site, and a site of similar age in Dmanisi, Georgia, which yielded the skull of someone who lived  for years without any teeth, implying that they had help getting food soft enough to eat. By 450,000 years ago there is more evidence of empathetic behaviour, with groups of Homo heidelbergensis caring for disabled youngsters, including a child with learning difficulties whose deformed skull was found in Spain.

Spikins said early humans may have had a sense of aesthetics. This is suggested by a 250,000 year old handaxe found at West Tofts in Norfolk, made from rock containing a fossilised scallop shell and designed to make the fossil the centrepiece of the tool.

‘A uniquely human feeling lies behind both the creation of such finely crafted tools and caring for the vulnerable.’ Spikins said.

‘It suggests early humans, from 2m years ago, were emotionally similar to us.’

Her theories are likely to be controversial in a field dominated by the belief that early humans were ruthless huntress, supporting their own family group but often killing others. Such notions are supported by the discovery of the remains of a Neanderthal cannibal feast in northern Spain dating back 49,000 years.

Spikins says while fighting and competition did happen, they were less important than the co-operation that helped drive the evolution of intelligence. ‘The idea that we are all innately selfish, which comes from modern economics, has had a strong influence on how we interpret archaeological finds but the evidence suggests that …early humans’ survival would have depended on co-operation: aggressive or selfish behaviour would have been very risky,’ she said.

‘It could be that our society, dominated by self-interest, is not the pinnacle of evolution at all but a novel and potentially dangerous social experiment.’

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