The Human Journey

Humans are not a stay-at-home species. While our ape cousins remain confined to the tropical forests they have inhabited for millions of years, we have spread across the globe. What makes us such successful migrants? Begin your exploration of the key factors that let us adapt to diverse landscapes, climates, food sources, and other challenges-allowing us to outcompete all rivals.

As resourceful as humans are, we can't survive alone. Cooperation is the key to success under new conditions. Consider the cautionary tale of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which set out to explore interior Australia in the mid-1800s. Despite being exceptionally well-equipped, the mission ended in disaster-largely because its leaders ignored Aboriginal knowledge of the environment.

Explore two innovations that fundamentally shaped our species. Fire-and its use for cooking-provided access to calorie-rich, easily digestible food, dramatically reducing the time needed for foraging. Carrying technology, from bags and baskets to water skins, allowed us to transport tools and essentials-an ability unique among animals. Both fueled a hunting lifestyle that drove human expansion.

Discover how trade supercharged human migration and laid the groundwork for complex societies. Early groups exchanged surplus goods with their neighbors in mutually beneficial swaps. Before long, highly valued personal adornments-like beads and jewels-entered the mix, giving rise to a market for inessential but beautiful objects that functioned as an early form of money.

Trace the great migration of our ancestors across the globe, starting with Homo erectus, who ventured out of Africa some 1.9 million years ago. Homo sapiens followed about 80,000 years ago, mixing with other hominin populations, notably Neanderthals and Denisovans. Around 20,000 years ago, humans crossed into the Americas, populating the continents in several waves during the last glacial period.

If humans are born to migrate, what compelled our ancestors to settle down roughly 12,000 years ago? Investigate the origins of agriculture and why this comparatively unhealthy, labor-intensive practice took off. Was farming such a good idea that it persuaded mobile foragers to change their ways, or did early farmers themselves push outward, claiming new land and transforming the world?