When Did We Become Human?

Where Do We Come From?

I have always been interested in where we come from and who we are. Why do we have such great dreams? Why do we search for a deeper meaning in life than simply surviving and reproducing? And why do we seem to have so much potential for both good and evil?

The search for answers to these questions once led me to study theology and, initially, to pursue an academic career. I was fascinated by the human longing for something greater than ourselves. At the same time, I wondered why we were such contradictory beings.

What Have I Learned?

Looking back on my academic years, I cannot easily put into words everything I learned along the way. Perhaps the most important lesson, however, was a greater awareness of how little I actually knew. As my knowledge grew, so did the number of questions I could not answer. It taught me humility in the face of my own ignorance.

Those deeper questions did not leave me alone after I completed my doctorate. Since then, my work as a pastor and a fitness coach has allowed me to explore what it means to be human from somewhat different perspectives. My own life, too, has taken me through different stages and profound changes.

Over these years, I have learned at least this: people are often more complicated than they appear. We may think of ourselves as highly rational and good people, but different circumstances can reveal other sides of us—at least if we are honest with ourselves. We are capable of care and self-sacrifice, but also of selfishly pursuing our own interests. Sometimes all of these can be found in the same person on the same day.

One question that has interested me for a long time is when we became human. By this, I mean particularly when we developed an inner world that held something more—something beyond ordinary life. When did humans begin to reflect on their own existence, their death, and whether there might be something more behind it all, perhaps even God or gods?

Biologically, we still belong to the great apes. Yet it is reasonable to ask what is distinctive about our way of experiencing the world. And is the difference between us and other animals ultimately one of kind, or more a matter of shared abilities developing to an extraordinary degree?

What Do Ancient Graves Tell Us About Ourselves?

Archaeology offers some fascinating perspectives on these questions. At Qafzeh Cave, in what is now Israel, researchers have discovered a burial dating back approximately 90,000–100,000 years. It contained the remains of an adolescent, around twelve or thirteen years old, who had suffered a head injury in childhood that probably caused lasting impairments. Deer antlers had been placed near the upper body. Their position suggests that they had been deliberately placed with the deceased.

We do not, however, know what the antlers meant to those who buried this young person. Were they connected to a belief in life after death? Were they an expression of affection, or part of a custom unfamiliar to us? Whatever the explanation, someone had taken the trouble to bury this young person and place something with them.

The distance in time is immense. Yet there is something deeply familiar about it.

Burying the dead does not appear to have been limited to modern humans. There is research evidence, for example, for intentional burials by Neanderthals. In the case of Homo naledi, claims of burial are intriguing but remain contested. One difficulty in assessing such discoveries is that finding bones together in one place does not, in itself, demonstrate burial. Nor does intentional burial tell us directly what people thought about death.

Here we reach the limits of our knowledge. We can study what remains of people and their activities. Their experiences and thoughts are much harder to access, particularly from times before written records.

Nevertheless, these burials make me wonder when humans began to see death as an event whose significance went beyond the ending of a life. When did the belief emerge that the life of the deceased had a deeper meaning and purpose, at least for those closest to them? Or the hope that perhaps death was not the end of everything?

The Ability to Look Ahead

I believe that something essential to our humanity emerged when our ability to imagine the future began to reach beyond the boundaries of our own lives.

Anticipating the future is not, of course, uniquely human. Other animals are also capable of planned behaviour, and the history of toolmaking stretches back millions of years.

In humans, however, this orientation towards the future has taken on extraordinary proportions. We can plan decades ahead, build things for future generations, and pursue goals we will never live to see fulfilled. We can also give up a present pleasure for something we consider more important.

As a fitness coach, I see a very ordinary example of this. Someone trains today for a change that may not become visible for months or years. That future does not yet exist, but the image of it is already shaping today's choices.

The same ability is evident on a much larger scale: in science, technology, and the ways we organise our lives together. It allows us to hope and work towards something better and greater. Yet we can also spend years fearing something that never happens. Here, too, we are rather contradictory beings.

Perhaps Something of the Image of God

To my mind, the ability to think beyond the present moment and visible reality also brings us close to spirituality. We can ask whether life has a purpose and whether something greater than ourselves exists. We can conceive of God or gods and reflect on our relationship with them.

This ability does not, of course, settle the question of whether God exists. It does, however, tell us something about ourselves: we are capable of asking such questions, and for many of us they matter deeply.

Nor does the search for meaning require religious faith. One person finds their deepest sense of purpose in loved ones, another in knowledge, art, or helping others. For a religious person, these may also form part of their relationship with God.

Much of the inner lives of other animals remains a mystery to us. For that reason, I would hesitate to draw overly confident boundaries around what they can experience. At the same time, it is difficult to overlook how extensively humans reflect on their own existence and share these reflections with others.

Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, we can also explore this through the idea of human beings as made in the image of God. What speaks to me particularly is our capacity to care, take responsibility, and seek a connection with something greater than ourselves. At the same time, we know very well that we do not always use these abilities wisely.

So I cannot say when we became human. Perhaps there is no single moment or decisive event that answers the question. Ultimately, it is also a matter of definition. What do we consider necessary for being human? Would other, now-extinct human species also meet that definition?

For me, something essential about being human lies in our capacity to imagine a meaning greater than ordinary life—one that could reach even beyond death.

When I think of the young person buried with antlers in Qafzeh Cave, a question comes to mind: what did those who buried them hope for?

We do not know. Yet I find it easy to recognise something we share with them. When you lose someone you love, the question of whether this is really all there is no longer feels particularly distant or theoretical.