Inhabiting Another Planet Would End Humanity as We Know It 

It is a common misconception that Neanderthals, a form of ancient, extinct pre-humans, mostly connoted with cavemen and tribalism in a pure, unadulterated form, differ from modern humans (Homo sapiens) mainly as a result of physical differences. Often cited are their reduced chin, sloping forehead, and large noses, and yet anthropologists and archaeologists espouse their differences as most significant through these species’ cultural divisions. 

Neanderthals had a static, immobile culture. This is not to say these beings did not possess cultural complexity, as complexity is shared between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Instead, these species differ in their capacity for cultural evolution. World-leading anthropologist and professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, Joseph Heinrich, ascribed homo sapiens as “a cultural species”. Hence, the development of customs, behaviours, and beliefs over time is the most innate of homo sapien traits. This led to our behavioural modernity, as homo sapiens evolved their culture so that it constantly flowed, ebbed, and changed to maximise the chances of survival. Why are modern humans group-orientated? Heinrich explains it as a cultural phenomenon eliciting the “collective brain”, in which as a collective, ideas are more likely to be generated, and less likely to be lost, culminating in collective culture carefully coalesced to survive and therefore to thrive. 

So, modern humanity is separated from pre-humans as a result of our behavioural modernity which stems from our innate capacity for cultural evolution, stimulating survival en masse and thus global population and domination; making us a unique species as a result of our cultural differentiation and approach to cultural evolution. What does this have to do with the loss of humanity in a far-flung future where we have inhabited a different planet in our solar system? From a fundamentalist perspective - absolutely everything. 

Cultural variation may define our species, but the root causes of this variation are equally dynamic.  “A combination of factors, including cognitive, social and ecological elements” (Heinrich, from “How Culture Made Us Uniquely Human”) serves as the triadic makeup for our cultural evolution, with the cognitive and social elements being constituted primarily by the aforementioned “collective brain” concept. Narrowing on the latter influence, the ecological, the environment, the world’s fauna, and their relationship alongside topography shape greatly shape human culture in precise, delicate yet ultimately beautifully, unique ways. 

It is easiest to see the direct influence of the ecological upon areas in which globalisation, or more specifically Americanisation, has yet to have an overwhelming impact. The global homogenisation under the weight of US soft, cultural power has made the ecological derivation of our culture somewhat hidden underneath liberal philosophy, economics, and Wilsonialism. 

Foundationally, however, the influence is still overwhelming. From the nomadism of Amazonian tribes to survive off the sheer size and density of threats within the Amazon, to the Tibeto-Burmans of Myanmar whose women wear brass neck coils to shield themselves physically and symbolically from the harm of lions. The people of The Maldives developed a complex folklore, centering around the ideas of mythical sea demons, a form of cultural control encouraging utmost care on ocean blue. Geographically similar Tuvalu also has clear ecological influences on its socio-cultural standing. Tuvaluans rely mainly on pulaka, known colloquially as “swamp crop”, for food security due to its reliable capacity to grow on the atoll as well as its status as the primary source of carbohydrates for residents. Pulaka is cooked in a pit, thusly dubbed a ‘pulaka pit’, leading to the island's class system deriving from the size of a family's pulaka pit - the larger the pit, the higher the class. This reflects the environmental influence of food scarcity on the island shaping the culture of the island - as it is not wealth that determines communal standing, but the food security provided for family and friends. Almost all Southeast island nations also have houses built on stilts, known in Indonesia as ‘kampongs’, accommodating the lack of land space available to the people of these nations. These examples depict behaviour, and thus culture, being shaped by the strengths and threats provided to Homo sapiens by mother nature, an impact that is felt notably across the world in how the culture of every group has developed, but most easily observed in areas switched-off to global homogeny. 

Modern humanity of the Holocene differentiates from other species because of behavioural modernity stemming from cultural evolution and innate willingness for it. Anything, therefore, that alters how our cultural evolution occurs is a fundamentally, undeniable threat to Homo sapiens as we currently exist. This is not to say we can or can’t become something greater - but that through the loss of Earth, the planet that has shaped our culture since the conception of our species, speciation into something new and separate is not likely but inevitable on another planet. The ecological influence of a different world will serve as a poignant, potent, powerful alteration to the fundamental fabric of what is, at present, a Homo sapien. 

Cianan Sheekey

Managing Editor

17th July 2024