Let's say, a vision about the evolution of mankind.

According to the current scientific theory austral Africa can be considered the cradle of humanity and the most ancient remains are dated 6 millions of years ago.

See the draft below. It is composed by three sections, that I'm going to describe.

First section:

1) Fire apes (NTF&F apes)

At the beginning it has been thought man derives from a very special kind of ape, with an usual instinct: it was in fact attracted by the fire, fascinated by it and not afraid of it. The apes were sitting near it. The fire bring warm, light and protect from wild enemies.
The real complicated task was to light it on and not to keep it alive, for the apes it was impossible to light it on. In order to avoid putting it out, it fetches wood to be burned.
The apes couldn't let the fire to stop.
These kind of apes used to live near the fire, and around the fire the first communities grew up.
They can be defined as NTF&F apes, i.e. “near the fire and feeders”, the two aspects that describe this apes. The need to bring what they need to the physical centre of the community forced apes to use their hands. These apes used the fire and the flames to burn everything. They didn’t realize what surrounding was, they were totally naive and convinced that resources never ended.
About 5 million of years ago austral Africa  was subjected to a radically change in its vegetation: from subtropical forest to bush. The transformation  of vegetation caused by a continental climate change  has pushed these first hominids to change their way of life. On the contrary,  according to this vision, vegetation has been almost destroyed by this hominids.
Wisdom had come as a necessary darwinian evolution in consequence of that behaviours, the NTF&F behaviours.


Second section:

2) parallel evolution

As soon as the upright position has been developed, the anatomy  (I mean the skeleton) of these apes had reached a stable evolutive point . Now we can talk of hominids, physically similar to us. They carried out their life around fire all around Africa and later also outside this continent.
The human being has suffered a drastic selection. He has learned anyway not to abuse of fire but  to spare it. The sense for environment has grown in him, for natural resources.
This dramatic selection has divided the NTF&F period from the ones of the hominids.
The fundamental aspect is that these hominids were not developing physically, but in their behaviour.
Their behaviour was getting more complex, like their rites around the fire, and their community.
The most interesting thing is the evolutionary process of these hominids (who were spread all around Africa and later in Eurasia)  divided and diverged.
Different hominids arose their behaviour in different ways.
Well,  at a certain time their brain was so different that they couldn’t mate among different hominids’ groups. Different races, in a sense different species. In fact they could have progeny, but their son/daughter would be mad, or at least insane, because the child inherited the aptitude properties of one parent or another. These characteristics were in conflict and their child couldn’t have a good mind. The conflict could be both chemical and structural. In other words, there was (a likely) genetic compatibility, but not  psychologically compatibility. These cerebral characteristic defines the behaviour  of certain kind of hominids that I call behaviour units.
These hominids with their behaviour differences couldn’t mate and create a descent.
Their ways separated, and we enter the parallel evolution period.
Every kind of hominid living in a specific geographic place, has his habits, his way to see the world, to relate with reality and the others, his way to use and create instruments and things.
A bit like “fantasy" tales, in which every man, although being human in his aspect, has also very specific and different attitudinal characteristics. It is possible that some of these hominids had geographically met and that the different kind of lived in the same community, causing a symbiotical evolution that improved the singular aptitudes in relation to the whole comunity (villages).
These specialized hominids were very fragile psychologically, not mind flexible, and they could go mad very easily.
This period of the parallel evolution continues till recent time…well some hundreds of thousand years ago.


Third section:

3) the motorial  switching

When a specific kind of specialized hominids developed a brain structure that let him do the “switching”  among the comportamentally units, the evolutionary lines began to merge. The characteristic of this  switching was inherited, in some percentages, by the child, even if belonged to one parent only. I will call this brain characteristic  motorial switching, or more simply  "switching".
If an hominid  A with switching feature  mates with an another one of a B kind, their son was not mad  but even more clever (!). He could mate with other human being having other different behaviour characteristics and the new born baby would have been even more clever, well more clever than his parents and grandparents too.
So, in a short lapse of time, like a flame on petrol, the specialize hominids that had parallel evolved pasted together in one and only human being: the modern  homo sapiens.

Massimo Vaghi

Original site:

http://web.tiscali.it/evoluzioneparallela 

Translation by A. Minsky

Contents under Creative Commons License.