What makes us humans different as a species from other animals? Professor Ignacio Martínez Mendizábal, one of the paleontologists of the Atapuerca Project, is clear that if we have won the 'Evolution Champions', it is certainly not because of our physical aptitudes. “As a species we are quite limited. We're not fast, we don't climb trees well… We're pretty cheap, but we have two qualities that have made it possible for us to become the species that dominates the planet. One is our technological capacity. The other is our ability to work as a team and share knowledge, ”he points out.
Martínez Mendizábal, Prince of Asturias Award for his findings on the evolution of man in the Atapuerca sites and professor of the Area of Physical Anthropology at the University of Alcalá de Henares, stars in a new installment of Mejor Conectados, a Telefónica initiative to put into value everything that people are capable of achieving when we connect.
Humans are not the only ones who set up large social networks. Ants or bees are an exquisite example of a well-organized society where each member of the clan has a specific function for it. Saving the distances, the biggest difference with humans is that these insects function as true 'biological robots'. “Their behavior is genetically regulated. It means that when faced with certain stimuli they will always respond automatically with a certain behavior, but not consciously”, explains the paleontologist.
Humans, on the other hand, are aware of our actions and can decide when to intervene in favor of a group or when to do more of our part to make our society grow. “In nature there is a very intense cooperation between animals that share genes or belong to the same clan. Humans go beyond our blood group and we can collaborate very intensely with others who are not from our family, even giving our lives for the common good ”, he points out.
What makes us feel so close to other people as if they were "ours" are shared ideas and values. “That is the authentic cement that unites human groups”, he declares. An engine that throughout the history of humanity has proven to be much more powerful than blood ties and that explains why humans are capable of cooperating with each other and even sacrificing ourselves for people who belong to our lineage.
"In this highly individualistic world, the groups that share values are the ones that succeed," says Martínez Mendizábal. Among these universal values, tolerance, respect and justice stand out, three basic pillars for any human project to advance and last over time.
On many occasions a very heartless portrait of those early cave hominids has been made. They have been drawn as tough guys focused on their own survival, where the weakest had no choice. Especially those children who were born with a disability. It was assumed that they acted like animals, which leave those offspring that will not be able to reach reproductive age to the mercy of vermin. The discoveries in Altamira by the Martínez Mendizábal team dismantle this hypothesis.
“In the Sima de los Huesos we discovered a neurocranium of a twelve-year-old girl with an unusual pathology in the bones of the head. It is a fossil from a million and a half years ago where the left parietal bone fused with the occipital bone long before time,” she explains. This anomaly prevented the skull from growing in step with the little girl's brain as she grew. “It probably caused him a psychomotor retardation. And yet she managed to live to be ten-twelve years old. In other words, her peers had to give her more care than the rest of the clan to guarantee her survival, ”she points out.
For this paleontologist, the finding represents “the first known case of integration in the history of humanity. I never dreamed that I would find fossilized love, but there it is and it gives us a very beautiful message.
The findings at Sima de los Huesos led to the identification of a new species unknown until then, Homo Antecessor. A milestone in paleontology for which UNESCO declared the sites of the Sierra de Atapuerca as a World Heritage Site in the year 2000. Making those bones narrate what the lives of those first cave humans were like is the task of paleontologists and it is always done by connecting with the present.
That temporal thread that always looks forward is just as useful to unravel the secrets of the first men as it is to govern our social relations today. “My father once told me that the debt with everything that parents have done for us is paid in advance. That temporary awareness is what explains the true condition of the human being, you understand why you are here and that you must leave a legacy. You have a huge debt backwards and a huge responsibility forward so that the chain is not broken. When you see life like this, you understand that you are eternal because you are part of an immortal chain. Everything you do has an echo in the future and it fills you with illusion to think that you are paying it forward and contributing to a better world”, he concludes.
