Throughout history an average wild animal has had the ability to kill an average human being so how did we as a species not only survive but ended up on the top of the food chain?
In: Biology
Because most the time we came as a group and had many pointy sticks or heavy objects we could wield. We could, if we chose, kill from a distance.
The explorers came to a clearing and saw a pygmy standing proudly upon the bloody body of a huge Elephant.
“What happened?” asked the explorers.
“I killed it with my club” said the pygmy.
“Wow, how big is your club”
“Well, there’s about 400 hundred of us in it”
Complex language allowing for coordinated communication and team work.
Larger brains allowing for complex problem solving and learning.
Opposable thumbs allowing for the use of tools and weapons.
Having all 3 is a massive advantage over raw strength, claws, fangs, etc.
We teach our young, and pass along knowledge with our ability to communicate better than any other species. Cooperation ALWAYS beats competition. We have bigger brains, so we can plan ahead, and learn from the past mistakes of others. “Approach from downwind” is something we learned early and passed along, “run the herd off cliffs” is how we harvested giant animals. “Use tools to advantage” is how we use atlatl and spears to take down thick skinned prey. “Trick the fish into biting bait on a hook and wire” “wrap fibers into ropes and weave them into nets” “use wood to make fences and scare animals Into them” “catch chickens but don’t kill them and eat their eggs instead”
All of this passed down knowledge gives us more of an advantage than big teeth big muscles and running fast gives anything else put together. We have lost humans to Saber tooth tigers and mammoths… those species are lost forever because of humans ability to remember perfect and TEACH OTHERS how to deal with them.
People will say that animals have natural weapons like claws and teeth. Weapons are our natural weapons.
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but humans are pack animals and endurance hunters. This means that 1v1 rarely occurred, and even a group of 2 or 3 humans with prehistoric weapons could take on a bear.
Average “unarmed” human. Sure.
A human with a sharp 9 foot long pole? It becomes highly unlikely that most animals can kill an average human.
Add a couple of well balanced sharp poles that you can throw first after sneaking up on it? Kill just about any animal no problem. Some humans literally hunted and killed elephants and whales this way.
Launch a small sharp stick from 50 yards using a bow? Forget about it. You can kill anything as long as you see it first.
There is a reason humans became successful alongside tool use.
Survival is not a one v one bracket tournament. We survive because we are extremely social animals. So much so that we don’t survive alone. In fact, put us truly alone (like a deserted island) vs the elements and we are more likely to die than survive and will almost never thrive.
So, predators would be hard pressed to ever find us alone. We are basically the pinnacle of endurance travel on the planet. After discovering cooking we were able to get a calorie source that could sustain larger brain function and then could coordinate our way to dominance. And that is where we are.
Animals rely on instincts. They can adapt but not as much as humans can. First we picked up a heavy stick, then learned to make it harder, then sharpened it, then made a stone tip for it, then made them smaller but could now fire them longer distances, then we figured out how to make iron etc, etc on and on to now we have weapons that can destroy to world. Animals? Still use the same instincts from 1000 years ago.
We doubled down on a few skills that make us nearly invulnerable:
1. Highly social
2. Fantastic throwing ability
3. Superior cooling system
4. Very high endurance
5. Traded high strength for high dexterity, including the ability to partially fire muscle fibers and added opposable thumbs
6. Very high intelligence
All these things put together make us very formidable.
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