New theory for how Hominin sapiens prevailed while all other human species died out: Suddenly, our species would go where no hominin went before
How Homo sapiens prevailed and became the last hominin standing remains unknown. There are many theories for what happened to the others, and for our triumph: We were more daring, venturing into places where no hominin had gone before. We were smarter. We were more flexible. We gave them herpes.
Truth is we don't know, but now a new theory for the distinction of Homo sapiens as opposed to all other hominins is proposed by Emily Hallett with Eleanor Scerri of the Paleosystems Group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany with Andrea Manica and Michela Leonardi of the University of Cambridge.
It doesn't negate other theories, it adds to them. From about 70,000 years ago, our species demonstrated "distinctive ecological flexibility," bursting into niches that we hadn't gone before.
The inference is that not only didn't other hominins have this trait: Neither did early Homo sapiens who left Africa before the "successful migration," the one that didn't go extinct, which we know because unless you're African, you are their descendant.
