Question

How has our cultural behaviour affected how we evolved from archaic hominins to modern humans?

What did our ancestors achieve that they would not have otherwise were it not for our cultural adaptations?

Answer 1

Archaic humans were hunter-gatherers. However, humans like other primates used to live in small groups called tribes. Gradually tribes exhibited a unique property probably never seen amongst other primate groups, which was imagination. The imagination allowed tribes to have ideologies. The ideologies ensured the tribes staying together trying to achieve a common goal.

Eventually, tribes crossed each other leading to the exchange of ideologies and powers. Winning tribes imposed ideologies on the lost tribes and thus the winning ideologies kept on spreading. This led to the formation of societies. People settled down for agriculture which allowed them to reproduce more and thus create kingdoms with ideologies. This led to the formation of human societies as we know them now.

The growing societies and the rise of ideologies allowed large groups of humans to come together. The ideologies became larger and larger eventually from kingdoms to empires to nations to human rights and eventually humanity. This unity hasn't been observed across other primates or species and could probably explain the power humans hold today.