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home > sex & society > individual development > our origin
Going back ten thousand generations of mothers, or two hundred thousand years, we meet humans that are sufficiently different from Homo Sapiens to give them a separate name. We do not know that name. Fossils of early humans living at that time are probably not directly related to us, but to a common ancestor. Anyway, these people, to whom we are directly linked through generations of mothers, are clearly human. They walk around on two legs with their hands free to carry things, to gesture, to build and create. But are shorter, more hairy than we are; they have a 
lower forehead, wider nostrils, a more protruding jaw, and their ears are placed higher. They face a lot of dangers: their life is marked by fear and they are always on the alert to defend themselves. It is hard to find them because they live in caves or in hiding places, where they form families of one or more men and several women with children. They are obviously human in appearance and behaviour, their brain and hands enable them to do more cultural things than any animal, like using fire and speech. Although their language is limited, and some speak better and others hardly at all, the men share knowledge about where to find a prey, how to attack other men or defend themselves. The women share their knowledge and experience with the children and each other. In their communication they use a lot of gestures and expressive sounds to share emotions like fear, anger, joy and sorrow. (Imagine how it is to talk with a one and a half year old or someone from a foreign country: language works only very partially and you use tone, clear facial expression, hands and feet to understand each other). The language contains a few very powerful words that everyone knows, expressing fear of imaginary forces.
So these people of two hundred thousand years ago would still be very familiar to us. In fact, when we look closely at ourselves, we realize that basically, in our emotions, relations, family life, sexual distinctions and in the world of power, achievement and conflict, we are very much like them.
And let's not forget, also in those days babies came out of their mothers' vaginas. Let's go back go back another hundred thousand generations of mothers, which is about two million years.
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