Reptilian origin of humanity? Physiological coincidences and faster evolution
What is the ingredient that makes our species so special, and so destructive? Is it possible to hypothesize some external intervention from something or someone, which has unduly influenced human evolution, causing it to deviate from its natural path?
Although science has made giant strides in understanding the mechanisms that regulate the evolution of living beings, the origin of man still remains shrouded in mystery.
Archaeological investigations and fossil findings, rather than clarifying the history of human evolution, only complicate a puzzle that is already quite complicated in itself.
Yet, among some researchers there is a certain dismay when considering the extremely limited space of time in which the human species evolved.
To make an undue comparison, we can think of dinosaurs, a group of living beings that dominated planet Earth for 160 million years, an extremely long biological life cycle or, at least, in harmony with the cosmic times of the Universe.
If instead we consider homo sapiens, we are disconcerted to consider that the genus homo appeared on the planet only 2 million years ago and, through a daring series of evolutionary leaps, managed to build, practically from nothing, the first modern cities in Mesopotamia about 6 thousand years ago, to arrive, in a few thousand years, from cuneiform to information technology and from the exploration of habitable territories to space exploration.
Why is Homo Sapiens so fast?
How do we explain the extraordinarily rapid rate of human evolution over the last two million years?
The question was asked by an important researcher, Prof. Ian Tattersall, an American anthropologist, curator of the Anthropology Division of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and author of many books and articles.
According to Tattersall, there are numerous examples that show the accelerated evolution of our species. “Anyway we put it, the evolution of the human family was very rapid,” explains the anthropologist in a conference held in Calpe, Gibraltar.
“I think it's fair to say that our species, Homo Sapiens, and its antecedents, have evolved much faster than any other group of mammals examined in the same time frame.” The phenomenon of accelerated evolution is known as “tachytely“.
In the lecture, Tattersall illustrates how the brain size of our ancestors doubled in the space of two million years. Then it doubled again over the last million years, up to the present day. Along with the increase in brain size, came a reduction in the size of the teeth and face, along with other changes in the shape of the skull.
The increase in brain size seems to have coincided with the definitive physical structure of modern man, characterized by a linear shape, long legs and relatively narrow hips.
These characteristics are already visible in the skeleton of the "Turkana boy" found in Kenya, who lived about two million years ago, and are in stark contrast to the short legs and long arms of "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis), who lived in Ethiopia about a million years earlier.
Radical change
Such rapid change has never been seen among monkeys. According to classical anthropology, one of the factors that could have influenced the speed of human evolution is the abandonment of the trees by the first hominids to conquer the soil, something that our ape cousins did not do.
But according to the Prof. Tattersall, this event is not sufficient to justify such radical changes: “It is evident that the definitive abandonment of arboreal life is to be considered as an epochal turning point in the evolution of hominids. But under natural conditions, it is very difficult that the conquest of a new vital environment could have generated such rapid changes."
“Perhaps it is human culture that is special, having within itself some ever-present ingredient that ensured the rapid pace of evolution of our lineage after we left the forests,” Tattersall continues.
But the explanation for this phenomenon is not in the solutions proposed by other researchers. Some evolutionary psychologists have developed a model according to which culture and the complexity of the brain stimulate each other.
However, Tattersall pointed out that throughout the evolutionary history of hominids, technology has changed the way of life of hominids in “hiccups” and very often these changes have occurred separate from biological evolution, so this idea cannot satisfactorily explain what is seen in archaeological and fossil finds.
What is the secret ingredient that makes homo sapiens so special?
According to Prof. Tattersall, the answer may lie in man's high aggression. “Perhaps the solution lies in the conflict between groups of hominids.
Aggression could be the discriminant capable of explaining the increase in intelligence within groups.
A conflict could be seen as a form of predation, an event in which prey and predator are forced to become faster, smarter or more intelligent to achieve their goal." Of course, the professor's hypothesis is a bit sad. Tattersall, according to which man is an intraspecies predator.
Yet one wonders how it is possible that a being like homo, developed and evolved in a natural context, at a certain point fell into a spiral of aggression, which although it increased its technical intelligence, deprived it of social intelligence, becoming his own marauder and putting his very existence at risk.
Are we sure that aggression alone is enough to justify the rapid evolution of Homo Sapiens? What if aggression was the byproduct of this rapid evolution?
What is the ingredient that makes our species so special, and so destructive? Is it possible to hypothesize some external intervention from something or someone, which has unduly influenced human evolution, causing it to deviate from its natural path?
The reptilian hypothesis
We realize that we are going beyond the boundaries of science, but such a hypothesis deserves to be explored, also due to the enormous resonance that has been recorded on the internet in recent years.
The theme of reptilians has become popular thanks to David Icke, a controversial figure considered by some to be the great revealer of the reptilian conspiracy on our planet, while by others he is considered just another instrument of control by the enlightened elite.
The ideas contained in the book Children of the Matrix, apparently original and extravagant, but validated by a long and scrupulous series of documented evidence, our life on planet Earth is nothing more than a deception managed by extraterrestrial, intraterrestrial and interdimensional forces to keep us in a mental, emotional and spiritual prison.
According to Icke's hypothesis, some reptilian aliens, in the human guise of public men, have taken control of our planet, preventing humanity from normal spiritual, social and technological evolution. Their aim would be to enslave humanity and definitively take possession of planetary resources (including humanity).
Obviously, Icke's thesis, although very fascinating and in some respects plausible (at least in the part of the control of the masses), is totally unprovable. It is impossible, at the moment, to have any evidence available on his hypothesis. However, some clues can help us reflect.
Putting the reptilian presence on our planet aside, is it possible to hypothesize that in a distant past, a group of reptilian aliens modified human DNA, for who knows what purposes, intervening unduly on the evolution of hominids? If so, do we have any clues about it?
Strange resemblance between homo and reptiles
If we examine human physiology, we discover with some dismay that we are much more similar to reptiles than to the other species of mammals present on our planet. For example, the best part of man: the brain.
In our skull we have a small brain structure called R-complex (or also reptilian brain) and it is one of the three parts foreseen by the Triune Brain model developed by Paul D. MacLean, an American doctor specializing in neuroscience.
The R-complex deals with the needs and instincts innate in man (but look, the very sector in which human aggression is best expressed!); some of the reptilian functions of this brain structure concern sexual, territorial, hierarchical, temporal, sequential and spatial behavior.
Furthermore, there are two other main structures in our brain that are also present in the brain of reptiles: the brainstem, which controls countless fundamental functions, from breathing to blood circulation, and the cerebellum, part of the central nervous system involved in learning and motor control, in language, in attention and perhaps in some emotional functions such as responses to fear or pleasure (fundamental tools for controlling a human being).
The ancestral myth of the serpent
Why do ancient myths insist so much on the figure of the serpent? Reptilian men are present in many texts of ancient religions, including Christianity. Just think of the story of original sin, where the responsibility for evil is attributed to a serpent!
Ever since humanity took its first steps on the planet, legends related to reptiles, dragons and snakes have always existed. Many myths tell of a mysterious race of reptilian beings descending from the sky to participate in the creation of humanity and teach them forbidden knowledge, imposing a social order and seducing humanity into relentless development.
