• Question: I saw a question today about what you think humans will evolve into in the future and natural selection was mentioned (Yay for Charles Darwin) which got me thinking. If we, hypothetically, had a completely undiscovered country or island, still thinking hypothetically, that had humans on it evolving completely seperately to our society, what qualities do you think they'd have and why'd you think those particular qualities outlived others?

    Asked by smint to Mike, Tim, Tom on 5 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 5 Jul 2012:

      This happened in Australia I beleive as the native Aboriginees were seperated from the rest of humans for a while – perhaps not long enough for them to diverge much. I think this also happened in the Carribean, and when the Spanish/Portugese discovered these people (who probably looked a bit like native americans) they were so unnacustomed to the diseases that were brought to the island that they pretty much all died out!

      If we found somewhere that had been separated for longer, I’m assuming a relatively small island here, I guess they wouldn’t have such long legs because they never need to travel very long distances. They would certainly have killed off all predators too and wouldn;t have any big animals to hunt – so I would guess at them being relatively small. As there are no open plains to run across and no oppertunities to run for very long distances chasing prey, they probably wouldn’t have lost their hair (I beleive we lost our hair to help keep cool during these long chases). Sexual selection would also play a part, and could leave them with all sorts of funny traits. I would like to imagine they would have bright red faces like the bald uakari!

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 5 Jul 2012:

      Good answer to a great question!

      As Tom says, when the Spanish invaded South America, they brought disease like the common cold that wiped out the native Inca people.

      The particular qualities that they had would probably be dependent on the environment. If ‘humans’ had evolved seperately, I imagine that they may have developed different diets based on the food that was available. If there were no animals like cows and pigs, they may not have started breeding them and may be exclusively vegetarian. If they didn’t eat meat, then perhaps their teeth and jaws might be different, and perhaps their brains wouldn’t grow so much (since the extra protein in meat is what helped us to get our big brains).

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