a bonobo humanity?

Homo sapiens sapiens – really??

Canto: Here’s a question. On the first page of Thomas Crump’s A brief history of science, he mentions our species, Homo sapiens sapiens. I’ve occasionally seen this designation before, but usually we’re only singularly sapient. What gives? I’m not aware of any species called Homo sapiens insapiens or quasisapiens or semisapiens, yet I’m sure there’s a reason…

Jacinta: Well I suspect it’s not because we’re big-noting ourselves, but then again, it is a self-congratulatory moniker, but we deserve it…. don’t we? ‘Sapiens’ being Latin for ‘wise’ or ‘astute’, and we’re doubly so, en it? Anyway, I think it’s about palaeontological techno-lingo, and it’s possibly controversial. Like we’re not the only Homo sapiens species but we’re the only extant ones, and we’re leaving a space open for some earlier Homo sapiens species, either yet to be discovered or yet to be designated as such, instead of being designated as Homo sediba or naledi or whatever.

Canto: So the Australian Museum, which designates us simply as Homo sapiens, does make a distinction between archaic (from 300,000 years ago) and modern (from 160,000 years ago) Homo sapiens, but needless to say, there is controversy, due to the paucity of the record and the mix of archaic and modern features, especially with fossils dated to before 160,000 years ago, which some scientists give an entirely different name, Homo helmei. 

Jacinta: Sounds like the lumpers and splitters issue once again. According to the Bradford foundation, the Homo helmei name is based on one partial skull dating from about 260,000 years ago (aka the Florisbad skull), and claimed (perhaps not by many) to represent an intermediate species between H sapiens and H heidelbergensis. But I suspect some of these scientists want to get recognition for identifying a new species rather than admitting that early humans, like modern ones, came in many shapes and sizes. 

Canto: Well here’s more from the Australian Museum:

Homo sapiens sapiens is the name given to our species if we are considered a sub-species of a larger group. This name is used by those that describe the specimen from Herto, Ethiopia as Homo sapiens idàltu or by those who believed that modern humans and the Neanderthals were members of the same species. (The Neanderthals were called Homo sapiens neanderthalensis in this scheme).

Jacinta: Interesting use of the past tense there. I note that the Australian Museum appears to state unequivocally that modern H sapiens is directly descended from H heidelbergensis. I also note that the Florisbad skull is measured as having a brain capacity larger than the average modern human, but I can’t see how much can be made of that. It’s no doubt still within the range. As for H sapiens idàltu, there’s disagreement, of course. If these 160,000 year-old Ethiopian fossil remains – which include three well-preserved crania, the best of which is of an adult male with again a cranial capacity on the large side – are accepted as a H sapiens sub-species, then this is said to justify the H sapiens sapiens subspecies nomenclature for the rest of us. 

Canto: That’s a partial explanation, but I still think the double sapiens moniker has a hubristic odour to it. Assuming H sapiens idaltu to be a genuine subspecies (such luminaries as the physical anthropologist Chris Stringer disagree), who’s to say it was less sapient than the line that led to us? Just because it didn’t survive? 

Jacinta: Well, that’s the dilemma – if you accept than there are other subspecies, then I suppose you have to accept a triple-barrelled name for each one. The third name – well, we can’t really choose a locality, because we’re everywhere. Or a skill, because we have too many. The name idaltu, by the way, comes from the Afar language around Ethiopia, and means ‘elder’ or ‘first-born’, which seems to suggest that this subspecies was ancestral to ours. In any case, you could argue that since our species basically controls the Earth, as mistresses of all we survey, the double sapiens title is well-earned. At least until we get zapped off our pedestal by multiply sapient aliens. 

Canto: Yeah, well, one sapiens is enough for me, and I’m sticking with that. 

References 

https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/homo-sapiens-modern-humans/#:~:text=Homo%20sapiens%20sapiens%20is%20the,members%20of%20the%20same%20species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florisbad_Skull

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/origins/homo_helmei.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu