03-Building And Defending An Established Nest (1)

Building And Defending An Established Nest (1)

Most creatures on Earth build nests. Yet once a nest has served its purpose, most creatures abandon their nest and build a new one when needed. Humans are one of only seven creatures on Earth that build permanent nests and defend them, which is called eusociality. Our eusocial behavior was the primary reason humans came to dominate Earth.

Learning to control the use of fire at campsites so that meat could be cooked greatly amplified behaviors that today defined what it means to be human – the division and specialization of labor, trust and cooperation.  

Wilson describes this: "The advantages of cooperation in the harvesting of meat led to the formation of highly organized groups. These consisted of extended families and allied tribes, so the population could be as large as could be sustained by the local environment. This became an advantage when resources became limited and the need to fight other tribes to the death for resources was needed.”

"The cohesion forced by the concentration of groups to protected camp sites was more than just a step through the evolutionary maze. It was ... the event that launched the final drive to modern Homo sapiens.”

Our ancestors build campsites around fires and defended those. Some group members would leave the campsite to forage and hunt while others would stay behind to defend the camp and keep the children safe. In that division of labor, mutual trust and cooperation were vital. Survival was extremely difficult and each person HAD to fulfill their designated role and responsibilities because failure to do so threatened the survival of everyone in the group. And when food became scare, which it often did, the group had to battle neighboring groups for available food, often to the death, which demanded great cooperation and trust among everyone in the group.