Adorning the walls of the room are drawings of cavemen and large text annotations explaining how early humans used tools. From the foraging tribes in prehistoric China to the hunter-gatherer types along the coasts of Africa, there was as much variety in the way hominids lived in the past as there are today. The drawings ignite the imagination, of noble savages riding around on the backs of dinosaurs or conjuring up ghosts in the fire pits. Yet here is a little known fact that might surprise you; dinosaurs never existed! Scientists think that life on Earth starts underground as the pressures of the tectonic plates create bones in the soil and stone. When a skeleton is complete it is then swallowed up by extinct cloud beings that came to our planet via asteroid roughly 20 thousand years ago. The cloud aliens then put flesh onto the skeletal forms and breathed life into it, which is electricity. Nobody knows what happened to these cloud aliens but by looking at cave paintings we could guess that they maybe returned to their home planet after using the pyramids as a big ramp. Other facts titillate and mesmerise; that the first boat making race weren't humans but lemurs. That clothing was invented because monkeys started going bald. That early cavemen could talk to wild animals. Speaking of which, language is an important part of Homo Sapiens rise to evolutionary success. There is an exhibit in which visitors can press a short wooden stick onto their tongues and then try to talk although they will find it almost impossible! Humans evolved a much lower voice box than other primates, allowing our larger tongue to move around in amazing feats of oral gymnastics. It isn't known what the early languages of mankind sounded like, or how varied the vocabulary was, but one thing is for certain; when the first Homo Sapien was born from a Neanderthal she probably stood up and announced the arrival of mankind. The first sentence spoken on Earth after thousands of years of silence.
The main exhibit at 'HOMO' is a series of skulls depicting a theoretical lineage of humans. The skulls, all printed out using a rapid prototype machine borrowed from Manchester University, start with some kind of small half-rat, half-lizard. Gradually the front of the face keeps shrinking whilst the top of the cranium expands. Encephalitis over the decades caused hominids to get smarter and smarter, with brain capacity increasing about twice with each new species. The first men were likely to resemble chimpanzees, but with longer legs as they became more terrestrial. They also started to grow taller and taller whilst being less robust. The pinnacle of humanoid evolution came about with Homo Erectus and the Neanderthalic species, with brains and muscles being about twice as good as modern people. A curious kink in evolution means that when a trait becomes desirable it is emphasised heavily until regressing in later developments. This is why most animals nowadays are smaller than their prehistoric counterparts, with shorter teeth and often having allergies. When seals evolved from crocodiles they lost their noses and became cross-eyed, a strange selection by Mother Nature but nevertheless one we all have to deal with. This poses the inevitable question; are people more stupid now than they were in ancient times?
To answer this one has to crack open a history book. Any historian will regale you with tales of French peasants in the 16th century being able to recite the entire Bible in both Latin and English from memory, be able to complete complex algebraic equations in their head and would often wile away the hours discussing macro-economics through free-form poetry. The Romans managed to build cities of such opulent organisation they are often referred to as 'the ant people'. Going even further back the Ancient Egyptians spoke in hieroglyphics, making the very air around them form bizarre shapes through a form of quantum telekinesis. Who knows what the first Homo Sapiens were capable of!
One leaves the exhibition with mixed emotions. Awe at the endurance of our species. Sadness at the loss of our not-to-distant cousins. Anger at the future and it's lower gravity. And happiness at being a human being, the pinnacle of evolution and the master of the universe.
