Humans in GURPS

Humans are bipedal apes with bare skin. Unlike other apes, they have lost many of their adaptations for climbing in trees. They have large butt muscles that provide excellent endurance for walking and running, and specialized wrist bones that allow their wrists to snap forward at the end of a power stroke allowing efficient chipping of stone tools and powerful casts of thrown weapons. Only one species is still extant. Several humans are described below - note that the taxonomy and interpretation of extinct humans is subject to intense controversy and constant change, this is one interpretation simplified for game terms.

• Homo habilis was one of the first humans. This species had a talent for making simple tools, giving it an edge for survival. It did not use fire, and probably lacked any true language. Homo habilis appears to have been restricted to east Africa. It arose in the earliest Pleistocene and was replaced by more advanced humans in the middel Pleistocene.

• Homo erectus was the first wide-ranging human, appearing in the middle Pleistocene. This species migrated out of Africa and into Asia. Members of this species had a somewhat more complex tool set than Homo habilis, could tame and control fire for warmth, protection, and cooking, and may have had crude speech and simple languages. The bulk of their toolset included sticks for digging and prying and rocks, which could be shaped by chipping or breaking, used for pounding either as hammers or anvils, for grinding, cutting, and scraping. For weapons they had stone axes, clubs, and spears with stone-bladed heads. They likely figured out how to make rafts to travel across rivers, straits, and narrow parts of seas. Homo erectus may have been the first hunter/gatherers among humans, living in small bands that hunted large game with weapons as well as digging for tubers and collecting nuts, fruit, and grain. The last of the Homo erectus likely went extinct about 200,000 years ago in the late Pleistocene.

• Hobbits Homo floriensis are still little known and controversial. If they existed, they likely descended from Homo erectus that rafted to the lesser Sunda islands of Indonesia (including Flores, from which they took their name). They are a dwarf species of human, and may have survived until (early) historical times. Their cognitive abilities, tool use, and language skills were probably similar to that of Homo erectus.

• Homo heidelbergensis was very similar anatomically to modern humans, some claim it is a race of Homo sapiens, although they tended to be very robust and muscular compared to modern people. However, this species did not yet appear to have the complex societies, sophisticated tools, language skills, artistic capability, or capacity for innovation of modern humans (although the last three points are controversial), although it is very likely they had an early form of language. Homo heidelbergensis lived in Africa and migrated into Europe. It is widely thought that Homo heidelbergensis evolved into both Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens in the late Pleistocene about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, and evolved from Homo erectus in the middle-late Pleistocene about 600,000 years ago.

• Neanderthals Homo neanderthalensis are similar anatomically to modern humans but were much more robust and muscular, and had particular adpatations to a cold climate such as stocky limbs and large noses for trapping heat from exhaled air. Some consider them a race of Homo sapiens rather than a distinct species. They ate a lot of meat from large game in their diet, which they hunted with spears thrust by hand. Close contact with dangerous large game led to many accidents - Neanderthal skeletons often have evidence of injury from goring, slamming, and trampling.

  The Neanderthals never developed complex societies like modern humans, living in simple bands of hunter-gathers. They may have been highly insular, never travelling far from their natal groups. Some late populations of Neanderthals apparently learned to imitate the advanced tools of invading Homo sapiens, but they never innovated these advanced tools on their own. The evidence for abstract thought, artwork, and religion among Neanderthals is controversial at best but they might have had primitive religions practices, body adornment, and other artistic habits - or they might not have. It is speculated that Neanderthals lacked the same level of working memory as modern humans, allowing them to learn by rote but making true innovation more difficult; in addition, they may also have lacked the same sense of long-scale time and personal history as modern humans, which prevented them from preparing for seasonal times of scarcity by stockpiling food during times of abundance. If either of these speculations are true, they probably apply to all earlier humans as well. If Neanderthals lacked the cognitive capabilities of modern humans it was not because they had small brains - their cranial capacity was larger than that of modern humans. In the end, Neanderthals died out at the end of the last ice age about 30,000 years ago, either due to an inability to adapt to the rapidly changing climate or because of pressure from invading Homo sapiens sweeping north and east out of Africa with their far larger and more complex societies, more innovative tools, and long range weapons. However, Neanderthals never entirely died out - a small component of the genes of modern humans from Europe, Asia, and the Americas came from Neanderthal ancestors.

• Densiovans were humans living in Asia at the time Homo sapiens swarmed out of Africa. Nearly nothing is known about them, the only fossil remains are a tooth and a toe bone and the only reason we know they existed is that some modern humans of Asian descent and especially those from New Guinae and Australia inherited part of their genome from Denisovans.

• Modern humans Homo sapiens are slender humans with long limbs, flat faces, absent brow ridges, and rounded skulls. They have proven particularly behaviorally flexible and innovative. Their societies became much more complex than simple bands,involving relationships between bands to form extended cooperative groups as well as extensive trade and barter networks. They also developed sophisticated technologies - early modern humans rapidly developed a tool set that far surpassed that of any other variety of human, including sewn clothes and shelters, fishhooks, nets, snares, and ranged weapons such as atlatls and bows. Their chipped stone tools were significantly more sophisticated, capable, and finely worked than those of previous human varieties. This cooperation, innovation, and versitility allowed them to colonize all land areas of the world except for those permanently covered by ice sheets, and to replace all other humans that once existed. Today, modern humans are found worldwide.

The eyebrows, eyes with prominant whites, and exposed colored lips of modern humans are likely social signalling adaptations. Likewise, the mammary glands of female modern humans are larger than is strictly neccessary for their nursing function and likely evolved their size as a sexual signalling device. In a similar fashion, the penis of male modern humans is larger in both relative and absolute terms than that of any other primate, including gorillas, which likely indicates it has evolved its current size as a method of social signalling or mate selection. Whether some, all, or none of these adaptations were present in other humans is unknown at this time. Their absence could be used for modern humans to recognize their own species. What flags other humans would then use to recognize their own kind would then be an interesting question.

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