Just over 50,000 years ago – a blink in evolutionary time – there were at least six, possibly seven, human species alive: sapiens, neanderthal, denisova, floresiensis, luzonensis, remnants of erectus and, perhaps, the last of Homo naledi. This is similar to contemporary primates, with chimpanzees, gorillas, baboons and so forth all living side by side. It underlines the important fact that sapiens is one hominin species among many and that it is firmly part of nature and does not stand apart from it. However, we are used to occupying a unique solo position as the only humans, though such a situation accounts for less than 1% of the time since we separated from our last common ancestor with chimpanzees. This has led to the conceit and falsehood that evolution is a linear trail, marked through ever greater brain growth, leading to us. It also adds to the challenge when looking at the fossil record to determine whether some ancient species were indeed our ancestors or just side chains in a rich hominin tree. A further difficulty is that taxonomic descriptions imply clean leaps from species to species, such as between Homo habilis and Homo erectus. However, each child is a close genetic variant of its parents, and there are no hard borders as changes accrue across millennia. Late Australopithecus looks closer to the genus Homo than to early Australopithecines. Determining ‘when is a species a species’ is difficult (Barraclough, ). Adding to the uncertainty, interbreeding between different human species appears to be the rule rather than the exception, with there being complex flows of genetic material. It is a jigsaw for which we do not know how many pieces there are, nor how they might interlink. Further, the pieces are often found in fragments of single bones, and they can be so rare that many finds remain known by their ‘site name’. The last 10 years have seen enormous leaps in palaeoanthropology, from the discovery of previously unknown (and entirely unexpected) human species, to advances in molecular biology that have allowed us to sequence the Neanderthal genome and better estimate temporal links between fossils. Genetic data tell us that there are several other hominin species as yet undiscovered, whose ghostly footprints are currently seen only through a unique genetic imprint across some human populations.

At the heart of humankind is the paradox that we share the molecules of life with a hundred billion species, but we are also unique. The question of what makes us special, or even whether we are exceptional, has preoccupied our species for thousands of years. Although the idea of a single location for humanity’s origin is antithetical to the evidence, the complex picture of human evolution is often publicly conveyed through simple linear narratives. This chapter instead communicates the beautiful complexities and intricacies of the story of our evolutionary trajectory. It considers archaeological evidence for the development of the human mind before focusing on two aspects of human uniqueness (or otherwise). Tool use and the use of fire are of especial significance to the evolution of the 'full package' of human behavioural modernity, but are we as extraordinary in employing these actions as we may think? Examples from animals such as sponging dolphins, savannah chimpanzees, and 'firehawks' provide a way of unpicking enigmatic elements of our exceptionality.

The South African War of 1899–1902 constituted a major political rupture. In the postwar period, science and technology consolidated the embryonic state and legitimated white authority – and racial segregation – by valorising rationality, order and progress. Members of scientific associations helped to build the university system which expanded rapidly after the First World War. The confluence of scientific and industrial expertise in Johannesburg was signalled by the establishment of a South African Institute for Medical Research in 1912. The national Department of Agriculture was a key employer of applied scientists, and veterinary researchers at Onderstepoort tackled a range of animal diseases. Innovative individuals such as Junod, Merensky and Marais advanced entomology, geology and zoology. Jan Smuts and J.H. Hofmeyr were committed to active participation in the emergent Commonwealth, viewing science as a means to transcend differences between English- and Afrikaans-speakers. In the 1920s and 30s both became strong advocates of the ‘South Africanisation’ of science and of research in the southern hemispheres. These included new theories of continental drift developed by Alexander du Toit, as well as remarkable paleontological discoveries indicating South Africa’s importance in the evolution of humankind.

The post-apartheid ANC government took pride in repurposing the country as a modern, democratic state and promoted a vision of science and technology for the common good. Astronomy was a particular beneficiary of the new dispensation. The Southern African Large Telescope at Sutherland was part of the dividend resulting from the country’s transition to democracy and the decommissioning of nuclear weaponry. Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki, advocated national renewal through an ‘African Renaissance’ that promoted both indigenous knowledge and scientific ambition. Mbeki’s suspicion of the authority of Western science and his Africanist affinities impelled him to intervene in the controversy surrounding HIV/AIDS and to support AIDs denialism. It has often been alleged that Mbeki was caught between ‘indigenous’ and ‘Western’ knowledge, yet his scientific legacy was more complex. In fields such as ethno-botany, for instance, there is evidence of complementary research in post-apartheid South Africa between scientists and carriers of African knowledge of plant medicines. The process of developing a new spirit of ‘South Africanism’ in the post-apartheid rainbow nation meant greater openness to South Africa’s position as an African nation, while also inviting bids leadership of Africa through ‘big science’ initiatives like astronomy and Antarctic research.

The last step in the ascent of the chain of being was from the apes (considered as the highest animals) to humans. In the eighteenth century the linear model of the chain was applied to this transition by depicting the non-European races as intermediate stages between the apes and the highest human type. Nineteenth-century anthropologists used various characters, especially skull size and shape, to give an appearance of scientific credibility to the supposed racial hierarchy. Early theories of evolution often treated the 'lower' races as relics of earlier stages in the origin of humanity. When evolution was represented as a branching tree, the concept of parallelism was invoked to imply that some branches of humanity had not advanced as rapidly up the scale as others. Europeans' sense of their own racial superiority was thus preserved in the post-Darwinian era by converting the chain of being into an abstract scale of mental development ascended by several forms but at different rates.

Applying the Darwinian perspective to human origins required palaeoanthropologists to abandon the assumption that the human race is the goal of the evolutionary process. Darwin himself suggested that our acquisition of higher mental powers was a by-product of an adaptive shift to walking upright. Although rejected for decades, this approach became widely accepted in the 1930s as fossil discoveries confirmed that bipedalism preceded the expansion of the brain and the plausibility of natural selection was boosted by the synthesis with genetics. Most of the biologists who pioneered the synthesis accepted that the human species could no longer be regarded as an inevitable outcome of evolution. Science-fiction authors began to explore the idea that there might be non-human aliens, recognizing that evolution could produce intelligent beings in many different ways.