The Worst Time To Have Ever Been A Human

we humans members of the genus homo have come remarkably far in the 2. 8 million years of our existence and a lot of progress has especially been made within the last 200 and today we enjoy unprecedented levels of technology that has helped the worldwide lifespan reach roughly 73 years at Birth however the journey to get here has not been an easy one and we've had to endure many hardships sometimes caused by our own doing and this is reflected by the shockingly low lifespans seen across time for example example in 18th century France it was between 27 and 30 years old in Classical Greece 25 the Bronze Age 26 and during the Neolithic period it got as low as 20 yet this being said Homo sapiens or modern humans have had a relatively easy compared to other human species this is something you should be eternally grateful for as life as an early human was sometimes downright Bull and it's not too uncommon for paleontologists to unearth an early human specimen who died under very Grizzly circumstances now based on research it seems that many homo species suffered such lives but one study in particular found that a certain group The 2- milliony old homo habis had it almost comically bad and died so often so young that the majority of individuals didn't even live long enough to see their teen years with the average lifespan having been estimated at about just 12 years old so more than 6 times less than the current average and what's crazy is that chances are that it was even lower as the study looked at 26 random specimens and noted a lack of neonate and infantile individuals heavily suggesting that the mortality rate was in reality much higher and thus the life expectancy even lower than 12 years old such a fast and short life makes the homo habis the last human species you'd want to wake up as and represents possibly the worst time to have ever been a human overall which thus begs the question why were their lives so utterly brutal well unfortunately for them the answer is that virtually everything was stacked against them including their very own bodies as homohabilis was one of the smallest humans to have ever lived possibly averaging under 4 ft or 1. 2 M making them 32% shorter than ourselves and in the best case weighing just 60% of what we do such a small body obviously made them quite vulnerable to injuries and to add fuel to the fire they didn't even have any notable robustness to their skeletal structure that would have at least helped them compensate for their lack of size and it's likely that they experienced at least one serious fall throughout their life because they're partially arboreal meaning they spent a good chunk of their lives and trees and given that chimps often experien at least one major fall throughout their lives the same can reasonably be said for homohabilis especially since they weren't as well adapted for climbing compared to chimpanzees although relative to other humans they were more aplike overall a result of them having been one of the first of our kind to enter the scene with an existence that spanned from 2.

. 3 to 1. 65 million years ago some of these apik features included longer Limbs and slightly apish extremities that allow them to better grip while climbing and swing from Branch to Branch now possessing the ability to climb with ease is of course very useful especially when surrounded by predators and in most cases it lets animals easily avoid danger therefore prolonging their life however in the case of the habilis the benefits of this ability were largely negated as it was paired with the worst possible diet carnivorism now you think that a human living on a plant would be strictly vegetarian but the habilis actually exhibited one of the higher levels of meat eating seen in humans reflected by their very large iners that help them cut through meat and their proportionally giant mandibles that were thicker than those of any living ape or human which allowed them to generate more torsion and stress while biting and thus helping to rip meat off of a body this being said they did also eat a lot of fruit and vegetables but their meat-rich diet ultimately forced them to leave the safety of trees routinely a problem exacerbated by their fondness for fish which brought them close to water and thus the dangers within and it wasn't just meat that was the problem but also how they got it as for some reason homo habis decided to specialize in Scavenging of all things which is almost funny considering their small size lack of large muscles and limited technology that consisted of simple stone tools in other words they did not have much to help them secure kills in one group of paleontologists found that at best they would only be able to reliably defend carcasses from jackals and cheetahs this meant basically nothing though as homo habis who lived in East and South Africa was surrounded by not one but multiple large carnivores that would frequently show up to contest carryon and to make matters worse these same Predators also routinely prayed on the habilis themselves as these early humans were for lack of a better term easy pickings and so if you were a homo habis you you can be sure that on the daily you live under the constant threat of being picked off by a very diverse range of different carnivores that mind you each had their own unique terrible way to dispatch you so I guess at least there's some variety for now direct evidence of interactions between predators and Havis are quite rare but when looking at time and general vicinity over 30 potential Predators have been identified with large cats in particular having had a profound impact on destroying their lifespans one of the most prevalent ones lurking around would have been the meganon a Jaguar sized saber-toothed cat that lived throughout Africa for the entire span of the H's existence and despite being Jaguar shaped it was more heavily built and alarmingly had lower limbs that were actually lion sized these limbs possessed giant paws at the ends of them where razor sharp recurved claws sat just waiting to dig into the Flesh of any unsuspecting Homo habilis once pinned the habet would then get to experience an array of sharp and serrated teeth including two enlarged canines that would sink into their throat severing major arteries and nerves and fortunately leading to unconsciousness within seconds However unfortunately there's also the chance that an unlucky victim would have had to experience the more rare but much more terrifying killing method of having its entire head virtually covered by the attacking saber-tooth cat and miraculously this actually happened to a known human specimen who had puncture marks to its aital bone in other words the back of its head but what's crazy is that the angle of the bite confirmed that the attack did not come from the back but rather the front which basically means the meganon put the entire human's head in its mouth and the idea is that on top of causing skull and brain damage such an attack could kill by completely smothering the victim's nose and mouth with a saber-tooth's jaw leading to Suffocation and in a case and more bad news for our distant relatives the meganon had a very healthy appetite for homohabilis so much so in fact that it literally altered their carbon isotopic levels which directly shows us that it was even more of a human killer than other animals that are associated with hunting primitive humans such as the dinofelis which I should also mention coexisted with homohabilis and presumably hunted it as well and to add fuel to the fire there was also homotherium and midus lurking around too which is very unfortunate as the latter happened to be one of the largest felids to have ever existed with some species reaching 405 kg or 800 93 lb comparable to both a Smilodon and male polar bears at this size it's not hard to imagine that even a well-placed paw swipe could take out an individual especially since many victims seem to be targeted while young and avoiding death by Maus would have been surprisingly difficult because despite its great size the mtis was a better jumper than many of the smaller more agile cats as its legs were too short to pursue long chases which indicates that it relied on powerful jumps in order to catch prey which is all to say that escape by climbing a tree was pretty much out of the question meanwhile while smaller the homotherium still stuck out as a notoriously bad animal for habilis to get caught by as its canines and ins sizers were shortened but broader than what seen in other saber-tooth cats transforming them into powerful puncturing weapons that also benefited from crenulations in other words IR regular serration that were wavy creating a one-of-a-kind bite that both sliced and punctured simultaneously and now while these cats were definitely a menace to habous society they were not the only group notorious for shortening their lives as another family predators that loveed to snack on our ancestors were hyenas like the cats there were also multiple different hyenas that went after hominins but there were two that really stuck out those being the kasmo pores and pachy Cruda now in typical unlucky habous fashion the paky Cuda happened to be one of the largest hyenas of all time with specimens not only averaging the size of a lionist but also possessing a bone crushing bite that is likely one of the strongest pound-for-pound bites of any terrestrial mammal this unusually powerful bite was also problematic not just because it would absolutely destroy you but also because the ability to crack bones meant easy access to bone marrow and thus it's likely that paky Cuda showed up to a lot of carcasses not a great thing for our Scavenging ancestor and then when you add in the fact that paky Cuda likely hunted and pack you suddenly have a hole serving and a half of death and if caught you'd also have to worry about the fact that in many situations hyenas will literally eat their prey alive which is something that I at least personally would want to avoid and this problem would have actually been worse with the cosmop porites a smaller yet in some way scarier kind of hyena this was a member of an informal group of hyenas who are touted as being doglike meaning they are more Grassle and Nimble likely prowling around in large paths this more fragile size might sound like good news but it really isn't a small but giant pack of dog like Hyena's eating you is definitely vastly more painful than getting one and dned by a giant one but the real issue wasn't this aspect of the chasmo pores but rather its limb construction which reflected adaptations designed for extreme speed bearing a strong resemblance to the legs seen in cheetah and thus leading to it being nicknamed the running or hunting hyena the major problem with this is that homo hablis on the other hand was not a very good runner and at best could achieve a certain degree of endurance running and to add to their misery these hyenas were also hyper carnivores meaning that over 70% of their calories came from meat alone and diet they enacted through their razor sharp teeth that strangely had edges shaped like those of a big cat but as bad as these guys sound they were nothing compared to what lurked in the waters of the homo habis environment giant Crocs in other words a nightmare for our ancestors considering that as mentioned they had a fondness for fishing and not with a fishing rod or spear but rather with their hands which almost makes it seem like they wanted to be hunted down by crocodiles and let's just say these Crocs were more than happy to oblige the most notable kinds back then happen to have belonged to the same genus of crocodile alive today the crocodilus that being said you would not have to worry about confusing them for any living species as these ones were utterly Giant with the two largest having been the crocodilus dorjon and the anthropophagus now you may be wondering about the anthrop part of the ladder's name and the reason for it is because this Croc loved to eat people leading to a name which literally means human eater and of course as such we have direct evidence for its humanly diet as in one formation alone two juvenile habis were found with severe damage to their legs and feet that match the teeth of this crocodile and thus showcasing how they would seemingly Target the legs while springing ambushes and then proceed to kill them by either drowning them or using a death roll to literally rip their limbs off which apparently happened in both of these two cases in other words not a pleasant way to go out and fighting back was not an option as anthropophagus was covered in very sturdy armor and was even larger than your normal saltwater crocodile with adults reaching a length of 7.

5 M or 25 ft and weighing around 1. 5 tons to just put that into perspective the longest recorded extent Croc an individual named lolong only reached 20 ft or 6 M and weighed just 1. 1 tons so as you can imagine at this gargantuan size anthropophagus surely had one killer bite which along with its human diet makes it come off as one pretty devilish creature which is why it's perfectly fitting that it also possessed two prominent ridges or horns above its eyes that made it not just lethal but also visually terrifying however while it seems to have definitely been the most problematic Croc for humans it wasn't actually the largest as that title went to the Thor Bor Sunny a slightly older crocodile that also coexisted with the habilis and prayed on them during the earlier days of our ancestors existence thankfully it wasn't that much bigger than its younger counterpart having been about 8 m or 26.

2 ft long but it's not that much of an upside as that of course still makes it the largest crocodilla species ever discovered which in turn also makes it one of the biggest true crocodiles to have ever lived and because its remains are so few and far between there's a very good chance that a got even bigger what was really unique about this Predator though was its skull as in addition to being gargantuan it was also much broader than what's seen in other living crocodiles perhaps being an adaptation to help better grip and Crush armored prey such as large Turtles despite the specialization it was still likely an opportunistic feeder who no doubt fed on the occasional porad in in fact the holotype for homohabilis a specimen dubbed oh7 may have been a victim itself as its foot and leg bones bore large Broad and deep puncture wounds that match the teeth of a giant croc and like the other fellows I mentioned earlier it seems that O7 lost its limb in this violent attack and also lost its life but what's crazy is that things for this specimen were even more unfair than just this as a certain group of researchers believe that it wasn't just attacked by a Croc but a mamalian carnivore as well because while analyzing the upper body paleontologist noticed that on its parietal bone the holotype had shallow Groove marks that did not match any bite seen in crocodiles but rather the damage bore an uncanny resemblance to the bite of large cats and thus leading to the idea that a leopard sized mammal had taken a chunk out of o7s head ouch to say the least although it's not known for certain if this attack had been carried out after the specimen had already died or if this had been an earlier attack that it managed to survive while this question remains it's clear that these guys had many predators to watch out for and of course prehistoric cats hyenas and giant Crocs were just the tip of the iceberg as you also had many predators around that are still alive today including various panthera canids Birds of Prey and snakes snakes especially were likely another major component in explaining homo haas' short lifespan because despite no direct evidence of attacks being known of we do know that in general snakes and hominids have a dicey relationship at best and to this day snakes cause tens of thousands of deaths within Africa alone with venomous snakes being the worst perpetrators while in uncontacted tribes attacks by constricting snakes Remain the highest source of mortality for specific groups and some scientists believe that snakes were so problematic for early man that they essentially created an evolutionary arms erase between the two with enhanced visual detection possibly being an adaptation designed to better help us detect camouflaged snakes not to mention that primates in general may be literally hardwired to fear snakes at least according to a few studies so in other words it's pretty much guaranteed that homohabilis were also victims of serpants now the amount of predators that the haas's diet forced them to confront was no doubt a travesty for them yet it wasn't just predators that ascending the trees brought them into contact with as many territorial herbivores and omnivores were also found in great numbers and included a variety of prehistoric rhinos hippos giant warart toogs elephant day giraffes and bids needless to say these animals did not kill humans as often as Predators but deaths still happened and despite being lesser in numbers and diversity herbivores and omnivores in present day Africa cause a few thousand deaths per year across the board and if forcing them to confront vicious animals wasn't enough then it's a good thing that their diets draw back went even further than this as it possibly also led to health problems namely to the teeth as of the 26 individuals studied only about 40% had decent teeth while the rest had severe wear and tear to their enamels and chipped and cracked teeth and while this may not sound all that gloomy it really is when you consider that the oldest specimen was only 25 years old and there were even multiple examples of specimens who were under 10 that already had major dental problems and to really exemplify this one individual who was 17 years old was found with Dentistry so poor that it was about two times as bad as what you would expect to see in a modern elderly human who also had bad dental hygiene this remarkable widespread level of damage was 100% caused by the diet of homohabilis but it was not necessarily a result of the scavenged meat it could have been instead a combination of Flesh bone and tough plant material that caused a lot of wear and tear plus given their lack of offense the habis likely did not get the the first pick when it came to food which would have result in it having a limited choice and forcing people to eat whatever was available even if it was no good for their dental hygiene another factor in this lack of choice which in itself likely also contributed to even more deaths was their environment in climate as during the pla scene Africa experienced a period of intense fluctuations in the climate that resulted in coldness and increased aridity that made food options very scarce and even leading to systematic starvation and it's believed that as the climate worsened populations had to rely more and more on Scavenging meat to supplement their caloric intake which in turn led to again more deaths as it brought them into contact with more Predators who also would have been more violent as they too felt the strains of a Dying ecosystem and interestingly but perhaps not that surprising the competition that was created from these climatic changes may have also led the habis to experience more fatalities at the hands of an animal it was very close to itself and I don't actually mean other haases although this was definitely a possibility but rather other humans as Haas remains been found in the same area of not just one but three other homo species as well as another homin with these specifically being Homo orter erectus and Rudolph fenus and the paranthropus Boise respectively we are aware that interactions with these close relatives at least sometimes ended violently as there is at least one known paranthropus specimen who was definitely killed by by habis possibly even becoming food for it now in this particular instance the habis managed to secure the dub yet with the other homo species it was likely at a severe disadvantage for a few reasons firstly it was the smallest homo species of the time and the least adapted for a terrestrial life so any confrontation on the ground would have been the home field for the others secondly the habis unfortunately had the second smallest brain seen in any human with an average brain size of between 500 and 687 cm cubed making it 25% smaller than the next smallest brain homo species it coexisted with the orter while the erectus could sometimes have a brain literally double the size this large difference likely led to an intelligence gap between the habilis and its competitors a notion partially reflected by the varying technologies that each species achieved as for example the erees had access to controlled fires picks knives and Cleavers which would have given them a huge Edge to during any fight to say the least and to make matters worse despite not being a honin I will also mention that the ape dinopithecus was likely a part of the fry as well and in some ways this creature was even more unsettling than multiple homo species as it was a giant primate that was closely related to baboons and thus had giant fangs and would have been roped with large amounts of muscles and when considering the fact that it could have been three times the size of homohabilis we should probably add this guy to the already very long list of potential Predators ultimately it was a very tough and unfair world to the homohabilis and according to the original study the worst part of an individual's life would have started at around age 10 when they entered a phase associated with maximum mortality though ironically reaching 10 in the first place would have already made you one of the luckier ones as based on another study it's presumed that 40% of everyone died before reaching double digits and if we factor in juveniles and infants then it's believed that this number increases to 60% this in turn would mean that the average age of death given in the study would actually be lower than 12 years which then of course raises a whole other question on how in the world did the habis even manage to exist for such a long time perhaps the answer lies in their technology that did in fact allow them to access bone marrow and tough plant material additionally there is an off-hand chance that a 1.