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The Human Journey

New ISHK website to follow humanity from our origins in Eastern Africa and the Middle East to the present day, with an eye to what comes next

Drafts of research reports on several Human Journey topics are now available for viewing (Adobe Acrobat PDF format).

About 100,000 years ago, modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens), appeared in East Africa and the Middle East. Research in fields such as genetics, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and linguistics will help us follow the major routes taken by modern humans in their expansion from these areas to the present day.

The Human Journey website will overlay the significant stages of this journey with what we know of how we adapted physically and culturally to conditions along the way. Our hope is that an examination of these determinants will reveal a better understanding for anyone using the website of who we are and why we do what we do.

Moving beyond our inheritance; who we are and what we might become
The human story is one of movement and adaptation to movement — individually and collectively, psychologically and physically. The underlying process has been the evolution of perception under different circumstances. We now know that the different “worlds” we inhabit — family, language, culture — actually complete the development of the brain. The brain, developing in the world, wires up differently, and this is why individuals in different cultures have such difficulty understanding each other: even their visual systems are not the same.

As our contact with other cultures increases, we need to understand differences in human development to appreciate better what we share and can learn from each other. Our need is to evolve more accurate views of our world and ourselves from which we can develop a more complete understanding of who and what we are, and what we might become.

We human beings inherit much, and the most important thing we inherit is the ability to go beyond our inheritance.

Follow those who left
Starting from our beginnings in Africa and the Middle East, visitors to The Human Journey website will follow those who left, consider what factors mitigated their leaving, and see where they went.

Stages of the human journey:
• The journey started from Eastern Africa and the Middle East. Where did it take us? How did we change along the way? How did our journey affect us all so differently and in so many ways: skin color, languages, cultures, customs, beliefs?

• Humanity’s movement began with small groups splintering off and beginning their individual evolution, developing perceptions of the world in response to different circumstances.

• Eventually peoples crossed paths, influenced each other, and began to come back together.

As they navigate through these stages on the website, visitors will see what adaptations/choices were required/selected in various circumstances, how these and adaptations to various environments lead to specific changes in culture, diet, world view, perception, social organization, language, math, and forms of communication.

ISHK's perspective will be based on consciousness: as human beings we don't only adapt, we make choices. Our goal is to help contributors and readers come to a better understanding of the process: what are the real goals, stated or unstated? What, in the perception of the community or its leaders, are the reasons why something needs to happen? What were the perceived problems and their possible solutions?

Confronting these decisions will be one of the interactive features of the website. Visitors will even be able to suggest alternatives.

Visitors will be able to see which solutions were selected in different communities and why. How did these solutions affect the community and change people's perceptions of themselves and their world? Visitors will see how the accumulation of such creative adaptations make our cultures and us so different.

Visitors will also be able to explore how we are all the same. What are the “Human Universals,” the things we all have in common with which we began the journey and which continue to unite us as human beings?

Key questions about mankind
Along the way, visitors will confront some of the most basic questions about mankind. Who are we, really? How did our myths about ourselves develop? Which myths are useful and which stand in our way? What tendencies in us made us select and cling to the stories we chose to represent our histories? Are there patterns running through these histories we can recognize because of our exposure to psychology, both traditional and contemporary?

What is the basic “package”?
What do we all share — e.g., nervous system, language ability?

What was the first social grouping?
As groups became larger and began to move, what structures and institutions developed to handle the changes and keep society organized? How and when do the institutions begin to serve themselves instead of the people and begin to lose their adaptive value?

What is the role of the small group in fostering new adaptive change?

What patterns, similarities and differences do we see in the development of our various cultures, myths and stories, religion, language, diet, emotions, art and architecture, music?

Problem-solving and specialization
Human beings were always problem solvers, both psychically and physically. But once out of the immediate danger of large predators, how good were we at selecting the real problems that needed solving? Or did we focus on the problems that attracted us: the emotionally satisfying ones, or the easy ones? And how good are we now? How accurate is our view of our thought as “ rational,” our emotions as “true” our speech as “honest,” our God or not-god as “right?” How did dealing with expanded territory and community contribute to specialization? Did specialization contribute to an emphasis of some views and skills over others?

Once we begin to answer these questions, like a master chess player, we can better predict outcomes and make moves to ensure a better future.

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