We are the only human species left on Earth.
Once, we shared our planet with other human species, including Neanderthals and Denisovans. Today, they’re gone, leaving behind fossils, ancient tools and traces of their DNA within our own. So how did Homo sapiens end up as the last humans standing?
For decades, we believed our ancestors survived because they were smarter, stronger or better adapted. But what if the real secret to our success was something far more unexpected? What if we survived because we were friendlier?
Some researchers believe our ability to cooperate, build relationships and form larger social networks may have given us a crucial evolutionary edge, an advantage of just 2 per cent that, over thousands of years, could have changed the course of human history.