The English are getting a lot of flack of late, even to the extent where there are some who deny that the English exist at all. So who are the English? The ‘English’ (in this context also includes the Welsh, Scots and Irish – the people of the UK)
Some 6 million years age an ape-like creature started to walk on two legs instead of all fours. He then began to hunt and eat meat. The meat was critical for the brain to develop. Why he did it we do not know but it was the start of the line of humanoids. They began to evolve into several different humanoids until about 200,000 years ago something happened in the brain and to the body of one group of them and so came Homo Sapien (that is us) who appeared in the southern tip of Africa.
The huminoid brain seemed to have several compartments that each dealt individually with a different skill. Making fire, hunting, knapping stone tool, making skin cloths. In Homo Sapiens those distinctly separate areas of the brain began to cross-link and cooperate – a massive change. That cross-linking in the brain enabled Homo Sapiens to create and invent and to have almost unlimited imagination. (Read ‘The Pre History of the Mind’ by Stephen Mithen) Of the other Hominoids it seems that only Neanderthals had some limited creativity of thought as they began to bury their dead with very simple ceremonies and grave goods for a select few as they started to grapple with the mystery of death and what happens to the spark of life when it leaves the body after death. Where does it go if anywhere? Something we do not understand even today.
Homo Sapiens began to wonder why rain occurred, what made thunderstorms and having intelligence but only with very limited knowledge invented gods and very elaborate ceremonies for the dead as a belief in the afterlife developed. Some of the more astute became Shamans to give themselves control over the less astute in their society.
The Homo Sapiens migrated up to the north east of Africa where perhaps some 50,000 years ago a small group of perhaps 50 crossed the water to what is now Arabia and settled. The rest moved west to become the many tribes of Africans. They were the same people with the same DNA as the ones who crossed into Asia Minor but evolved into different breeds. (Read The ‘Journey of Man’ by Spencer Wells). Some good at running, some swimming, some less than 5ft tall some over 6 ft tall. Different abilities but all the same people.
