Human evolution : a niche construction

The evolution of man is a "niche construction" like many others in the living world: a modification of the environment that creates an artificial environment favorable to the species and to which it is well adapted. In hominins, this adaptation involves both biological and behavioral aspects, in which technology, social complexity and a high-performance brain play an essential role. Energy conservation in hominins has thus gradually focused on prioritizing the brain and its needs. Human modification of the environment did not begin with the industrial era. They go back much further, and were already perceptible in the Pleistocene, notably through the impact of human predation on the animal world. Fire as a tool for transforming landscapes was undoubtedly also one of the means employed by Paleolithic man to create an environment more favorable to his way of life and the exploitation of animal resources. In the Holocene, the development of agriculture led to the first emissions of greenhouse gases. In turn, this niche construction itself affected the human genome. In connection with the development of an ever larger and better-connected brain, and above all the energy challenge it represents, humans perfected a cooperative form of reproduction that largely explains their adaptive success and a degree of pro-sociality unequalled among primates.