Current humans may have emerged physically around 195,000 years ago, but we seemingly emerged mentally only around 30,000 years ago. Evidence for this is seen in the cave paintings of southern Europe, the radical advance in stone tool technology, and the extinction of our Neanderthal rivals -- all of which dramatically began about 30 millenia ago.
Our body and head shape and size over this 195,000-year period stayed almost exactly the same -- except for an odd and ominous 10% reduction in height and brain size recently. But during this time of virtual corporeal stasis, humans also likely: 1) raised our IQ; 2) improved our speech; 3) enhanced our socializing and cooperation -- especially hunting and trading to mutual profit; 4) developed our eye-hand coordination; 5) became more creative, adaptive, and universally flexible; 6) learned to much better sing, dance, tells stories, make/play instruments, and appreciate these artistic abilities; 7) and even came to much more enjoy childish play and drugs and sex.
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(This is much of what I gathered, or at least speculated, after reading the vast majority of Chip Walter's rather mediocre book The Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived. The subject matter is fascinating and important, but I found this 2013 work repetitious, unperceptive, pretentious, and even factually loose (with typos). A short, decent, video interview of the author [by a libertarian!] is here: http://online.wsj.com/article/DEDF09ED-71E8-4DAF-8131-C30D86FC9150.html#!DEDF09ED-71E8-4DAF-8131-C30D86FC9150.)