Does the name we have given our own species need to be replaced? The Leiden professor of archeology Marie Soressi thinks so.

Homo sapiens we have baptized our own kind: the ‘wise’ or ‘sensible’ man. That implies that we were smarter than other species of the genus Homo that no longer exist on Earth, such as the Neanderthals. But, said Leiden professor Hominin Diversity Archaelogy Marie Soressia during her inaugural lecture last weekWe don’t have any evidence for that at all. That’s why she proposes to rename our species to gay faber: the ‘making man’.

big surprise

Initially, Soressi was concerned with the question of how it was possible that the human (sub)species Neanderthals could disappear about 40,000 years ago. But while she was doing that research, she says on the phone, she determined that it is impossible to say that the Homo sapiens was smarter than the Neanderthals at the time.

Marie Soressia

Archaeologist Marie Soressi at work in France. (Photo: Matthew Wilson)

Another turning point in how we think about Neanderthals was the publication of the first Neanderthal genome, in 2010. “It showed that Neanderthals and humans reproduced together,” says Soressi. “That was a big surprise. Previously, the Neanderthals were humans who had completely disappeared. It turned out that we carry some of their genes with us. So we share more with them than we ever expected.”

More offspring

In 2013, Soressi further published a scientific article entitled ‘Neanderthals made the first specialized tools from bones in Europe’. “The tools the Neanderthals used to work skins 50,000 years ago are extremely similar to what you see today in almost every workshop that works with leather,” she says. “Apparently we could never have come up with anything better to do that job with.”

But then what was it that made Neanderthals and other human species extinct, and Homo sapiens the only one left? “We somehow got more offspring,” says Soressi. “It is not clear exactly what happened. But at least we need to stop thinking it was because we were smarter.”

What makes us us

That’s why Soressi also turns against the name Homo sapiens for our species. Instead, she advocates gay faber: the ‘making man’. This does not mean that ‘we’ were better at making tools than, for example, the Neanderthals. “There’s no clear evidence for that.”

Well, she says, tool making is something that has been going on for a very long time in human evolution. “That’s what made us us. Our capabilities have evolved through our interest in developing and making tools.”

Ötzi the ice man

Our fascination with stuff seems to be getting a little out of hand, Soressi says. In 1991, the body of Ötzi the Iceman, who must have lived about three thousand years before Christ, was found. “The number of items Ötzi used throughout his life was probably equal to the number of items we use today in a single day.”

In addition, the professor continues, Ötzi knew how his knife was made and what materials it was made of. “I now call with a smartphone of which I have no idea what materials are in it, where they come from, who put it together… The same goes for dozens of other objects that I use every day.” And that lack of knowledge makes it difficult to reduce our carbon footprint, for example, she continues.

First question marks

But back to that name for our species. Is there really a chance that we Homo sapiens going to say goodbye soon? “I only questioned that name for the first time during my inaugural lecture,” says Soressi. “Now I want to write articles about it and discuss my point with colleagues. And who knows what will come of it.”