In his excellent book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind¹, Yuval Noah Harari makes a compelling argument that humans evolved into the planet’s dominant species because of the unique development of language. This was followed by what he refers to as a ‘cognitive revolution’ (c.70,000 years ago) that allowed humans to form shared myths, beliefs, and stories, which in turn enabled us to collaborate flexibly in large groups.
