Homo Artifex: How Art Made Us Truly Humans

What defines us as humans? If someone asked you these questions, how would you answer? The ability to use tools, bipedal walking, and a keen ability to communicate. One or all of these answers would probably come to mind. However, if we think about it, several groups of animals can perform these skills, to a greater or lesser extent. Monkeys use tools, chimpanzees walk bipedally during many of their daily activities, and several animals have been studied for their complex communication skills. Therefore, in isolation, none of these characteristics could truly define us. However, there is one characteristic that is unique to us: symbolic capacity. Among the manifestations of this capacity, one of the most intriguing is art. The adaptive advantages of creativity, communication, and language are evident. However, in the specific case of Art, it seems to arise in part as a need of the artist, who, in this way, expresses his relationship and that of his group with the environment to which he is intimately connected. It does not seem, therefore, to have been born especially with a practical utility or as a characteristic that offers a greater possibility of survival or differential reproduction. Some of the great enigmas are: is Art an indispensable element for our species? How could natural selection have acted on it? Our unique characteristics have led us and continue to guide us along the path of being the only animals today to observe our surroundings and our species, trying to interpret and modify what we see and what we do not see. Based on Steve Minthen's concept of 'Multiple Intelligences', we discuss the main elements that made Art a fundamental component of human societies, at least since the Neolithic Revolution.