The evolution of modern humans enabled us to fill a particular niche. Our ancestors gradually moved away from a wooded or jungle environment, which still suits the other primates, and out onto the open plains. In doing so, they lost the ability to climb trees, but gained an upright stance that allowed fast walking and running, and larger, more complex brains which led to the production of tools and weapons, and communication skills necessary for collaborative hunting and group security. And, in time, to the development of agriculture, establishment of towns, and creation of civilizations. However, modern human animals are little changed from our immediate predecessors who first evolved an upright stance and a big clever brain.

But these two essential characteristics of the human animal – our verticality and fast gait which are dependent on powerful leg and back muscles, and a big, complex brain, are now the two most neglected human features. Modern living, which involves long periods of sitting and lying, and little opportunity to develop and use the muscles that keep us upright, and the ever-increasing use of machines that think for us, is failing to maintain those features that originally separated us from our primate antecedents. Most of us would be physically and mentally unable to survive away from our civilised environments. Are we still evolving? Perhaps future human animals will more resemble blobs than chimpanzees. In time, we may even evolve different shapes of hands – the left with palm uppermost, capable of holding a smart phone (and a bend in the neck allowing constant attention), the right with fingers half-curled prepared to clutch the next take-away coffee!