When did mankind (homo sapiens) realize themselves?

Question

from the transition of simply animals to human beings. what are the earliest recordings of human life.

i wanna know cuz like animals don't know **** and we evolved into creatures that judge and percieve. when the h**l did that happen? did it just appear in one strain of gene or did it sorta just happen all at one go???

Answer 1

There are actually a lot of animals that have a sense of "self", meaning that they can recognize themselves in a mirror, usually. Soem of these are dolphins, elephants, and blackbirds.

But it seems that the ability to percieve and think and pre-plan things develops from having a large frontal cortex. This is only incredibly present in Homo sapiens sapiens (us), but it was also in Homo neanderthalus, but it was smaller. We have the ability of art and religion and philosophy. Neanderthals had some sort of concept of religion, but that was about it. Homo erectus kept sentimental carvings with them, as well (this can be construed as art.)

Answer 2

It could happen any day now...

Answer 3

Chipped stone tools and constructed shelters go back 2 million years maybe then. They say it can't be determined by skull size because it has more to do with the organization of the brain than the size.

Answer 4

Way back, a spark must have ignited in the brain of some ancient precursor of humanity.  That spark, which many consider burns in the brains of chimpanzees, gorillas, and in the cetacians (whales and dolphins)

From that point it is easier (not much, but a little easier!) to envision the development of self-awareness, at which point I would consider religion began to play a part, beginning with the questions 'how' and 'why', which could only be answered by gods!

It's all up and up from there (or downhill, some would say!)  But when that happened will never be known!  The brain, never mind a neuron sparking into life, does not fossilise.

'When' is not a good question anyway, because of the time span of thousands of years  it must have taken for that spark to grow into the flame of sentience.