Human Evolution & Fantasy/Sci-Fi Races
Today I’d like to talk about fantasy and science fiction races, and how we can draw on discoveries in human evolution to worldbuild more original races.
My inspiration for today’s post comes in part from this wonderful video by YouTuber Hello Future Me.
(Also, to make something clear up front, when we refer to fantasy and science fiction “races”, what we usually mean is species).
What I’d like to explore today is the idea that major discoveries pertaining to human evolution, including the discovery of a number of new species within the past several years, can be wonderful sources of inspiration.
What Are Fantasy & Sci-Fi Races for, Anyway?
Why in the worlds does anyone bother with fantasy and sci-fi races, anyway? Why not simply use standard-issue humans, with all of our incredible cultural diversity?
I’ll argue that one of the most important reasons is the new possibilities it opens up.
Consider Tolkien’s hobbits, particularly his hobbit protagonists Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins: they’re small, which can help with sneaking into a dragon’s treasure hoard, and they’re hardy, which can help with carrying around the One Ring that Gandalf and Galadriel fear to take.
They also make for a wonderful theme of small, unassuming people being the ones who pose the greatest threat to the Dark Lord Sauron.
What about dwarves? Short, industrious people, capable of mining, metalsmithing, and great feats in battle, also an interesting source of variation in the world.
Elves? Tall, beautiful people, capable of elegance in everything they attempt, long-lived, an older race passing from the world, another interesting source of variation.
What Can Human Evolution Add?
Like practically everything, Tolkien’s races and their correlates in Pathfinder/Dungeons & Dragons/Warcraft have been done over and over again, and are no longer original.
Certainly you can still come up with your own versions of these races, but why not be more original if you can?
Let’s consider some other possibilities, starting with our vanished cousins and (for many of us) partial ancestors the Neanderthals.
Ancient Humans of the West: Neanderthals
I’ll summarize Neanderthals by saying that they were a Western Eurasian species of ancient human that arose sometime around 430,000 years ago, though the populations that lived from about 130,000 years ago are better-known. They ranged from Portugal and Wales to the Altai Mountains of Siberia.
To be clear, there has been a lot of pushback against the whole image of the Neanderthals as lumbering, stupid brutes. Evidence from a few years ago points to them being able to create jewelry from eagle talons, which indicates a penchant for artistic creativity.
There’s also abundant evidence for Neanderthal heritage in the form of genetic contributions to modern human populations outside of Africa, so I’d argue that they’re ripe for worldbuilding some interesting intercultural stories.
Neanderthals famously featured in Clan of the Cave Bear, prehistoric fiction. In science fiction, a genetically reconstructed “race” or “subrace” of Neanderthals, the Neoanders, appears in Neal Stephenson’s novel Seveneves, or more precisely the last third of that novel.
Across Asia: Denisovans
Back in 2010, a pinky bone from a young girl found in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia yielded DNA from an entirely new ancient human population: the Denisovans, eastern cousins of the Neanderthals.
Since then, the discoveries have come so thick and fast that it’s difficult to summarize them all.
First, we discovered Denisovans were closer to Neanderthals than they were to us, Homo sapiens, and that interbreeding between Denisovans and some ancient Homo sapiens meant that indigenous Melanesians and Australian Aboriginal people have some Denisovan DNA.
It took a bit longer to discover that East Asians also have Denisovan DNA, and scientists came to believe there were at least two interbreeding events between Homo sapiens and Denisovans that contributed to modern East Asian populations, and one in the ancestors of South Asians and Oceanians (Melanesians and Australian Aboriginal peoples) — although even newer discoveries point to the latter having mixed with something else.
(Also, to be clear, an “event” refers to a historical period of interbreeding, not one specific case involving two individuals).
Interbreeding between Denisovans and ancient Homo sapiens populations is associated with interesting dentition patterns in some modern human populations, and with a hemoglobin gene that helps Sherpas and other Tibetans breathe easily in the high altitudes of the Himalayas.
And yes, a Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid has been found.
More recent evidence points to the Denisovans having been far more diverse than previously thought, with at least three distinct populations, one of which may qualify for the status of a new species.
The shared ancestor of Neanderthals and Denisovans is even thought to have interbred with something else about 700,000 years ago, a population of “super-archaic” hominins which may have been Homo erectus.
I’m unaware of Denisovans or a Denisovan-like race featuring in any significant work of science fiction or fantasy, probably because their discovery is still recent and we have very little confirmed fossil material to know what they looked like, but the possibilities are vast.
Ancient Survivors: Homo naledi
Imagine a species of humans with hands, wrists, and feet similar to ours and to the Neanderthals, but with a much more primitive, almost chimp-like, head.
Imagine also that this species lived as recently as somewhere between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, recent enough to have crossed paths with our own.
If that sounds too weird to be true, meet Homo naledi.
Homo naledi had a mixture of ancient features, somewhat like the much older australopithecines, and more modern features, like those of our own species and Neanderthals.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing is the discovery that even though Homo naledi had a brain not much larger than that of a chimp, it was a remarkably sophisticated, well-organized brain.
In fact, Homo naledi’s brain arguably shows similarities with ours in Brodmann area 45, part of Broca’s area, which in our species has links to language. They probably couldn’t talk, but they may have been moving in the direction of enhanced communication.
The possibilities for storytelling are considerable. I’m thinking maybe a society of Homo sapiens with an enslaved Homo naledi population, something like Harry Turtledove’s A Different Flesh — though that one involves the very different Homo erectus in the Americas.
Or maybe you’d prefer wandering bands of Homo naledi, surviving on the fringes of a world dominated by Homo sapiens (and perhaps one or more other “races”). Let your mind go wild!
Real Hobbits: Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis
Back in 2003, a team working on the Indonesian island of Flores discovered something incredible: the bones of a tiny species of human, a woman who lived about 80,000 years ago and who stood only about three feet, six inches tall.
Named Homo floresiensis, these humans were soon dubbed “hobbits” for their small size.
Other bones have also been found, with most remains dated between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago, and tools from 190,000 to 50,000 years ago. Interestingly, there are some much older tools, about 1 million years old, which may have been made by an ancestor.
It’s hard to overstate what a big deal (sorry) these tiny humans are. For one thing, they’re small: three feet six, and with brains only about one-third the size of ours.
There’s also been some controversy about their origins: one early idea was that they were a dwarfed descendant of Homo erectus, though another theory puts them down to a more primitive lineage related to Homo habilis. Either scenario would be astonishing; some evidence favors the latter.
Either way, since Flores is an island that was not connected to the Southeast Asian mainland even then, we have to explain how they or their ancestors reached Flores across an open channel of water.
More recently, a second small-bodied species has been found on the Philippine island of Luzon, and dubbed Homo luzonensis.
Again, the story-telling possibilities are considerable. There’s no reason to confine ourselves to the Tolkien tropes for “little people”.
Maybe we can imagine a sword-and-sorcery fantasy where tribes of Homo floresiensis-like “hobbits” live in dense jungles and use strange magics to hide themselves from the larger Big People.
Or how about a flintlock fantasy setting, with Homo floresiensis-like “hobbits” serving as agricultural laborers, livestock herders, and assistants to gunsmiths and other skilled craftsmen?
We could even imagine them on the decks of starships.
Humans, Re-Imagined
Ultimately, fantasy “races” tend to be different versions of ourselves, reimagined. You’ll see this if you play a lot of Pathfinder or Dungeons & Dragons, or really if you read practically any fantasy or sci-fi story with a sentient race other than our own.
It’s a great deal of fun to explore possibilities from human evolution, and to build complex cultural and social processes that go beyond those simple biological differences. There’s a great deal more to unpack here, and hopefully we’ll do a bit of that next time.
So, don’t be afraid to try using ancient human species in your world-building, either as-is or as the inspiration for fantasy species. Endless worldbuilding possibilities await you!
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