[clacke2]

We didn't have to be first. Other primates might have picked up the rock before we did, but eventually lost the race. Maybe the fire-cooking, rock-throwing domesticating niche is just that competitive.

So it might be more like "we are the ones that remain", but yeah, either variant is a spin on the old weak anthropic principle, which is never quite satisfying.

[hyperpallium]

And we do seem to have wiped out/outcompeted Neanderthals etc.

> fire-cooking, rock-throwing domesticating niche

Just knowing if that was the evolutionary pressure along the path would be enough for me (even if it could have been another ape or a corvid or whatever - or maybe they are on that path now?)

BTW Matt Ridley has the theory that division of labour (trade enabling specialization) was the gradient.