David R. Begun Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G3, Canada, bedun@chass.utoronto.ca Human Evolution is a contentious topic. Understanding the human evolu- tionary past is complex enough; predicting the future of human evolution is nearly impossible. However, we can reconstruct events that led to the evolu- tion of characteristics that have contributed to our success, and may hasten our extinction. 1. Introduction Primates, including humans, are vision dominant mammals, largely arbo- real, with unusually high levels of limb and dietary flexibility. Among primates, hominoids are the evolutionary group that includes humans and apes. All hominoids except humans practice a form of arboreal locomo- tion in which the body is positioned below rather than on top of a branch (suspension), and their brains are as large, or larger, than in any other pri- mate. In hominids, the group that includes the great apes (orangutans, go- rillas, chimpanzees and bonobos) and humans, there is a general slowing or delay in life history (lifespan, age at menarche, age of dental eruption and skeletal maturation, etc.), and a dramatic increase in brain and body size. All hominids are capable of extracting embedded, concealed or oth- erwise protected resources from the environment with a level of efficiency not generally seen in other primates, and all engage in intensive, pro- longed, and complex forms of social interaction. Humans, of course, take all of these attributes to the extreme. If great apes are the gifted members of the primate community, humans are the super geniuses. We excel in in- formation acquisition, processing and retrieval, and we are distinct from © 2006 Springer. – 69 V. Burdyuzha (ed.), The Future of Life and the Future of Our Civilization, 69 81. Human Evolution: Retrodictions and Predictions