dapted to live in a certain type of environment. The lion needed grassy plains - it could never survive in the ice and snow of the frigid north. The deer were at home on the forests. Imagine a deer trying to live its life in a river! It just wouldn't work!
The first human beings were not born knowing what to eat, or how to protect themselves. They were not particularly suited for any particular area of the earth. Human beings were quite like other animals in other ways. They were mammals, which meant that they had hair, gave birth to live babies and nursed them with milk afterwards. But they were also very different from the animals in some important ways. Because of these differences, the first people survived in the world that they found.
The first human beings walked on two feet, and this freed their hands so that they could work with them, making things, and caring for their children and playing. Imagine how difficult it would be if this weren't so. How could you hold a pencil, or carry anything that you needed, if you had to use your hands and your feet in order to walk!
Look at your hand. Your thumb is a wonderful thing! It can cross your palm to reach your fingers. (demonstrate the opposable thumb as you speak) You can pick up the most delicate of shells with just your thumb and forefinger because of this, or you can squeeze your hands tightly around the branch of a tree, and suspend yourself in the air! No other creature can do the things that humans can do with their hands. What animal can thread a needle, drive a car safely through the city, or paint a beautiful picture? Only human beings, who have those wonderful hands, can do such things!
Another important gift that the first human beings had was a larger, more complex brain. With this brain, human beings could think about things. Their intelligence led them to wonder about all that they saw around them. They wondered why the rain fell, and what the stars were. They wondered about the great rumbling of thunder in the sky, and they wondered what caused the sun to rise in the sky, then fall and disappear into the night. Human beings could think about what happened in the past, and they could think about what might happen in the future. Right now, you might be thinking about what I just said, or perhaps you are wondering what I'm going to say next! The minds of the first people, just like yours and mine, were able to imagine answers to the questions they asked themselves, and they were able to find many ways of discovering the reasons for things.
This ability to think, to wonder and imagine was what enabled human beings to invent language, so that they could tell each other what they were thinking. It was how numbers, mathematics, and geometry came to be. Art and music were created by the first humans, too. It is thanks to them that we have statues and paintings to enjoy, and songs to sing, for the first humans taught each other to do these things, and that knowledge has been passed on to us.
The first humans were not suited for any particular part of the earth. You may think that this must have been a terrible thing, and perhaps you are partly right, because this meant that they couldn't just live somewhere without any trouble. But this turned out to be a great gift, too. You see, because they had their minds with which to think and imagine, and because they had hands with which to work, human beings could say when the weather got cold and the snow began to fall: "I'm cold! I need some sort of covering for my body, to keep me warm like the lion's fur keeps it warm. Some sort of a shelter, like the nest of the squirrel would also keep out the snow and the cold!"
And so, human beings invented clothing and houses. They didn't need bodies that were especially adapted to a particular place in the world. Instead they used what they found around them to adapt the environment to themselves! In this way, human beings spread across the world, and found ways to live in the plains of the lion, the forest of the deer, and the icy lands of the seals. The human beings of thos