Human history: What’s most distinctive about humans as a species, viewed collectively?

Human history: What’s most distinctive about humans as a species, viewed collectively? What’s most distinctive about humans as a species, viewed collectively in human history? Penelope J. Corfield from the Royal Holloway, London University explores this critical question What’s most distinctive about humans as a species, viewed collectively in human history? Penelope J. Corfield from the Royal Holloway, London University explores this critical question. One fascinating question, when studying our fellow humans, is how we view ourselves collectively. Long ago, in 1758, the Swedish botanist- cum-biologist Carl Linnaeus (1707-78) proposed the flattering Latin tag ‘Homo sapiens’ [the wise or thinking human]. Incidentally, Linnaeus used ‘Homo’ as the species name for all humans. So he was not making a gender-based claim about men as opposed to women. Thinking is a generic human characteristic.