How did we evolve from indigent apes with no possessions into hoarding humans with more stuff than we can track? Our urge to accumulate has deep roots
WHEN I moved house recently, I was overwhelmed by the number of boxes containing my family's possessions. It made me feel quite sick.
Even so, I couldn't bring myself to throw any of it out. Possessions define us as a species; a life without them would be barely recognisable as human. Without clothes, a roof over my head, some means of cooking and a supply of clean water, I couldn't survive at all. I struggle to imagine living without a bed, a bath, towels, light bulbs and soap – let alone indulgences and luxuries, and all those objects with sentimental value.
Our closest living relatives make do with none of this. Chimps employ crude tools and build sleeping nests, but abandon them after ...
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