Evolutionary uniqueness of Homo sapiens

Determine whether Homo sapiens is evolutionarily unique in possessing human-like intelligence, or whether comparable cognitive capacities evolved independently in other hominin or non-human lineages that were subsequently lost or suppressed.

Background

The authors review distributed cognitive capacities across taxa and the possibility that human-like intelligence could have evolved in other hominins or non-human species, with potential extinction or niche dominance masking prior diversity.

Clarifying the uniqueness of Homo sapiens bears directly on whether human intelligence should be treated as a singular, intrinsically improbable step or as a likely outcome of biological–planetary co-evolution.