Abstract

THE PATCHWORK OF HUMAN EVOLUTION. AN INTEGRATED AND MULTI‐LEVEL PERSPECTIVE BEYOND ANY UNILATERAL AND FINALISTIC VISION Despite Darwin’s theory proposes a contingent view of life's evolution and a «tree thinking» approach to reconstruct the history of living beings, human evolution has always been generally considered as an exception with respect to the normal evolutionary phenomena. The present article examines this recurrent view of human evolution, which is often depicted as a linear and teleological story that inevitably ends with the emergence of Homo sapiens. A multi‐level and pluralist view of human evolution, able to integrate the most recent empirical evidence coming from different fields within a unified theoretical framework, seems to be an excellent antidote to reflect about the human uniqueness without preconceived ideologies.