What makes people different?
We are also social animals operating in groups and with that comes some level of hierarchy but perhaps much less in terms of power distance than is common in our cultures. That is just a difference of degree. We seem to have evolved to the point where what we do is qualitatively different from the rest of nature, but that does not, in any way, make us superior to it.
The significant differences based on several sources Hands p413/20 , Diamond, Chimpanzee , Pinker, Language, and Capra and Luisi, Ch11 are;
- we are self conscious, that is to say we know we exist and see the world - The products of mind
- we communicate via speech (a happy accident of evolution giving an advantage?) and then invent writing enabling us to teach what we observe beyond those who can listen to us, we teach our beliefs as well as what we learn - Knowledge and its acquisition
- we make and use tools, we create a culture; not unique in itself but unique in the degree of its extent and complexity - The weight of culture
A note on artifacts and culture
I use this term artifact to cover everything that is man-made from jewellery to tools, from clothing, through shelter, to cities and engineering including farming. We are both shaped by and shaping of culture, as has been shown "first we make our tools and then our tools shape us".
It is now well known that many species of animals use tools so it overlaps with nature. There is a massive difference in degree. Chimps have most likely been using twigs for as long as they have coexisted with us and in that time we have evolved our tools, reimaging and reshaping them, accruing knowledge and passing it down the generations; our twigs have evolved into computers, the chimps are still using twigs.