Sweating is a unique and essential human trait. It plays a crucial role in thermoregulation. As our ancestors adapted to life on the open savannahs, maintaining an optimal body temperature became vital for survival. Unlike other mammals, humans developed an efficient cooling system through sweat glands.
Sweating helps dissipate heat through the evaporation of sweat from the skin’s surface. This process is highly efficient in regulating body temperature during physical activity or in hot environments. The ability to sweat was aided by evolutionary developments such as less body hair and more sweat glands. This became very important when our early ancestors shifted to bipedalism and increased their endurance activities, such as hunting and foraging (Carrier, 1984).
Rising body temperature is often the limiting factor for mammals when running or chasing their prey rather than pure exhaustion. The ability to sweat allowed early humans to slow the inevitable rise in body temperature due to exercise and to sustain prolonged physical exertion for longer. This gave humans an advantage in persistent hunting—chasing prey over long distances until it succumbed to heat exhaustion (Lieberman, 2015).
Ultimately, this efficient thermoregulation enabled humans to colonize diverse environments, from arid deserts to tropical forests, and to obtain more food with less energy expended. Due to this, the development of sweat aided survival and reproductive success for humans.
Lieberman, D. E. (2015). Human locomotion and heat loss: an evolutionary perspective. Comprehensive Physiology.
Carrier, D. R. (1984). The energetic paradox of human running and hominid evolution. Current Anthropology.
Evolutionary Anthropology 