The competence of humans to create and apply constructs of reality far exceeds that of any other animal species. Their ability to consciously manipulate such models seems unique, but it remains unknown how these abilities were initially acquired and then developed. Most individuals hold strong, culturally-anchored beliefs that their particular reality is true, a viewpoint challenged by the observation that all such constructs are different. They reflect not reality, but each individual’s life experiences. Collectively they facilitated the development of hominins to unprecedented cultural and cognitive complexity. However, it remains entirely unknown how the human brain manages to create a model of the external world from the signals provided by sensory equipment and proprioceptors. This paper examines the roles of exograms in this development, as they are considered to be the only tangible connection between the brain, the faculties of sentience and the external world. Competency in exogram use became a crucial natural selection factor for humans and even overcame the human brain atrophy of the final Pleistocene and the Holocene. Under favourable conditions, some forms of exograms are capable of surviving from the deep time of human evolution. The paper follows their trail back in time to gain some insights into the developments that gave rise to human awareness, self-consciousness and Theory of Mind as we understand them. Specific archaeological finds and notions about sentient capabilities of hominins are presented in a search for exogram use in the course of human evolution. It results in a model that explains with clarity not only the course of the human journey but also the underlying reasons for the human condition as such: why we are the way we are.

人类创造和运用现实构造的能力远远超过任何其他动物物种。他们有意识地操纵这些模型的能力似乎是独一无二的，但如何获得这些能力然后加以发展仍是未知的。大多数人都坚信自己的特定现实是真实的，受文化熏陶的信念，这一观点受到所有此类构造不同的观察的挑战。它们不是现实，而是每个人的生活经历。他们共同促进了人类素的发展，使其达到前所未有的文化和认知复杂性。但是，人脑如何通过感官设备和本体感受器提供的信号来创建外部世界模型仍然是完全未知的。本文研究了exograms在此发展中的作用，因为它们被认为是大脑，感知能力和外部世界之间的唯一切实联系。使用Exogram的能力已成为人类至关重要的自然选择因素，甚至克服了最终的更新世和全新世的人类大脑萎缩。在有利的条件下，某些形式的Exograms能够从人类进化的深渊中幸存下来。本文跟随他们的时光倒流，以了解一些发展的过程，这些发展导致了人们对人类意识，自我意识和心理理论的理解。在人类进化过程中寻找石蜡图的应用中，提出了有关人类素有感知能力的特定考古发现和概念。