Re: Question regarding Upper Paleolithic


VBM wrote:

> OK, Paleo newbie here.
>
> In a TTC lecture on anthropology I was listening to recently, the professor
> was discussing the upper paleolithic in near halcion terms. The folks were
> taller, stronger, healthier, lived longer, had fewer diseases, a broader
> diet, little (if any) indication of warfare, no famine, more leisure time
> and no body odor (OK, that last one I made up). The professor went on to
> describe the neolithic revolution as a relative descent into "nasty, brutish
> and short". Once mankind began farming and herding, this lifestyle became a
> ball and chain, they became slaves to their own technological advances.

A rather romantic picture of the Upper Paleolithic. Consider how damn
cold and harsh it was in those times. On the other hand, the biblical
story of Adam and Eve most probably refers to the origin of agriculture
and the labours involved. Yes, we became slaves to our technological
advances, and yet we have the intelligence and sensibility to advance
culture as well, to balance technology and nature including human
nature.

> I am exaggerating the professor's position a bit, but not much. Is this
> rosy picture of the Upper Paleolithic generally accepted? Sounds like a
> Jean Auel version, and I always assumed she "cleaned it up".
>
> Also, here is an excerpt from an article, and I was wondering whether there
> are any major mistatements in it:
> "The archaeological picture changed dramatically around 40-50,000 years ago
> with the appearance of behaviorally modern humans. This was an abrupt and
> dramatic change in subsistence patterns, tools and symbolic expression. The
> stunning change in cultural adaptation was not merely a quantitative one,
> but one that represented a significant departure from all earlier human
> behavior, reflecting a major qualitative transformation. It was literally a
> "creative explosion" which exhibited the "technological ingenuity, social
> formations, and ideological complexity of historic hunter-gatherers."7 This
> human revolution is precisely what made us who we are today.
>
> The Upper Paleolithic lifestyle, as it was called, was based essentially on
> hunting and gathering. So successful was this cultural adaptation that until
> roughly 11,000 years ago, hominids worldwide were subsisting essentially as
> hunter-gatherers.
>
> In the Upper Paleolithic of Eurasia, or the Late Stone Age as it is called
> in Africa, the archaeological signature stands in strong contrast to that of
> the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age. It was characterized by significant
> innovation:
>
> * a remarkable diversity in stone tool types
>
> * tool types showed significant change over time and space
>
> * artifacts were regularly fashioned out of bone, antler and ivory, in
> addition to stone
>
> * stone artifacts were made primarily on blades and were easily classified
> into discrete categories, presumably reflecting specialized use
>
> * burials were accompanied by ritual or ceremony and contained a rich
> diversity of grave goods
>
> * living structures and well-designed fireplaces were constructed
>
> * hunting of dangerous animal species and fishing occurred regularly
>
> higher population densities
>
> * abundant and elaborate art as well as items of personal adornment were
> widespread
>
> * raw materials such as flint and shells were traded over some distances
>
> Homo sapiens of the Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age was quintessentially
> modern in appearance and behavior. Precisely how this transformation
> occurred is not well understood, but it apparently was restricted to Homo
> sapiens and did not occur in Neanderthals. Some archaeologists invoke a
> behavioral explanation for the change. For example, Soffer11 suggests that
> changes in social relations, such as development of the nuclear family,
> played a key role in bringing about the transformation.
>
> Klein7, on the other hand, proffers the notion that it was probably a
> biological change brought about by mutations that played the key role in the
> emergence of behaviorally modern humans. His biologically based explanation
> implies that a major neural reorganization of the brain resulted in a
> significant enhancement in the manner in which the brain processed
> information. This is a difficult hypothesis to test since brains do not
> fossilize. But it is significant that no changes are seen in the shape of
> the skulls between earlier and later Homo sapiens. It can only be surmised
> from the archaeological record, which contains abundant evidence for ritual
> and art, that these Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age peoples possessed
> language abilities equivalent to our own. For many anthropologists this
> represents the final evolutionary leap to full modernity."
>
> http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/johanson.html

Professor Christopher Henshilwood, excavator of the Blombos Cave
in Southern Africa, has been correcting that picture recently.
Modern human behaviour arose already in the Middle Stone Age,
75,000 years ago. Do a Google query for the excellent Blombos Cave
site, go for: "blombos cave project"

Hominids populated Africa for seven million years, the oldest honinid
known so far is Toumai, Child of Hope. Homo erectus left Africa between
800,000 and 400,000 years ago. Out of Homo erectus evolved Neanderthal
man, and Homo heidelbergensis, our direct ancestor. Charles Darwin
believed in a gradual evolution, one species slowly being transformed
into another one. Nils Eldrege and Stephen Jay Gould introduced a
different model they called punctuated equilibrium: a new species
arises in a relatively short period of time, and can then persist for
eons. Homo sapiens sapiens originated in Western Africa somewhere
between 230,000 und 150,000 years ago. This has been found by means
of analyzing mitochondrial DNA handed down by women only: the widest
variety is occurring in Western Africa, so there must have lived the
oldest human population. I would say that modern human behaviour went
along with the first humans of our kind in Western Africa, but for the
time being we can only affirm a date of 75,000 BP for Southern Africa.

Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

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