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Signs of symbolic behavior emerged at the dawn of our species in Africa
More than 320,000 years ago in the Rift Valley of Africa, some early innovators adopted a new technology: They eschewed the clunky, palm-size stone hand axes that their ancestors had used for more than a million years in favor of a sleek new toolkit. Like new generations of cellphones today, their Middle Stone Age (MSA) blades and points were smaller and more precise than the old so-called Acheulean hand axes and scrapers.
These toolmakers in the Olorgesailie Basin in Kenya chose as raw materials shiny black obsidian and white and green chert, rocks they had to get from distant sources or through trade networks. In another first, they chiseled red and black rocks, probably to use as crayons to color their bodies or spears—an early sign of symbolic behavior. "This is indicative of a gear change in behavior, toolmaking, and material culture," says evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who studies social networks.
A trio of papers released online in Science today documents this remarkable technological transition. Although other sites have yielded MSA tools, the new, securely dated chronology nudges the transition back by at least 20,000 years, matching when our species, Homo sapiens, is now thought to have emerged. By analyzing artifacts over time at one site, the papers also show that these behaviors developed as climate swings intensified, supporting the idea that environmental variability drove innovation.
Related:
Environmental dynamics during the onset of the Middle Stone Age in eastern Africa (DOI: 10.1126/science.aao2200) (DX)
Chronology of the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in eastern Africa (DOI: 10.1126/science.aao2216) (DX)
Long-distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age (DOI: 10.1126/science.aao2646) (DX)
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday March 16 2018, @07:04PM (5 children)
That's not at all how I read it.
Humans had already been working with stone for hundreds of thousands of years and made a wide variety of very effective everyday tools with it. Nothing to do with their level of stoneworking is at all surprising.
What could have been surprising is the social structure implied. Tribes are typically limited to ~180 people. Federations of tribes may cover large areas and coöperate in some general ways but you don't normally see multiple tribes gathering to party on a regular basis, unless they're too small and in the process of merging.
Partying in some form or another is a crucial part of tribal life. Typically in areas with strong seasons there is at least one seasonal gathering when the entire tribe comes together in a special place and parties. This is very important to maintain cohesion and to keep bands healthy. During the festival bands may lose or gain members or even dissolve or form new. These parties develop traditions quickly and what we might see as 'religious' aspects easily, and they define the tribe.
And Göbekli Tepe sure looks like a special place for seasonal parties. Not a surprise that. What's surprising is it's huge. Larger than seems reasonable for a single tribe. And the investment of time and energy into all that stone - not that they *could* do it but that they *did* go to the trouble.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 16 2018, @08:31PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday March 16 2018, @09:00PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday March 17 2018, @04:54AM (2 children)
Did you see what they found when they did ground radar? There's a whole buried village adjacent, built in stone. Show me any migratory culture that does this. Everything about the structure, the art, the amount of work required to achieve it, the labor cost to bring in food for the builders, speaks of a settled civilization with agriculture sufficient to feed a permanent population. (And those decorated monoliths appear to be roof supports.)
I think we just haven't dug deep enough to uncover our earliest civilizations. No big mystery there, just a lot of time and debris and the fact that sites get built over again and again.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday March 17 2018, @05:05AM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday March 17 2018, @05:21AM
Thought I'd saved it, but bloody hell if I can find it offhand. If I come across it again I'll (try to remember to) post it. They had some pretty good radar images showing probably a hundred such buildings.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.