Rethinking the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition

White, Randall

doi:10.1086/204020

Cited by 52 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Behavioural difference is partially inferred from difference in artefacts: artefacts created by Neanderthals, which are usually assigned to Mousterian Industry or Middle Palaeolithic, are rather uniform through time and space, while Cro-Magnons manufactured a much wider variety of artefacts using specialized techniques (Aurignacian Industry or Upper Palaeolithic). Furthermore, there is little unequivocal evidence of art and personal ornaments among Mousterian people [44,45], whereas thousands have been known from Upper Palaeolithic.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alternatively, on the other hand, the cognitive capability may have existed both in early modern humans and the Neanderthals, though it was fully manifested only in early modern humans and a small minority of the Neanderthals. Proponents of this view regard the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition as having been stimulated by social and demographic changes [44,51].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolution of culture-dependent discriminate sociality: a gene–culture coevolutionary model

Ihara

2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Animals behave cooperatively towards certain conspecifics while being indifferent or even hostile to others. The distinction is made primarily according to kinship as predicted by the kin selection theory. With regards to humans, however, this is not always the case; in particular, humans sometimes exhibit a discriminate sociality on the basis of culturally transmitted traits, such as personal ornaments, languages, rituals, etc. This paper explores the possibility that the human faculty of cultural transmission and resultant cultural variation among individuals may have facilitated the evolution of discriminate sociality in humans. To this end, a gene-culture coevolutionary model is developed focusing on competition over control of resource as a context in which discriminate sociality may have evolved. Specifically, two types of culture-dependent discriminate sociality are considered: ingroup favouritism, with ingroup and outgroup being distinguished by the presence or absence of a cultural trait; and prestige hierarchies, with the prestige being conferred on the bearer of a cultural trait. The model specifies the conditions under which emergence and evolutionary stability of the two types of discriminate sociality are promoted by the presence of cultural variation among individuals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of culture-dependent discriminate sociality: a gene–culture coevolutionary model

Ihara

2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Projectile technology has been named among the derived features of the 50 Ka dispersal, but it has usually been portrayed as of secondary importance to cognitive and social-demographic processes (Bar-Yosef 2002;Binford 1970;Dennell 1983;Gilman 1984;Henshilwood and Marean 2003;Klein 1998;Klein and Edgar 2002;Mellars 1973;White 1982). Recent improvements in archaeologists' ability to detect projectile weapon use in the Paleolithic suggest the role of projectile technology in human dispersal needs to be re-evaluated (Brooks et al 2006;Churchill and Rhodes 2009;Lombard and Pargeter 2008;Shea 2006b;2007a;2009b).…”

Section: Explaining the 50 Ka Homo Sapiens Dispersalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2010

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This paper proposes that complex projectile weaponry was a key strategic innovation driving Late Pleistocene human dispersal into western Eurasia after 50 Ka. It argues that complex projectile weapons of the kind used by ethnographic hunter-gatherers, such as the bow and arrow, and spearthrower and dart, enabled Homo sapiens to overcome obstacles that constrained previous human dispersal from Africa to temperate western Eurasia. In the East Mediterranean Levant, the only permanent land bridge between Africa and Eurasia, stone and bone projectile armatures like those used in the complex weapon systems of recent humans appear abruptly ca 45-35 Ka in early Upper Paleolithic contexts associated with Homo sapiens fossils. Such artifacts are absent from Middle Paleolithic contexts associated with Homo sapiens and Neandertals. Hypotheses concerning the indigenous vs. exogenous origins of complex projectile weaponry in the Levant are reviewed. Current evidence favors the hypothesis that complex projectile technology developed as an aid to ecological niche broadening strategies among African populations between 50-100 Ka. It most likely spread to western Eurasia along with dispersing Homo sapiens populations. Neandertals did not routinely deploy projectile weapons as subsistence aids. This puzzling gap in their otherwise impressive record for survival in some of the harshest environments ever occupied by primates may reflect energetic constraints and time-budgeting factors associated with complex technology. INTRODUCTION

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“…The archaeological record reveals a burst of creativity indicative of a cultural transition in Europe between 60,000 and 30,000 ka (Bar-Yosef, 1994;Klein, 1989;Leakey, 1984;Mellars, 1973Mellars, , 1989aMithen, 1996Mithen, , 1998Soffer, 1994;Stringer & Gamble, 1993;White, 1982). More recently it has been suggested that modern cognition originated earlier and more gradually in Africa, and that the European data reflects a wave of immigration of humans from Africa with sufficient intelligence and creative problem solving skills to cope with the new environment (McBrearty & Brooks, 2000).…”

Section: The Transition From Mimetic Mind To Modern Human Mindmentioning

confidence: 99%

A model of the emergence and evolution of integrated worldviews

Gabora

Aerts²

2009

Journal of Mathematical Psychology

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It is proposed that the ability of humans to flourish in diverse environments and evolve complex cultures reflects the following two underlying cognitive transitions. The transition from the coarse-grained associative memory of Homo habilis to the fine-grained memory of Homo erectus enabled limited representational redescription of perceptually similar episodes, abstraction, and analytic thought, the last of which is modeled as the formation of states and of lattices of properties and contexts for concepts. The transition to the modern mind of Homo sapiens is proposed to have resulted from onset of the capacity to spontaneously and temporarily shift to an associative mode of thought conducive to interaction amongst seemingly disparate concepts, modeled as the forging of conjunctions resulting in states of entanglement. The fruits of associative thought became ingredients for analytic thought, and vice versa. The ratio of associative pathways to concepts surpassed a percolation threshold resulting in the emergence of a self-modifying, integrated internal model of the world, or worldview.

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Rethinking the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition

Cited by 52 publications

References 22 publications

Evolution of culture-dependent discriminate sociality: a gene–culture coevolutionary model

Evolution of culture-dependent discriminate sociality: a gene–culture coevolutionary model

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A model of the emergence and evolution of integrated worldviews

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