ASEBL Journal – Volume 10 Issue 1, January 2014
modules and intelligences of the brain to solve complex problems. (Many others have
written about these mental adaptations in various formulations, from Jerry Fodor,
Howard Gardner, Steven Mithen, and Leda Cosmides and John Tooby.) Other homo
species made no such spectacular migrations and simply adapted to their existing
environments, apparently incapable of understanding, for example, that the leftover
bones from a hunt could be put to other uses, whether technological or ornamental.
We, on the other hand, developed cultures to help us disperse across the world and
spread ideas within and between our many groups. Without committing to a number,
we know that there were many other species related to us, from the Ardipithecus
(about 4.5 million years ago), the Australopithecines, and the Paranthropus (with
several species in each) and then to the early genus of homo, which includes habilis,
rudofensis, and ergaster. Why did we survive while they did not; why are we so
different?
Our species went beyond stimulus enhancement (repeating in different environments
what one would do anyway) to social learning, deliberate awareness to design in order
to improve a behavior or tool – invention by thoughtful creation and not by chance
(41). There might be a genetic basis for such constructive designs, since we find
similar artifacts in widely different places. While there are human artifacts (such as
stone tools) that are very old (Pagel points to a later species, homo erectus), there is
almost no improvement for over 1 million years. While this is true, such a statement
can be deceiving. Steven Mithen dates the earliest stone tools to almost 3 million
years ago (flaked quartz) that gradually (and somewhat dramatically) improved: heavy
duty and light duty tools (1.5 to 2 million years ago), hand-axes and Levallois flakes
(1.5 million to 250,000 years ago), blade technology and flint slivers (pre 100,000
years ago). Nevertheless, Pagel’s point is well taken: if ancient and early human
species had a very rich inner cognitive life, it would probably be reflected in the
artifacts they produced and left. This neglects the obvious: perhaps the early huntergatherers needed not to improve (over long periods) what they had since they had not
yet begun to farm, settle, and establish cities – meaning that they could indeed have
had a richer (individual) cognitive life that is not necessarily reflected in their basic,
and quite serviceable, tools. Since Pagel’s claim is that we improved on learning,
there is no way for us to discount the possibility that some random, discrete
individuals had nascent, rich cognitive lives that had yet to see efflorescence and
others capable of copying. Cultural eruptions were embryonic and had yet to find the
right catalyst (probably when our brains began to make connections in finding new
and different uses for existing products).
At any rate, Pagel is less speculative and looks to the evidence at hand. Not until
160,000 to 75,000 years ago do we see (caves in Western Cape Province, South
Africa) evidence of cultural (and not technological) artifacts – and those are dates
pushed back far, since European cave paintings (Ardèche and Chauvet-Pont d’Arc,
France) date to around 36,000 years ago and Lascaux at about 18,000 years ago. (Of
course there is the red ochre dated to around 360,000 years ago, but no one is quite
sure what that might have been used for.) The capability for such cultural
manifestations was latent but only flowered, says Pagel, once we adopted social
learning: cultural genesis and development come from mind and not necessarily from
genes (though genes are in play with neurons and neural connections). For example,
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