Modern Behavior of Early Humans Found Half-Million Years Earlier Than Thought

marco_polo

Scientist in Isreal have discovered a site that demonstrates that hominids aquired certain social skills and behaviours much earlier than had previously been thought, including the conceptualization of seperate living spaces.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091221130025.htm

Analysis of the spatial distribution of the findings there reveals a pattern of specific areas in which various activities were carried out. This kind of designation indicates a formalized conceptualization of living space, requiring social organization and communication between group members. Such organizational skills are thought to be unique to modern humans.

Attempts until now to trace the origins of such behavior at various prehistoric sites in the world have concentrated on spatial analyses of Middle Paleolithic sites, where activity areas, particularly those associated with hearths, have been found dating back only to some 250,000 years ago.

Wibbs

Great find that. It makes for some interesting further avenues of research. I recall reading somewhere that neandertals didnt keep consistent hearth spaces, but tended to move them around unlike moderns. I wonder how consistent these guys were?

Considering these were erectus, this is really impressive and the amount of specialisation and disparate activities(and tool use) doubly so. These guys seem much more sophisticated than previously thought.

Interestingly in one of the other links on that page http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060824222042.htm about our old mates the Neandertals suggests these guys had more modern symbolic thought than we reckoned(though tentatively the oldest musical instrument appears to be a Neandertal invention). The last line of that stands out "The differences between Neandertals and modern humans may be much less than had been previously thought, suggesting that human cognition and symbolic thinking may date back to before the two sub-species split around 400,000 years ago." Which ties into the 750,000 year old guys and gals. People for a very very long time seemed very much more sophisticated than we once thought.

What then has to be asked; what made us so different? We are the outliers(in so many ways, not least how we look). Or what made us so different say circa 60,000 years ago when we had a very defined cultural explosion? My mad theory about schizophrenia along with a virus being part of that may not bear repeating Though Id love to know if anyone in that arena of mental health and genetics has ever done a genetic clock on the genes some think may be involved? If it comes up at 60,000 years I want a prize.


Thanks for that link. Im gonna be hours scoping around in there. Maybe I shouldnt be thanking you? Even pretty strong indications of moderns and Neandertals getting jiggy with each other. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070807145140.htm :eek: Yay!:)

Red Hand

Wibbs wrote: »

My mad theory about schizophrenia along with a virus being part of that may not bear repeating Though Id love to know if anyone in that arena of mental health and genetics has ever done a genetic clock on the genes some think may be involved? If it comes up at 60,000 years I want a prize.

I think that featured in a science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter, called Evolution...read it only a few years ago, so hasn't been around long. In the book, the mammals are traced from the extinction of the dinosaurs to our present (and beyond) in snapshot chaptors. The rise of religion/spirit world/symbols/art comes from one old lady and her mental illness.