Homo sapiens move on

13-7 Homo sapiens move on

Homo sapiens means "wise man." There were three stages in the evolution and dispersion of modern humans around the world. First, anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic homo erectus ancestors in Africa. Second, modern thinking humans probably first appeared in southern Africa. There is debate over whether the advent of modern thinking was relatively sudden or gradual. Some people think humans underwent a dramatic transformation in South Africa. Subsequently, third, modern thinking humans left Africa and spread around the world. This is called the Out of Africa model of human evolution.

The most apparent early evidence of modern thinking humans was the Blombos Cave (Figure 13‑25) region on the coastline of South Africa. This is the Garden Route in South Africa, one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. It would have been a beautiful place for these early human modern thinkers. The Blombos Cave (Figure 13‑26) overlooks the sea and provided protection from elements and access to seafood during difficult climatic periods. The layers in the cave with human fossils begin approximately 100,000 years ago (Figure 13‑19).

Figure 13‑25. Blombos Cave location. South Africa. Credit: Turid Hillestad Nel, Christopher Stuart Henshilwood. Used here per CC BY 4.0.

Figure 13‑26. Blombos Cave, South Africa. Credit: Vincent Mourre. Used here per CC BY-SA 3.0.

During human habitation in caves, layers of debris and dirt accumulate. Researchers dated the layers of the Blombos Cave with radiometric dating techniques (Figure 13-27). One of the products of the Blombos Cave inhabitants was shell beads. Signs of wear on shell beads (13-28) indicate use as necklaces. The shell beads came from a 75 ka layer (Figure 13-27). Most anthropologists think that the diagonal designs on a red ochre block (Figure 13-29) from the same period indicate symbolic thought.

Figure 13‑27. Stratigraphy of Blombos Cave, South Africa. Credit: Turid Hillestad Nel and Chris Henshilwood. Used here per CC BY 4.0.

Figure 13‑28. Blombos Cave shell beads. Credit: C. Henshilwood & F. d'Errico. Used here per CC BY 2.5.

Figure 13‑29. The first artwork in the fossil record (70 ka). Credit: https://originalrockart.wordpress.com/. Used here per CC BY-SA 4.0.

Figure 13‑30. Bifacial silcrete point from M1 phase (71,000 BCE) layer of Blombos Cave, South Africa. Credit: Vincent Mourre. Used here per CC BY-SA 3.0.

Henshilwood’s team found evidence of red ochre production in abalone shells in a 100 ka layer in the cave. Henshilwood proposed that the red ochre may have symbolized blood, which would indicate symbolic thinking.[2] Several cultures in Africa continue to mix red ochre with animal fat or other substances and cover their bodies in red ochre. There is evidence that the Neanderthals used red ochre 250 ka, and red ochre was also used in Africa 160 ka, probably neither of which were interpreted as symbolic applications.[3]

Probably the most advanced technology of the southern Africans was the manufacture of silcrete tools, which are made by heating silcrete (changes the structure) and then chipping it into hard objects such as bifacial points (Figure 13‑30). Other possible indications of complex thinking from this time and region are pieces of inscribed ostrich eggshell, hafted points (spears), fine-grained stone transported from up to 18 miles away (possible trade), bones of killed eland, springbok and seals, and evidence of burned vegetation that led to faster growth of edible roots and tubers. [4] [5] The people of the Blombos Cave culture might not have been reading and writing, but anthropologists believe that they had the full intellectual capability of modern humans and could have been educated in a modern educational system.

Anthropologists debate over the rapidity of the technological and intellectual advances at Blombos Cave. Chris Henshilwood described this period as a dynamic period of innovation, with a dramatic increase in intellectual capacity. Other anthropologists think that this period represented just the last step in the gradual progression from early Homo sapiens to modern thinking humans. Anthropologists propose several hypothesized causes of this “dynamic period of innovation.” One hypothesis is that change to a seafood diet by the Blombos Cave dwellers may have resulted in larger brain size. Another hypothesis is that a genetic change may have led to increased intelligence or the ability to speak.[6] Jared Diamond hypothesized that speech triggered the advance in human intelligence. [7] Evolutionary psychologist Matt Rossano proposed that the development of religion might have led to cooperation and teamwork in the Blombos culture. [8]

References

[1] McDougall I., F. Brown, J. Fleagle. 2005. Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia. Nature. 433(7027):733-6.

[2] John Wilford, In African Cave, Signs of an Ancient Paint Factory, New York Times, October 13, 2011, Accessed at <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/science/14paint.html?pagewanted=all>

[3] Wil Roebroeks, Mark J. Sier, Trine Kellberg Nielsen, Dimitri De Loecker, Josep Maria Parés, and Charles E. S. Arps, and Herman J. Müchere, Use of red ochre by early Neandertals, PNAS, February 7, 2012, (109) 6: 1889–1894.

[4] Guy Gugliotta, The Great Human Migration, Why humans left their African homeland 80,000 years ago to colonize the world, Smithsonian Magazine, July 2008, Accessed at <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/human-migration.html?c=y&page=3>

[5] Gugliotta, Human Migration, p. 4.

[6] Gugliotta, Human Migration, p. 4.

[7] Diamond, Jared M. Guns, Germs, and Steel : the Fates of Human Societies. New York :Norton, 2005.

[8] Matt Rossano, Chapter 9, The African Interregnum: The “Where,” “When,” and “Why” of the Evolution of Religion. In The Biological Evolution of the Religious Mind, Ed. E. Voland and W. Schiefenhovel, (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2009), 127-137.

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San people (bushmen) in southern Africa starting a fire by hand. Credit: Isewell. Used here per CC BY-SA 2.5.

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