What this continues to do is establish modernity back to 45,000 years
ago. This is important because the conjecture that a first
emergence of advanced technology on the continental shelf demands the
global presence of this level of modernity within this time window.
The prehistory of this level traces back at least another thirty
thousand years on a global basis and may ultimately be traced back
another 100,000 years in specific locales prior to global radiation.
We have a lot of digging to do all over the globe.
Another key coincidence that has gone unremarked is that the
Neanderthals largely disappeared from the archeological record around
40,000 years ago. Since they were our equals at least, it is not
unreasonable that they merely gave up their hunter gatherer lifestyle
and joined other peoples in developing the modern world on the
continental shelf. Alternatively, they were subsumed into a rapidly
expanding human population, except that likely failed to occur until
10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture.
Recall the San survived outside the zone of agriculture rather well.
The Neanderthals were surely as capable.
In the meantime, while we figure it all out, the San live as they
always have for at least 45,000 years and we can read their artifacts
because they are a living culture.
Researchers:
South African fossils show modern culture may have emerged 30,000
earlier
By Associated Press,
Published: July 30
JOHANNESBURG —
Poisoned-tipped arrows and jewelry made of ostrich egg beads found in
South Africa show modern culture may have emerged about 30,000 years
earlier in the area than previously thought, according to two
articles published on Monday.
The findings published
in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”
show that the 44,000-year-old artifacts are characteristic of the
San hunter-gatherers. The descendants of San people live today in
southern Africa, so the items can clearly be traced forward to modern
culture, unlike other archaeological finds, researchers said.
South African
researcher Lucinda Backwell said the findings are the earliest known
instances of “modern behavior as we know it.” Backwell said the
discovery reinforces the theory that modern man came from southern
Africa.
The carbon dating on
the items shows that traces of the San culture may have existed
earlier than the previous estimate of somewhere between 10,000 and
20,000 years ago, the journal said.
The find, discovered
at Border Cave close to South Africa’s northeastern border with
Swaziland, is a comprehensive package of hunting kits and jewelry
made of ostrich egg and marine shell beads.
Backwell, who was part
of the team of international researchers that made the find, said the
artifacts created as many as 44,000 years ago served the same
purposes as they would today.
“They all have a
specific reason we understand, that’s why we can name them,”
Backwell said.
The researchers’
articles said the Border Cave people used poisoned arrows to hunt and
put spiral engraving on arrowheads to indicate ownership. The latter
practice has been preserved in the San culture, they said.
Professor Francesco
d’Errico of the French National Research Centre, who led the
research team, said that the findings tell of a people who were
highly evolved.
“They were fully
modern genetically and cognitively,” d’Errico said.
Their cognitive
development is evident in their symbolic behavior, the professor
said. The ostrich egg beads were not only ornaments, but played a
major role in bartering with neighboring groups, he said. That
practice continues today.
The paper claimed that
the fossils show that all modern culture came from southern Africa,
though the researchers acknowledged it remains difficult to pinpoint
where in history that modernity began.
Eric Delson, a
paleoanthropologist at Lehman College of the City University of New
York, said that while the testing used by the researchers to
determine the age of the fossils was very clear and reliable, the
findings didn’t support the idea that all modern human cultures are
connected to this find.
He said there is
evidence that a modern culture already existed in Europe around the
time the new find is dated.
“They say, ‘Modern
human behavior first found!’” Delson said. “Well, not exactly.”
He did, however,
applaud the research for finding the origins of one specific group of
modern people.
Scientists from
Britain, France, Italy, Norway, South Africa and the U.S. all took
part in the research, helmed out of the University of Witwatersrand
in Johannesburg.
Copyright 2012 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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