-- At 05:29 PM 9/15/2000 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
My opinion is even more stringent than that. The archaeological record shows human-like anatomy starting about half a million years ago, but no evidence of symbolic thought or individual experimentation with / invention of tools prior to about the year -38K.
Up to that point, you've just got a few classical tools, made the same way generation after generation after generation, and after that point you've suddenly got cave paintings, tools made out of unfamiliar materials, tools made for new purposes, people buried with grave goods (proof that someone at least thought *something* about death), sculptures of animals and carvings that could not serve as tools (and thus are probably classifiable as art), etc.
This is probably a cultural change, rather than a change in intellectual capability. The tasmanian aborigines produced no art, did not bury their dead, and their technology steadily regressed to earlier stone age levels, even though they were racially the same as the mainland aboriginals. My guess would be that when the population grew to levels where they started to press one each other, they found it necessary to make use of specialist in tool making, specialists in obtaining rare and valuable raw materials, and most importantly, religious and cultural specialists who maintained relationships, and therefore peace, between widely scattered bands. Those artworks that survived were placed deep underground, where they could only be seen with extreme difficulty. Presumably they were there for religious reasons. I would guess that in order to promote peace between widely scattered bands, religious specialists made some deep cavern a place of pilgrimage, and then, like the Pope decorating the Sistine chapel, hired artists to make it more impressive. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG THW+18SM9m8QnlUgYohmtxCOFcwAVSUSYTs/u7sC 4t0aDLUkmJVFLKMqrpdeIEbHo1E/nlgnbtB6LWI8v