CDR: Re: Noah's Flood

[James A. Donald]

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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
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