by Peter Watson
The re-creation of the first ideas of early man, inferring his mental life from the meagre remains of crude stone tools and assorted remains, is itself an intellectual achievement of the first order by palaeontologists of our own day. The remains tell–or have been made to tell–a consistent story. At about 60,000–40,000 years ago, however, the agreement breaks down. According to one set of palaeontologists and archaeologists, at around this time we no longer need to rely on unpropitious lumps of stone and bone fragments to infer the behaviour of our ancient ancestors. In the space of a (relatively) short amount of time, we have a quite fantastic richness of material which together amply justify historian John Pfeiffer’s characterisation of this period as a ‘creative explosion’.46
In the other camp are the ‘gradualists’, who believe there was no real explosion at all but that man’s intellectual abilities steadily expanded–as is confirmed, they say, by the evidence. The most striking artefact in this debate is the so-called Berekhat Ram figurine. During excavations at Berekhat Ram in Israel, in 1981, Naama Goren-Inbar, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, found a small, yellowish-brown ‘pebble’ 3.5 centimetres long. The natural shape of the pebble is reminiscent of the female form but microscopic analysis by independent scholars has shown that the form of the figure has been enhanced by artificial grooves.47 The age of the pebble has been put at 233,000 BP but its status as an art object has been seriously questioned. It was the only such object found among 6,800 artefacts excavated at the site, and sceptical archaeologists say that all it represents is some ‘doodling’ by ancient man ‘on a wet Wednesday’.48 The gradualists, on the other hand, put the Berekhat Ram figurine alongside the spears found at Schöningen (400,000 BP), a bone ‘dagger’ found at a riverside site in the Zemliki valley in Zaire, dated to 174,000–82,000 BP, some perforated and ochred Glycymeris shells found at Qafzeh in Israel (100,000 BP), some ostrich shell perforated beads found in the Loiyangalani river valley in Tanzania (110,000–45,000 BP), a carved warthog tusk, recovered from Border cave, in South Africa, and dated to 80,000 BP, and some mollusc beads from Blombos cave, also in South Africa, dated to between 80,000 and 75,000 BP (the beads were brought from twenty kilometres away and appear to have ochre inside them). These show, they say, that early humans’ mental skills developed gradually–and perhaps not in Europe. They imply that Europe is ‘the cradle of civilisation’ only because it has well-developed archaeological services, which have produced many discoveries, and that if African or Asian countries had the same facilities, these admittedly meagre discoveries would be multiplied and a different picture would emerge.
The debate has switch-backed more than once. The gradualists certainly suffered a setback in regard to one other important piece of evidence, the so-called Slovenian ‘flute’. This was unveiled in 1995, amid much fanfare, as the world’s oldest musical instrument. Dated to 54,000 years ago, it consisted of a tubular piece of bone, found at Divje Babe near Reke in western Slovenia, containing two complete holes, and two incomplete ones, in a straight line. It comprised the femur of a young bear and was the only femur among 600 found in the same cave that was pierced in this way. What drew the archaeologists’ attention was the discovery that the holes were roughly 1 centimetre across and 2.5 centimetres apart, a configuration that comfortably fits the dimensions of the human hand. According to some scholars, the instrument was capable of playing ‘the entire seven-note scale on which Western music is based.’49 However, Francesco d’Errico and a group of colleagues at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Bordeaux were able to show that this suggestive arrangement was in fact an entirely natural occurrence, the result of the bone being gnawed by other carnivores, possibly cave bears. Similar puncture holes were discovered on bones in several caves in the Basque region of Spain.50
Over the last few years, however, the gradualists have been making a strong comeback. Stephen Oppenheimer, of Green College, Oxford, has collected the evidence in his book, Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World.51 There, he shows that ‘Mode 3’ hand-axes, capable of being hafted, were produced in Africa by archaic H. sapiens from 300,000 years ago. These early humans were also producing bone tools looking like harpoon tips, were quarrying for pigment at 280,000 years ago, used perforated shell pendants in South Africa at 130,000–105,000 years ago, and crafted haematite ‘pencils’ at 100,000 years ago. Figure 1 shows his chronology for the advent of various cognitive advances. Oppenheimer concludes that, by 140,000 years ago, ‘half of the important clues to cognitive skills and behaviour which underpinned those that eventually took us to the Moon were already present’.52
Figure 1: The chronology of early cognitive skills
[Source: Stephen Oppenheimer, Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World, London: Constable, 2003, page 123]
Despite this strong showing recently by the gradualists, it remains true that it is the sudden appearance, around 40,000 years ago, of very beautiful, very accomplished, and very modern-looking art that captures the imagination of all who encounter it. This art takes three main forms–the famous cave paintings, predominantly but not exclusively found in Europe, the so-called Venus figurines, found in a broad swathe across western and eastern Europe, and multi-coloured beads, which in some respects are the most important evidence of all. What stands out is the sudden appearance of this art, its abundance and its sophistication. In northern Spain the art consists mainly of engravings but the paintings extend from south-west France to Australia. When the first cave art was discovered in the nineteenth century, it took many years before it was accepted as truly ancient because so many of the images were realistic and lifelike, and modern-looking. It was felt they must be forgeries. But it is now generally accepted (there are still doubters) that, with the paintings spread so far across Eurasia, and with the dating being so consistent, something very important was going on around 40,000 years ago (although this art should probably not be treated as a single phenomenon). This, the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition, as it is known to professionals, is probably the most exciting area of study in palaeontology now, and for three reasons.
The advent of art is so sudden (in palaeontological terms), and so widespread, that many scientists think it must reflect an important change in the development of early man’s mental state. It is, as Steven Mithen puts it, ‘when the final major re-design of the mind took place’.53 Once again there was a time lag, between the appearance of anatomically modern humans, around 150,000–100,000 years ago, and the creative explosion, at 60,000–40,000 years ago. One explanation is the climate. As the glaciers expanded and retreated, the available game changed in response, and a greater variety of equipment was needed. Also needed was a record of the animals available and their seasonal movement. Perhaps this is, again, too neat. A second–and more controversial–climatic explanation is that the eruption of the Mount Toba volcano at 71,000 years ago led to a worldwide volcanic winter, lasting ten thousand years and drastically reducing both the human and animal population. This would have been followed by a period of severe competition for resources, resulting in rapid development among very disparate groups, fuelling innovation. Another explanation for the ‘creative explosion’ derives from the art itself. In north-eastern Spain and south-western France (but not elsewhere) much is contained in highly inaccessible caves, where the superimposition of one image over another implies that these subterranean niches and crevices were returned to time and again–over centuries, over thousands of years. The suspicion is, therefore, that cave art is in fact to be understood as writing as much as art, a secret and sacred recording of the animals which early man relied upon for food. (This is an idea supported by the fact that many contemporary tribes who create rock paintings have no word for art in their language.54) The cave paintings and engravings were in effect a record, possibly of what animals were in the area, when, in what numbers, and showed what routes they followed. These records, which may have been kept outside to begin with, would have been transferred to inacc
essible places partly out of concerns for security–so rivals would never find them–and partly out of ritual. The animals may have been worshipped–because life depended on them and their abundance–and reflect what early man knew about their movements, a record, in effect, of his ability to plan ahead. The caves may also have been ritual temples, chosen not only for inaccessibility but because they were thought to be in some sense gateways to and from the underworld. According to the French prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan, the cave art of Europe comprises a ‘single ideological system’, a ‘religion of the caves’.55
There are two important questions to be asked of this art. Why, in the first place, did it emerge ‘fully formed’, as it were, why was there no primitive version? And what does it mean? One reason it emerged ‘fully formed’ may simply be that early versions were produced on perishable materials, which have been lost. Steven Mithen, however, has a ‘deeper’ reason for why this art emerged fully formed. He believes that the three different types of intelligence that evolved in man’s primitive brain–the natural history intelligence, the technical intelligence, and the social intelligence–finally came together some time between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago, to form the modern brain as we know it. Indeed, he says that the very fact that early art shows so much technical skill, and is so full of emotive power, is itself the strongest argument for this latest restructuring of the mind. This is speculative, of course; there is no other evidence to support Mithen’s view.
Richard Klein, professor of anthropological sciences at Stanford University in California, offers a different theory. He believes that humanity’s cultural revolution began with one or more genetic mutations that ‘transformed the ability to communicate’.56 Professor Klein argues that ‘a suite of language and creativity genes, perhaps as few as ten or as many as 1,000, developed as a result of random mutation’, giving rise to a new pattern of human culture. He cites as an example the gene FOXP2, which was discovered in 2001 among the fifteen members of a large London family (the ‘KE’ family), three generations of which have severe speech and language impediments. Researchers have since shown that the human version of this gene differs by only three molecules, out of 715, from the version carried by mice, and by just two molecules from the version carried by chimpanzees. The German researchers who identified the mutation say that it occurred about 200,000 years ago and spread rapidly, in 500–1,000 human generations, or 10,000–20,000 years. ‘A sweep that rapid indicates to biologists that the new version of the gene must have conferred a significant evolutionary advantage on the human ancestors lucky enough to inherit it.’57 Another explanation of the cultural explosion arises from demography. Until around 70,000 years ago, the population density of humanity was fairly thin. We know this because the main animals used as food were both adults of the species and examples of species that took a long time to mature (tortoises, for example). After that, there was a switch to deer etc., which replaced themselves more quickly. This increased competition may well have stimulated both new forms of hand-axe and the efflorescence of art, to be understood as secret records of game movements.58 There was also a switch to marine foods at this time.
The gradualists say this is all illusion, that art and other symbolic behaviour was developing for perhaps 100,000 to 250,000 years before the apparent ‘explosion’ but has either perished or is still waiting to be found. This, they say, explains why the art is ‘fully formed’ in the European caves–there had been generations for techniques to improve. They also point out that art appeared in Australia fully formed as soon as early humans arrived there. It stands to reason, on this account, that the ability to produce such art had already evolved before the migrants left Africa.59
The meaning of the art is more complex. Between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago we see a huge number of developments–not just the striking cave paintings of Lascaux, Altamira and Chauvet that have become famous, but the first production of items for personal decoration such as beads, pendants and perforated animal teeth, carved ivories which have the body of a man and the head of different animals, such as lion and bison, and scores of V-shaped signs etched on rocks. There is little doubt among palaeontologists that these images are intentional, conveying information of one kind or another. Among contemporary Australian tribes, for example, a simple circle can–in different circumstances–be held to represent a fire, a mountain, a campsite, waterholes, women’s breasts, or eggs. So it may never prove possible to recover completely the meaning of ancient art. Yet we can decipher in a broad sense the idea of art as stored information.60 Many of the new bone and antler tools found in the Upper Palaeolithic are decorated and John Pfeiffer has called these, together with the cave paintings, ‘tribal encyclopaedias’. The basic fact to remember, perhaps (since nothing is certain in this field), is that most Palaeolithic art was created in the last ice age, when environmental conditions were extremely harsh. Therefore the art must, at least in part, have been a response to this, which should help us understand its meaning.61 We may draw some inference, for example, from the fact that, while many animals were painted in profile, so far as their bodies were concerned, their hooves were painted full on, which suggests that the shape of the hooves was being memorised for later, or being used to instruct children.62 Even today, among the Wopkaimin hunter-gatherers of New Guinea, they display the bones of the animals they catch against the rear wall of their houses–with the remains arranged as a ‘map’ so as to aid the recall of animal behaviour.63
The widespread depiction of the female form in Palaeolithic art also needs some explanation and comment. There are the so-called ‘Venus pebbles’, inscribed stones, which appear to show breasts and skirts, found in Korea and dated to 12,165 BP; there is the ‘Venus of Galgenberg’, found near Krems in Lower Austria, showing a large-breasted woman who appears to be dancing, and dated to 31,000 years ago; most important of all there are the ‘Venus figurines’, found in a shallow arc stretching from France to Siberia, the majority of which belong to the Gravettian period–around 25,000 years ago. There has been, inevitably perhaps, much controversy about these figures. Many of them (but by no means all) are buxom, with large breasts and bellies, possibly indicating they are pregnant. Many (but not all) have distended vulvas, indicating they are about to give birth. Many (but not all) are naked. Many (but not all) lack faces but show elaborate coiffures. Many (but not all) are incomplete, lacking feet or arms, as if the creator had been intent on rendering only the sexual characteristics of these figures. Some, but not all, were originally covered in red ochre–was that meant to symbolise (menstrual) blood? Some critics, such as the archaeologist Paul Bahn, have argued that we should be careful in reading too much sex into these figures, that it tells us more about modern palaeontologists than it does about ancient humans. Nevertheless, other early art works do suggest sexual themes. There is a natural cavity in the Cougnac cave at Quercy in France which suggests (to the modern eye) the shape of a vulva, a similarity which appears to have been apparent also to ancient man, for they stained the cave with red ochre ‘to symbolise the menstrual flow’.64 Among the images found in 1980 in the Ignateva cave in the southern Urals of Russia is a female figure with twenty-eight red dots between her legs, very likely a reference to the menstrual cycle.65 At Mal’ta, in Siberia, Soviet archaeologists discovered houses divided into two halves. In one half only objects of masculine use were found, in the other half female statuettes were located. Does this mean the homes were ritually divided according to gender?66
Whether some of these early ‘sexual images’ have been over-interpreted, it nonetheless remains true that sex is one of the main images in early art, and that the depiction of female sex organs is far more widespread than the depiction of male organs. In fact, there are no depictions of males in the Gravettian period (25,000 years ago) and this would therefore seem to support the claims of the distinguished Lithuanian archaeologist, Marija Gimbutas (discussed in detail in Chapter 3), that early humans worshipped a ‘Great Goddess’,
rather than a male god. The development of such beliefs possibly had something to do with what at that time would have been the great mystery of birth, the wonder of breastfeeding, and the disturbing occurrence of menstruation. Randall White, professor of anthropology at New York University, adds the intriguing thought that these figures date from a time (and such a time must surely have existed) when early man had yet to make the link between sexual intercourse and birth. At that time, birth would have been truly miraculous, and early man may have thought that, in order to give birth, women received some spirit, say from animals (hence the animal heads). Until the link was made between sexual intercourse and birth, woman would have seemed mysterious and miraculous creatures, far more so than men.