Cultural Modernity: Consensus Or Conundrum?
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COMMENTARY Cultural modernity: Consensus or conundrum? Nicholas J. Conard1 Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, and Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoecology, Universität Tübingen, 72070 Tübingen, Germany he development of the Out of cognitive capacities of past humans, neu- Africa model for the origins and rological modeling, or linguistic spec- T dispersal of modern humans in ulation cannot answer this question the 1980s and 1990s led the field without explicit links to the archaeological of paleoanthropology to drop other ap- record. Hard data about the material cul- proaches to the evolution of modernity. ture of the past, like that from Diepkloof, Earlier models suggesting a gradual evo- provide the key source of information lution from archaic to modern human needed to make progress on the debate morphology and cultural behavior simul- over the origins of modern behavior. taneously across the Old World have been The dominant views in the field suggest replaced by models pointing to Africa as that modern humans, after evolving ana- the only continent where modern humans tomically roughly 200,000 years ago in evolved and modern patterns of cultural Africa (3), gradually (4), or suddenly (5), behavior emerged. The important paper became culturally like all living people by Texier et al. (1) in a recent issue of today. Most researchers point to im- PNAS is the latest of a number of recent portant finds of new technology, evidence papers pointing to South Africa as a key Fig. 1. Fourclassesofsymbolicartifactsthatarefirst for changed patterns of subsistence and area for studying the origins of cultural documented outside Africa. Examples from the Swa- ∼ demography, and especially symbolic arti- modernity. The authors present the most bian Jura dating to 35,000 years ago. (A)Mythical facts as critical pieces of the puzzle. Given images; “Lionman”, Hohlenstein-Stadel, height 29.6 convincing data yet recovered document- cm. (Photo by Thomas Stephan, © Ulmer Museum). (B) the research done in recent years at sites ing that Middle Stone Age people lived in Musical instruments; bone flute, Geißenklösterle, like Diepkloof, Klasies River, Blombos, a world characterized by symbolically length 11.7 cm. (C) Ornaments formed in three di- and Sibudu (1, 6–8), it comes as no sur- mediated social and cultural relationships. mensions; carved beads, Hohle Fels, maximum di- prise that the important finds of innovative The study presents numerous unambig- mensions 7–11 mm. (D) Figurative art; mammoth, technology, abstract depictions, and per- uous examples of engraved ostrich egg- Vogelherd, length 3.7 cm. (B–D, Copyright University sonal ornaments have led many scholars to shells (OES), including fragments that of Tübingen.) see coastal southern Africa as the home- come from containers. The repetitive de- land of people who, starting no later than piction of motifs, including a hatched band 60,000 years ago, were behaviorally like First, it is necessary to define terms and motif, suggests a behavioral tradition sim- recent hunters and gatherers as well as all establish a few parameters relevant for ilar to that practiced by recent populations living people today. Evidence for personal addressing the origins of cultural mod- of hunters and gatherers. The use of OES ornaments, burials, and the use of pig- ernity. What is cultural modernity? Simply flasks for storage and transport represents ments from North Africa and the Levant put, this term is used to imply a point in an important innovation. Excavators re- (9–11) dating to around 100,000 years ago fi human evolution when people became like fi covered these nds from multiple Howie- fi raises some questions about the speci c sons Poort strata at Diepkloof, in the us. Implicit in this de nition is the view timing and geographic setting of the rise of Western Cape, which have been dated that all living people are cognitively equal cultural modernity, but few researchers using optically stimulated luminescensce regardless of their physical appearance or question models for exclusively African and thermoluminescence to about 60,000 the kind of technology they use. This origins of modern behavior. This con- years ago. Much of the scientific com- Boasian view of the unity of humankind sensus view, which is the result of several munity will view these finds, which docu- forms the cornerstone of cultural anthro- decades of research in Africa, is seen by ment the storage of symbolic information, pology and the basis of how civilized some as having purged the discourse on as further proof that cultural modernity society deals with cultural diversity (2). modernity of what is often called a Euro- evolved exclusively in Africa. This view is closely related to the ob- centric bias and having brought us to the The publication of the engraved OES servation that the cultural patterns of fitting and seemingly correct position that fl from Diepkloof also provides the scientific modern humans re ect traditions and modern anatomy and modern culture community an opportunity to consider the learned behaviors rather than genetically originate exclusively from Africa. How- strengths and weaknesses of the near dictated predispositions. Thus, how people ever, it makes sense to look at the lines of consensus on the exclusively African origin live today is, above all, a function of social argument that suggest the picture could be of anatomical and cultural modernity. The and cultural reproduction and learning, more complex, and that models for a mainstream view of the human fossil rather than a result of innate biological monocentric African origin of cultural record that sees African origins of ana- differences between human populations. modernity may not reflect the unshakable fi tomically modern humans is convincing, Not surprisingly, de ning such a funda- bastion of verity researchers often claim. although debate continues about whether mental threshold in human evolution leads In this context students of human modern humans of African origins inter- to debate and discussion that has filled bred with indigenous hominins as they many pages of journals and books over the spread across the Old World. Here, I course of the past decade. To address this Author contributions: N.J.C. wrote the paper. address the archaeological record and question, researchers need to focus their The author declares no conflict of interest. discuss how the new findings from attention on the material record that See companion article on page 6180 in issue 14 of volume Diepkloof fit into the overall picture of archaeological excavations have brought 107. Paleolithic cultural evolution. to light. Assumptions about hypothesized 1E-mail: [email protected]. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1001458107 PNAS Early Edition | 1of2 Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 evolution should note that Africa is a reconsider the role played by Neander- Additionally, if we wish to put stock in vast and ecologically diverse continent. thals, some uncomfortable questions arise. the current state of the archaeological Thus, the rise and spred of modernity in The publications by d’Errico and Zilhão record, at least four kinds of symbolic Africa must have been a complex process (14, 15) warrant examination. For years artifacts are known at an earlier date in that took place within and among they have argued that late Neanderthals Eurasia than in Africa (16). These are (i) multiple populations and across multiple can be viewed as behaviorally modern, and ornaments with culturally dictated, three- ecological and demographic frontiers. they have mustered evidence to make this dimensional form, (ii) figurative art, (iii) For decades, the debate on modernity point of view a plausible alternative. But depictions of mythical imagery, and (iv) fi has been de ned in the context of a dia- fortunately for the proponents of the musical instruments (Fig. 1). All of these lectical opposition between Neanderthals mainstream paradigm, their position can classes of symbolic artifacts, as well as and modern humans. Simply put, the be dismissed as an oxymoron, because, by many classes of organic and inorganic alleged primitiveness of Neanderthals definition, archaics cannot be culturally technology, evolved among populations provides the baseline by which we define modern. Or can they? of modern human as they made ever fur- modernity. This approach was defensible as long as there were only two hominins on ther inroads into the range of archaic the archaeological landscape of the Late The use of OES flasks for hominins. It was these frontier settings Pleistocene. But now, the terms of the outside Africa that often served as the debate are starting to shift. Were Nean- storage and transport evolutionary laboratories for developing derthals and modern humans really alone? modern symbolic behavior (17). Once The unexpectedly archaic hominins from represents an important these patterns of complex symbolic be- Flores represent a third character in this havior, as well as a range of technological drama (12), and this diminutive, small- innovation. and social innovations, evolved, Late brained hominin was certainly not mod- Pleistocene people can be seen as being Homo floresiensis ern. To the enigmatic , If, for the sake of argument, we accept culturally like ourselves. Subsequently, evolutionary geneticists now have added the proposition that only anatomically they quickly drove archaic hominins to the newest Late Pleistocene hominin modern humans can be behaviorally extinction as they spread across the entire based on mitochondrial DNA from Deni- modern, researchers must ask the ques- Old World. These observations open the sova Cave in the Altai (13), suggesting that tion: Did modern humans always out- possibility that processes such as com- still another hominin inhabited northern compete archaic humans on the playing petition at the frontiers between modern and perhaps eastern Asia. If rather than field of human evolution? The simple and archaic humans contributed to the two, at least four hominins survived into answer to this question must logically be: development of symbolically mediated life the recent past, the questions connected to yes.