NON-MODERN AFRICA AND MODERN NON-AFRICA: INTERTEXTUAL DISCOURSE ABOUT WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE CAME FROM Mat J. Levitt The idiom no man is an island might be rewritten as no text is an island, meaning that no text exists in literary isolation and that every piece of writing instead belongs to a landscape of others. References, endnotes, footnotes, bibliographies, and the use of phrase, term, or defi nition will situate a text within a discursive network of understand- ings, theories, paradigms, and genres. Intertextual discourses about the origins of humanity often cross generic boundar- ies between religion, science, informative media and entertaining fi ction through the sharing and borrowing of words and concepts. These genres, however reluctantly, inevitably engage with one another in what emerges as a single discourse about who we are and where we came from. Throughout this discourse, certain concepts have formed as time, place, and identity are linguistically associated with one another. The dichotomy of Non-Modern Africa as Other and Mod- ern Non-Africa as Self is one such concept. Caution must be exercised by researchers who wish to talk about human origins, as these types of concepts may have very real implications in political, economic, social, and cultural arenas.

INTERTEXTUALITY, DISCOURSE, other discourses,” (Briggs 1996,449). The au- AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMING NAMES thors explain that intertextual relations “are closely linked to social, cultural, ideological, he idiom “no man is an island” might be and political-economic factors” (Briggs and rewritten as “no text is an island,” mean- T Bauman 1992, 132). Let me give you an ex- ing that no text exists in literary isolation and ample. that every piece of writing instead belongs to In 2004, Brown et al. (2004) announced a landscape of others. References, endnotes, the discovery of some skeletal remains on footnotes, bibliographies, and the use of the Indonesian island of Flores and a pos- phrase, term, or defi nition will situate a piece sible new addition to the Homo genus. Al- of writing within a network of understand- though they assigned it as Homo fl oresiensis, ings, theories, paradigms, and genres. Not it wasn’t long before people were calling the only that, popular media forms part of the small hominin a “hobbit.” Referencing the picture, too. A text can (and in many cases, Lord of the Rings novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, will) participate in a discourse—an ongoing as well as the recent movie trilogy based on conversation—involving television, radio, them, as Gregory Forth explains, this term cinema, the internet, etc. Thus, genres can was no doubt used “in order to communicate be crossed, intentionally or unintentionally, effectively with a wider public” (Forth 2005, through the use of a name, a phrase, an idea, 16). As Forth points out, though, “curiouser or essentially any word that can be found still, the designation was not a creation of anywhere else. A scientifi c journal article and the popular press, but of the scientifi c dis- a political debate can become reluctant kin coverers themselves” (Forth 2005, 16). Forth through the use of common language. An describes the implications and consequences audience can be transported from fi ction to of establishing an intetextual relationship be- non-fi ction by the use of a single term, like tween Homo fl oresiensis and Tolkien’s hobbits: Mars Rover or Louis Pasteur. Briggs and Bau- man (1992) call these referential relation- Casting Homo fl oresiensis as ‘hobbits’ ships—whether implicit or explicit—intertex- potentially obscures the essential dif- tuality. The term describes texts that reference ference between an empirical species, other texts; that is, “discourses that represent designated a member of the genus

Graduate student; Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta Author contact: [email protected]

DIVERSIPEDE, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 12-24, 2011 12 M.J. LEVITT NON-MODERN AFRICA AND MODERN NON-AFRICA

Homo like ourselves, and the images of their ancient ancestors and that they are, of literary fi ction. Like hobbits, both perhaps by semantic default, Asian? This Homo fl oresiensis and ebu gogo are products may not have been what the authors meant of human imagination, but the images to imply, but by using the term, they place have different bases: tangible, skeletal themselves against a background of highly and archaeological evidence in one case, contentious subject matter. and the testimony and traditions of local A linguistic convention that perhaps best people in the other. Rather than simply illustrates the process of intertextuality is the assuming that these traditions are as fan- term “Out of Africa.” The theory, which re- tastical as Tolkien’s fi ction, the challenge fers to the modern human dispersal from the for social anthropologists is to discover African continent into Eurasia, comes with the correct relationship between the pa- its own literary lineage. The common usage laeontological and ethnographic images of the phrase in archaeological contexts re- and the true source of their resemblance fers primarily to the 1985 fi lm Out of Africa [Forth 2005, 16]. starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Now, certainly the hobbit-izers didn’t in- The fi lm was based on Karen von Blixen’s tend on all that, but therein lies the point: colonial memoir recalling her experiences our words have consequences. The language in Kenya, published in 1937 under the pen we use has real signifi cance. As researchers, name Isak Dinsesen. But the phrase wasn’t the terminology we dish out about what we invented by Blixen. In fact, it was used as the study affects not only ourselves, our work, title of a 1934 travelogue by a writer known and our community, but what we study and only as “H.W.,” Something New Out of Africa those who—whether they mean to or not— (Feinberg and Solodow 2002, 255). And it become associated with what we say and how goes back even further. In 1924, a retired we say it. So, unlike Flores, no text is an is- civil servant from Cape Colony in South Af- land, but, like Flores, every text has the po- rica—one Edward A. Judge—wrote to Sena- tential of being mixed up in the grand drama tor W.E.M. Stanford: “‘Cotton, in fact, as a of humanity. friend wrote to me the other day, is going to Let me give you another example. Goe- be another surprise from South Africa. ‘Ex bel et al. (2008, 1497), for instance, use the Africa semper aliquid novum’, as the old Romans term “homeland” when referring to Asia in used to say.” Essentially, the Latin phrase he relationship to those populations who mi- used translates as “There is always something grated to the Americas across Berengia from new out of Africa” (Feinberg and Solodow Siberia. Goebel et al. use the term to establish 2002, 256). But to what “old Romans” was a near instantaneous understanding amongst he referring? A form of the phrase fi rst ap- their readers. We all know that a “homeland” pears in text with Aristotle’s fourth century is where we come from, so referring to Asia BC Historia Animalium. In a discussion about as a homeland for early Americans utilizes the strange hybrids that seem to found on this common knowledge with a single word. the African continent, Aristotle writes, “‘a But the use of such terms can be problem- certain proverb is current, that Libya always atic. The word “homeland” conjures much produces something new’” (quoted in Fein- more than a simple defi nition of geographic berg and Solodow 2002, 257). Occurring in origin; it harkens to ideas relating to identity, a similar connotation, the phrase was textual- destiny, and belonging. Did the “fi rst Ameri- ized next by Pliny the Elder sometime early cans” think of Asia as “home”? Would mod- in the fi rst century AD and then by Zeno- ern Native American populations appreci- bius, a Greek philologist, in the second cen- ate the assertion that Asia is the homeland tury, although Zenobius altered it to “Libya is 13 DIVERSIPEDE VOL. 1, NO. 2, 2012 always producing something evil” (Feinberg been going on since the time of Galileo, the and Solodow 2002, 258). The convention Enlightenment, and even longer. Conduct appears over a thousand years later in west- a simple internet search for “mitochondrial ern Europe with the writings of Erasmus, Eve” and one is likely to be bombarded with although he was likely the one to assign the a heated multivocality, fi nding a plethora of phrase its more current form and connota- multimedia engaged in a discourse about the tion, changing “Libya” to “Africa,” and using origins of humanity, with scholarly and jour- the term in a more charming context, one nalistic articles, lay-person blogs, satirical car- of admiration rather than revulsion or res- toons, television documentaries, radio pro- ervation (Feinberg and Solodow 2002, 259). grams and podcasts, and any other form of With Erasmus’s usage, the phrase propelled human expression, all referencing each other throughout Renaissance texts, being cited, to form a polemical web of ideas and dis- for instance, by Rabelais, who wrote, “you cussion. Curiously, intertextually referencing know well that Africa always brings some- Biblical terms seems to be a common temp- thing new” (quoted in Feinberg and Solodow tation among social and physical scientists. 2002, 260). By the time the phrase appears as We fi nd Steven Oppenheimer’s The Real Eve: the title of Blixen’s memoir, it had changed Modern Man’s Journey Out of Africa (2004) and meanings a number of times but always car- Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World (2003), ried with it the burden of its textual heritage, Robert Ardrey’s African Genesis: A Personal In- a genetic paper trail leading back thousands vestigation Into the Animal Origins and Nature of of years. Initially a statement of bewilder- Man (1977), or Richard Dawkins’ River out of ment and curiosity, it came to be one of re- Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1996), among vulsion, then wonder and awe. It has changed others. from colloquialism to literary obscurity to So, why is it necessary to discuss Bibli- academic convention. When archaeologists/ cal myth in a scientifi c book? Why use Judeo- anthropologists, geneticists, or biologists use Christian terminology in what is supposed the phrase today, might they consider the pa- to be a scientifi c arena? Certainly, a scien- limpsest of meaning and context behind the tifi c journal article that frames itself with a words? This is but one example of how our title playing with Biblical allegory engages words, no matter how benign they may seem, in a precarious game of ‘religion vs. science’ are often precariously laden with an intertex- where we are unsure if the two are combat- tual past. ants or teammates. As Wiktor Stoczkowski Let me give you another example of (2002, 5) points out, scientists of the 18th how the use of a name or phrase—whether and 19th centuries “set out to conquer a fl ippant or fl agrant—can be a ticket to a cen- prehistoric past that had been recently re- turies old debate. In January of 1988, News- discovered. Having as their only enemy the week published the cover story “The Search errors of religious beliefs, all they had to do for Adam & Eve: Scientists Explore a Con- was to choose: either they could reject the troversial Theory About Man’s Origins”. The biblical Genesis, which might ultimately be cover featured “sophisticated and attractive transformed into an allegory of obscure sig- nude portraits of a black Adam and Eve nifi cance, or they could adopt a hostile stance sharing the apple, with the snake looking on towards the naturalist view, in defense of the approvingly” (Oppenheimer 2003, 45). In a Christian doctrine.” So why do modern sci- single illustrated statement, science and re- entists engage in this old polemic? The an- ligion, material fact and sacred mythology, swer is that, whether it is science or myth or can once again become entangled in an au- religion, these disciplines are concerned with thoritative argument over humanity that has the same subject matter, and thus they form 14 M.J. LEVITT NON-MODERN AFRICA AND MODERN NON-AFRICA a single discourse, one ongoing discussion mous artifact which harmoniously reconciles about who we are and where we came from. the possible attitudes toward a given prob- It is then impossible for any one text to es- lem.” Past and current theories form not a cape the family tree of which it is a part and binary system but an analogue continuum of so intentional intertextuality and overt refer- discourse, a space that one may enter with ence become necessary. Rather than pretend- the mention of a single word. But this is not ing that Biblical myth and scientifi c theory to be avoided or lamented. The intertextual are of different concerns, we must engage the space is one that often serves rather than hin- other in a dialogue, or at least acknowledge ders a discursive engagement. Stoczkowski its voice. Stoczkowski (2002, 197) explains (2002, 198) writes: that innovative theories of anthropogenesis Contrary to what is often thought, scien- are provided for by the “raw materials” of tists do not draw their conclusions from earlier conceptions and, at the same time, are empirical data, any more than they rewrite infl uenced by the historical and cultural con- history in terms of prevailing ideology. In texts which framed those earlier conceptions. fact, they rather try to organise the het- In this way, “every new act is played here on erogeneous conceptual materials that so- a stage that is already constructed, prepared ciety places at their disposal, and these in- by the past. Continuity and discontinuity, in- clude new facts and recent ideologies just novation and tradition represent two sides of as much as ancient commonplaces…. It the same coin.” is not a question of some liberation from Intertextuality is not necessarily a choice the past, but rather of learning to make but, rather, an inevitability. New things can- good use of it. not be said without communicating with what has been said. As Culler (1976, 1382) Because we cannot avoid them, we must explains: keep in mind how our intertextual referenc- es form relationships between texts, ideas, ...the notion of intertextuality names the people, and actions. We must “make good paradox of linguistic and discursive sys- use” of our words. One way of doing so tems: that utterances or texts are never is to keep in mind the story we are telling moments of origin because they depend when we write an academic text. What nar- on the prior existence of codes and con- rative arises from our data and interpreta- ventions, and it is the nature of codes to tions? In a sense, we are telling the story of be always ready in existence, to have lost humanity, a performance which cannot be origins. It is diffi cult to explain what it is treated frivolously. These tellings belong that enables is to make sense of a new to a genre of discourse—perhaps the oldest instance of discourse, but whatever intel- genre of discourse—about where we came ligibility a discursive sequence achieves from. Misia Landau (1991, x) has suggested depends on intertextual codes…. In- that palaeoanthropological texts from the tertextuality is less a name for a work’s time of Charles Darwin “are determined as relation to particular prior texts than an much by traditional narrative frameworks as assertion of a work’s participation in a by material evidence” and that these texts, discursive space and its relation to the considered as narratives, “approximate the codes which are the potential formaliza- structure of the hero tale,” featuring “a tions of that space. humble hero who departs on a journey, re- Culler (1976, 1393) goes on to say that inter- ceives essential equipment from a helper or textuality “leads one to think of a text as a di- donor fi gure, goes through tests and trans- alogue with other texts, an act of absorption, formations, and fi nally arrives at a higher parody, and criticism, rather than an autono- state.” She goes on to point out that “this 15 DIVERSIPEDE VOL. 1, NO. 2, 2012

narrative schema can accommodate widely luminates events in the past” and “contin- varying sequences of events, heroes and do- ues to put Europe on centre stage, casting nors corresponding to the underlying evo- it either as the arena where the actual events lutionary beliefs of their authors.” When of human origins were enacted, or as the we write or read a journal article or a book, yardstick by which human accomplishments who are “the heroes” of the tale? What is elsewhere must be measured.” McBrearty’s their journey? Where is it taking them, from statements, though directed as critique, are where are they departing, and why? Even apt, and apply not only to the archaeologists, if one rejects the idea that a scientifi c text but their audiences—indeed, to humanity as can be thought of as a mythic narrative, one a whole. Everyone has needs, desires, and might not so easily be inclined to dismiss aspirations, and in many ways these are met the idea that our words tell a story, no mat- through a process of reinterpreting the nar- ter what that story might be. And so, what ratives that surround us, that inform our to do? Landau (1991, 175) offers this advice: identities and experiences. As White (1980, “Given that evolutionary explanation is by 5) explains, “narrative might be considered defi nition a kind of narration, paleoanthro- a solution to a problem of general human pologists might consider wrestling with the concern, namely, the problem of how to ‘story-telling dragon,’ rather than avoiding translate knowing into telling, the problem of it altogether. Some literary scholars would fashioning human experience into a form argue that there is no escape. It is storytell- assimilable to structures of meaning that ing that makes us human.” But how will we, are generally human rather than culture-spe- as Stoczkowski (2002) suggests, make good cifi c.” This is perhaps one of the performa- use of the current data, be it genetic or ar- tive functions of intertextuality, where a text chaeological, and how will the stories we tell builds on others that describe what a culture about our beginnings relate to the narratives did in order to articulate what a culture is ca- we construct about our lives and the world pable of (Culler 1976, 1383). The narratives we live in now? we tell, and the way we incorporate other THE IMPORTANCE OF NARRATIVE: narratives into our own, are integral to our LIVING STORIES sense of who we are and what we are about. Johnson (1993, 150) writes, “the self is de- In the collection Rethinking the Human fi ned by not only its biological makeup as a Revolution, Sally McBrearty (2007) authors physical organism, but also by its ends, its a chapter entitled “Down with the Revolu- interpersonal relationships, its cultural tra- tion”. McBrearty (2007, 145) explains that ditions, its institutional commitments, and the conceptual term “Human Revolution” its historical context. Within this evolving is a “serious misnomer,” as it is based upon context it must work out its identity.” Nar- erroneous interpretations of Middle to Up- ratives of human evolution are discourses per Palaeolithic data. Despite this, the idea of identity. We are all authors of those nar- of some kind of revolution has persisted, ratives, always asking, “Of what story or and scientists continue to seek one out. stories do we fi nd ourselves a part?” and, This idea is so compelling because it pres- in response, “What are we to do?” This is ents “a single extraordinary moment that why the intertextual process must be carried defi nes what it is to be human and explains out with a purposeful consideration. Braid all or most of subsequent events in prehis- (1996, 6) tells us, tory.” McBrearty suggests that “this quest for this ‘eureka moment’ reveals a great deal Because of parallels between lived ex- about the needs, desires, and aspirations of perience and the process of following a archaeologists, but obscures rather than il- narrative, the listener’s struggle to follow 16 M.J. LEVITT NON-MODERN AFRICA AND MODERN NON-AFRICA

a narrative must be seen to be an experi- DRAWING LINES BY SAYING WORDS: ence in its own right. Part of this expe- THE INTERTEXTUAL CONSTRUCTION rience of following involves a recontex- OF DICHOTOMIES tualization of the narrative imagery and events in terms of the listener’s own life My fate is to live amid varied and confus- experience. In this sense personal narra- ing storms. But for you, perhaps, if as I tives can generate experiential resources hope and wish you will live after me, there for the listener – resources that may be will follow a better age. This sleep of for- “thought with” and “thought through” in getfulness will not last for ever. When the the struggle to make sense of the world. darkness has been dispersed, our descen- In this way, life is a narrative, and what in- dants can come again in the former pure forms and frames that narrative are the foun- radiance [Petrarch. Africa, IX, 451-57]. dational aspects of place, belief, and action. The language used in the discourse sur- Just as story can inform identity, both can in- rounding the origins of humanity, whether form action. Economic and political policies implicit or explicit, cannot avoid the reifi - can be built on the interpretations of schol- cation of certain concepts or conventions. ars, as can social and cultural understandings Within narratives of human evolution we and opinions. Our beginnings will likely infl u- fi nd the formation and solidifi cation of par- ence our ends and the interpretation of the ticular binaries, dualities, or dichotomies. means to those ends. Zerubavel (2003, 101) Historically, perhaps the most important or explains, persistent are that of Self and Other, Human and Non-Human, or Human and Animal. In the special mnemonic status of begin- contemporary scientifi c narratives, the study nings is quite evident from the dispro- of human development hinges primarily on portionately high representation, in our two more recently established dichotomies: general memories from college, of the Modern and Non-Modern and African and Non- fi rst few weeks or our freshman year. It African. Again, though, these dichotomies, I also explains the signifi cant role of ‘ori- will argue, are essentially part of the same gin myths’ in defi ning social communities intertextual discourse as that of Self and as well as in solidifying the legitimacy of Other. As I will discuss further, the intertex- political regimes. Origins help articulate tual association of the dichotomies with one identities, and where communities locate another, thus forming the conceptual time- their beginnings tell us quite a lot about places of Non-modern Africa and Modern Non- how they perceive themselves. Africa, may have certain ramifi cations and so We might think of origin myths not as must be disseminated with some amount of archaic artifacts but as ongoing processes of self-refl exive caution. identity-establishment. Those origin myths, those stories we tell ourselves about our be- Modern and Non-Modern ginnings, are unavoidably interconnected The idea of modernity is central to cur- with scientifi c interpretation and vice ver- rent discussions of human evolution. Ana- sa. Landau (1991, 183) writes, “In the fi nal tomical modernity and behavioral modernity analysis, the truly signifi cant test of scientifi c are the two main signifi ers of our understand- theories of human evolution may lie in their ing of who we are and what distinguishes us workability in everyday practice.” How we from earlier members of our genus. And in live those scientifi c theories and narratives conceiving of ourselves as modern, there about the human species may ultimately prove exists the obvious opposition to something their relevance to the human species. non-modern—that state of humanity prior 17 DIVERSIPEDE VOL. 1, NO. 2, 2012

to the advent of modernity, before we were cult of reason, and the ideal of freedom truly us. But where does the concept of mo- defi ned within the framework of an ab- dernity come from? stract humanism, but also the orientation Matei Calinescu (1987, 13) explains that toward pragmatism and the cult of action the idea of modernity fi rst appeared in the and success—all have been associated in Middle Ages, when the adjective and noun various degrees with the battle for the modernus was coined from the adverb modo, modern and were kept alive and promot- which meant “recently, just now.” The ma- ed as key values in the triumphant civili- jor antonym of modernus was antiquus, mean- zation established by the middle class. ing ‘ancient, old.’ By the tenth century, the With the inception of practical time came the words modernitas and moderni became popular, practicalities of time; past, present, and fu- meaning ‘modern times’ and ‘men of today,’ respectively. Calinescu (1987, 14) suggests ture became conceptually graspable and even that “the distinction between antiquus and observable. In a sense, the idea of progress modernus seems to have always implied a po- became not only pragmatic, but essentially so. lemic signifi cance, or a principle of confl ict.” The current state of things became a litmus Previously, the classical Latin language had test of progress and human development; no opposition between modern and ancient be- only if we had noticeably moved away from cause the “classical Latin mind” had no inter- what we were could we have any confi dence est in “diachronical relationships” (Calinescu that we could become what we wanted to be. As 1987, 14). And it wasn’t until the Renaissance Svetlana Boym (2001, 22) explains, “Moder- that the dichotomy became acute within so- nity and modernisms are responses to the ciocultural awareness. This was in part due condition of modernization and the conse- to the invention of the mechanical clock in quences of progress.” The future was seen as the late thirteenth century, along with the de- a time of reason, of self-control, of refi ned velopment of a concept of “practical time” humanity, and this future was conceptualized in regards to “action, creation, discovery, and both temporally and geographically as a Uto- transformation,” as opposed to the medieval pia; a time-place that represented the ends of sense of theological time, which was vast, modernity and progress: immeasurable, and entirely abstract (Calines- Indeed the rage for utopia—either di- cu 1987, 19-20). rectly and positively or by way of reaction Calinescu (1987, 42) goes on to say: and polemicism—pervades the whole [The] bourgeois idea of modernity…has intellectual spectrum of modernity from by and large continued the outstanding political philosophy to poetry and the traditions of earlier periods in the his- arts…. Utopian imagination as it has developed tory of the modern idea. The doctrine of since the eighteenth century is one more proof progress, the confi dence in the benefi cial of the modern devaluation of the past and the possibilities of science and technology, growing importance of the future. Utopianism, the concern with time (a measurable time, however, would hardly be conceivable a time that can be bought and sold and outside the specifi c time consciousness therefore has, like any other commod- of the West, as it was shaped by Chris- ity, a calculable equivalent in money), the tianity and subsequently by reason’s ap-

1 It is interesting to note that the diachronic view of time facilitated not only the conception of modern and non-modern and of progress but also the very idea of ’revolution.’ Revolution, however, linguistically and conceptually denotes something that scholars who promote the Human or Cultural Revolution theory like Richard Klein, a major proponent of the Human Revolution model, would likely reject: a cyclical model of time alternating between utopias and dysto- pias, with revolution implying a “return to a purer initial state” (Calinescu 1987, 22). 18 M.J. LEVITT NON-MODERN AFRICA AND MODERN NON-AFRICA

propriation of the concept of irreversible supportable epistemological and scientifi c time [Calinescu 1987, 63, my italics].1 basis for making this dual distinction.” Keita The movement toward reason, seen as a for- (2004, 5) goes on to say, “The conclusion one ward movement through time, established a is led to after an epistemological analysis of “devaluation of the past”—the “past” be- the extant evolutionary models and theories ing a time when a lack of reason seemed to is that ideological considerations are at work rule our species. Modernity became what we here. The implicit goal on grounds of a naïve hierarchical racialism is to make of Africa’s strived for, and pre-modernity—or non-mo- population a special case in the world’s ge- dernity—was what we moved away from in nome bank.” While I wouldn’t necessarily ac- our natural progression through time toward cuse any researchers of an “implicit goal on reason and refi nement. grounds of a naïve hierarchical racialism,” I Africa and Non-Africa would venture to point out that the Africa- Rest-of-the-World (or Africa and Non-Afri- Over the past couple of decades, Africa ca) duality does persist in the discourse re- has been situated within the scientifi c mind garding current genetic research. McBrearty as the place of origin for the Homo genus and Brooks (2000, 453) might agree. They and the modern human species. But Africa write: has become much more than a geographic region. By “Africa,” we refer not only to ge- Because the earliest modern human fos- ography but to genetics, which become an- sils, Homo sapiens sensu stricto, are found in chored to one another by association, like Africa and the adjacent region of the Le- Adam who was made of the dust of the vant at >100 ka, the ‘‘human revolution’’ Garden, or the peasant whose soil is in his model creates a time lag between the veins. Africa has, in a sense, likewise become appearance of anatomical modernity more than geography or genetics. It has be- and perceived behavioral modernity, come a mindscape—a conceptual domain and creates the impression that the ear- that involves ideas about human identity, ca- liest modern Africans were behaviorally pacity, and potential. But a clear defi nition of primitive. This view of events stems from just what “Africa” is lacks explicitness. It is a profound Eurocentric bias and a failure something that people who participate in the to appreciate the depth and breadth of discourse must discern based on the usage of the African archaeological record. the term—on its textual context—and how A quick review of some current literature “Africa” passes from one text to another, will help to illustrate the Africa and Non- from one theory to another. In any event, Africa linguistic binary. For instance, the ar- what has become clear is that the world has ticle “An X-Linked Haplotype of Neandertal begun to be conceived of as consisting of Origin Is Present Among All Non-African two parts: Africa and Non-Africa, the place Populations” by Yotova et al. (2011) makes we came from and the place we went to. a distinction between, as the title suggests, Referring to the Out-of-Africa replacement African and non-African populations. The model, the multiregional model, and the trel- authors discuss evidence that “Neander- lis model of recurrent genetic interchange, tals contributed to the genetic makeup of Lansana Keita (2004, 1) writes, “despite im- modern human populations outside Africa,” portant differences the three major theories which may have facilitated “adaptations to of human anthropological evolution all sub- novel environmental conditions that actu- scribe in greater or lesser degrees to what ally contributed to the successful expan- one might call ‘the Africa-Rest-of-the-World’ sion of human migrants from Africa to evolutionary hypothesis, although there is no other continents” (Yotova et al. 2011, 1961). 19 DIVERSIPEDE VOL. 1, NO. 2, 2012

What the authors are suggesting is a ous that members of hominid groups that type of “hybrid vigor” among all non-Af- migrated during the Paleolithic era had abso- rican populations. This theory is signifi cant lutely no idea whether they were migrating to because, not only does it posit a genetic dif- other parts of Africa or leaving the continent ference among African and non-African altogether,” but that migrations were occur- populations, it proposes the idea that non- ring within Africa as well. The world, then, is African populations may be better suited to more accurately conceived of as “ecological non-African environments on the genetic, and environmental zones” defi ned by “mea- rather than the phenotypic, level. This is wor- surable differences in climate and ecology” risome, especially when one considers the than continents or geo-political landmasses fact that many people of recent African an- defi ned only by imposed conceptual borders. cestry do indeed reside in non-African parts If the binary continues to persist in sci- of the world. Would we say, then, that they entifi c discourse—with a likely infl uence on are “less suited”? Likely not, but perhaps the political and sociocultural discourses—per- danger lies not in explicitness but in those haps of most concern is how Africa has been naïve interpretations based on perceived im- and will be portrayed: as Homeland, Cruci- plications. ble, or Cage. In some cases, Africa has been The article “African Origin of Modern portrayed as that place we left to become Humans in East Asia: A Tale of 12,000 Y modern—to become fully human—and it Chromosomes” by Ke et al. (2001) provides wasn’t until we left Africa that we could be- a diagram of Y chromosome haplotypes come who we are. The Human Revolution throughout the world’s populations. The model, for instance, suggests this view, as diagram distinguishes African-specifi c hap- does the Hybrid Vigor hypothesis. In other lotypes, non-African-specifi c haplotypes, and texts, Africa has been portrayed as a cruci- shared between Africans and non-Africans. ble—that chamber in which various forces The phrase “African and other world popula- came together to create us as we are, or us tions” is also used (Ke et al. 2001, 1152). as we needed to be in order to become who But can we make such defi nitions? Is we are. Still in others, Africa is portrayed as there a real spot where Africa ends and Non- homeland—that ancestral place to which we Africa begins? Just where is the defi ning line, might always look with affection and awe. not only now, but when our ancestors sup- Svante Pääbo, in a TED Talk in July 2011 posedly left Africa? Where can we place that in Edinburgh, Scotland, said, “What I often point of exit? As Pam Willoughby (2007, 94) like to say is that from a genomic perspective, explains, “The fi rst modern humans outside then, we are all Africans. We either live inside of Africa are those found at Mugharet es Africa today or in quite recent exile.” Within Skhül and Jebel Qafzeh, and they date to MIS the language of Pääbo’s narrative, although stage 5e (Bar Yosef 1989a, 1989b; Tchernov we are all Africans, there still exists a di- 1988). Whether or not this represents the chotomy between Africa and the rest of the start of the Out of Africa II migration can be planet. He says, “You fi nd a certain amount disputed, since all proxy indicators show that of genetic variation in Africa, and if you look at this time the Levant was biogeographically outside Africa, you actually fi nd less genetic part of Africa.” If we begin to think of the variation.” Pääbo’s presentation is politically world as biogeographically analogue, rather liberal and yet the African/Non-African di- than binary, how might things differ with a vide is propagated. The reason I reference world conceptualized as being composed of Pääbo’s TED Talk rather than one of his ar- Africa and Non-Africa? Keita (2004, 2) re- ticles is because of his audience. TED Talks minds us that not only should it “be obvi- are watched by hundreds of thousands of 20 M.J. LEVITT NON-MODERN AFRICA AND MODERN NON-AFRICA people across all demographics. The broad- dichotomies become intertextually associ- casting of these binaries, as well as ideas de- ated and integrated as a single dichotomy of picting Africa as homeland, crucible, or cage, time-spaces or time-places: Non-Modern Af- are likely to reach a wide audience through rica and Modern Non-Africa. Politically and various multimedia. How will they synthesize socially, caution is necessary: these terminologies and ideas into their per- sonal narratives? What ideas will they incor- The genetic evidence that modern hu- porate into their lived identities? While the mans emerged from Africa, leaving be- language used by these researchers does not hind them ‘homeland’ representatives intentionally create divisions, it does con- whose descendants still live in Africa and struct conceptual dichotomies. While seem- are self-evidently ‘fully modern’ in every ingly benign, the conceptualization of the way, has disturbing implications for con- world as African and Non-African or Africa tinuing Western perceptions of modern and Non-Africa is a potentially worrisome Africans. Although the danger of these categorization. views is obvious, the mindset of some European archaeologists has remained TIME-SPACE AND TIME-PLACES: unchanged [Oppenheimer 2003: 89-90]. THE WHERE AND WHEN OF SELF AND OTHER What we are talking about here is the One concept important in the theo- distinction between Self and Other and what retical developments of humankind since kind of policies, actions, or ideas such a dis- the nineteenth century is that of time-space tinction can motivate or allow within the associations. Fabian (2002, 12) writes, “rela- sociopolitical sphere. As Fabian (2002, 1) tionships between parts of the world (in the reminds us, “there is no knowledge of the widest sense of both natural and sociocul- Other which is not also a temporal, historical, tural entities) can be understood as temporal a political act.” When we begin to conceive relations. Dispersal in space refl ects directly, of groups of people as Other, a dangerous which is not to say simply or in obvious ways, liberty begins to grow, often materializing in sequence in Time.” This time-space associa- a license for discrimination. But how do we tion is also important to discourses in human make these distinctions? Where do we draw development. In 1800, Joseph-Marie Degé- the lines between Self and Other, temporal- rando wrote in his Considerations on the Various ly, spatially, or politically? This line was fi rst Methods to Follow in the the Observation of Savage drawn, perhaps, between Human and Animal; Peoples, “The philosophical traveler, sailing to Civilization and Wild; Man and Beast. Wiktor the ends of the earth, is in fact travelling in Stoczkowsi (2002, 42-43) writes: time; he is exploring the past; every step he makes is the passage of an age” (quoted in The idea of the animal—we should Robben and Sluka 2007, 34). To those early rather say bestial—condition of our an- explorers and observers of unfamiliar hu- cestors is part of the classic legacy of man societies, whether they were naturalists conjectural anthropology…. The tenden- or colonialists, distant lands were conceived cy to compare the earliest humans with of as distant times. One might argue that this animals has existed from Antiquity, and perception continues in discourse regarding it is easy, starting from a few texts cho- humanity’s African origins. Whether we say, sen at random, to draw up a list of the “Once we left Africa we became modern” or main attributes ascribed by conjectural “Once we became modern we left Africa,” history to that ‘bestial’ state: absence of we are agreeing on two dichotomies: Non- religion, absence of government, absence Modern and Modern and Africa and Non- of laws, absence of language, absence of Africa. These two temporal and geographic individual property, absence of clothing. 21 DIVERSIPEDE VOL. 1, NO. 2, 2012

Here we have a defi nition by negatives, little attempt to link non-Western history in which every item expresses the non- and culture with Western technology and existence of ‘typical’ manifestations of achievements. Just as indigenous groups culture. So the bearers of those attributes became people without history (Wolf fi nd themselves again confi ned to the 1982, 1997), early modern Africans and state of nature, represented in the image their Neanderthal cousins in Eurasia have of animals and, like them, lacking every- become people without behavior or true thing believed to be specifi c to humans. culture (Willoughby 2000; Speth 2004). Such a view of animality comes from a In conceiving of the Other, we must place simple inversion of the image we have of humans, that is, of ourselves. the Other somewhere in time, somewhere in history, somewhere in space, and somewhere Since Antiquity, there has been a perceived in place. We are left, then, with an intertextual point at which we ceased to be the Other conception that looks like this: Non-Modern and became Us (Stoczkowski 2002, 60). Africa as Other and Modern Non-Africa as Whether this point refers to the transition Self. of the Ancients into the Moderns, animals Our new scientifi c defi nitions are meant into humans, natural man into social man, to inform the age-old question vital to self- or the savage into the civilized, a dichotomy conceived identity. But, at their core, have our between Self and Other seems to have long new defi nitions of humanity differed much preoccupied scholars of religion, philosophy, from our old defi nitions? In a meta-study of and science—indeed, scholars of the human 24 texts examining the question of human condition. It is not surprising, then, that in origins published between 1820 and 1986, the recent scientifi c explorations of human Wiktor Stoczkowski (1994, 38-39) writes, evolution, the dichotomy of Self and Other has also been on the forefront. How else are How did humans appear? It would be we to know who we are than knowing who diffi cult to understand the methods and we are not? The Non-Modern Africa and structures of the scenarios that attempt Modern Non-Africa time-place dichotomy to answer this question without fi rst ex- is, essentially, a reworking of the Self and plaining what their authors understand Other or Human and Non-Human binaries. by ‘humans’. ‘Humans’ are defi ned by a We know that we are Modern, so the Other conglomeration of characteristics that are is Non-Modern. And, if we know that we given the status of distinguishing features reached modernity outside of Africa, then of our biological family. Consequently, to Africa is the place of the Other, or at least explain anthropogenesis means to explain the place where the Other became the Self. the origins of these human characteris- As Willoughby (2007, 5) explains: tics…. If we standardize the terminology which designates ‘human’ characteristics Over the last two to three decades, ar- in our twenty-four texts, their profusion chaeologists and palaeoanthropologists can be reduced to a list of thirty-eight have written about early modern Afri- properties…. It is striking that the core of cans in the same way that Europeans ini- this list, consisting of the most frequently tially wrote about non-Western people. mentioned characteristics, has changed Both are treated as distinct, as ‘others,’ very little over 150 years. The leading outside the range of what it means to roles are constantly played by attributes be cultured or civilized. Early European such as tools, bipedalism, free hands, lan- explorers were fascinated by the cultural guage, social life and cooperation. and biological diversity of people they encountered worldwide. But there was If, as Stoczkowski suggests, very little has 22 M.J. LEVITT NON-MODERN AFRICA AND MODERN NON-AFRICA

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