Please read and watch videos to complete the assignment
In what way is the origin myth of “man the hunter” problematic?
What relationship does it have to contemporary ideologies of human nature and gender roles? What are some of the alternative theories presented in the text? How do these proposed patterns of subsistence relate to anthropological discussions of power, production, and reproduction?
and discontinuous. In addition, demographic and climatic
factors may affect the degree to which any of these mod-
ern human capabilities are expressed. Ethnographic stud-
ies suggest, for example, that symbolic expression, subsis-
tence practices, and regional networks intensify under con-
dition of resource stress.
Neanderthals, on the other hand, before 50 kya, had
hafted spear points, used a large amount of black coloring
materials, and practiced simple burials without offerings
or ocher. There is little evidence in this early time range for
Neanderthal fishing and none for bone tools, musical in-
struments, cave art, or personal ornaments. After 40-50
kya, when modern humans were already on the Neander-
thals’ periphery or perhaps in their midst, Neanderthals
developed or adopted some of the same traits—particu-
larly the beads and stone technologies. But they still lacked
small light projectile armatures (points) and rarely if ever
went fishing. And the really long distance raw materials are
only marginally present towards the end of their existence
at the northeast edge of their range in Eastern Europe and
Central Asia. In both regions we would expect human ter-
ritories to be very large and populations sparse.
Why was Homo sapiens able to replace Neanderthals in
Eurasia after 50 kya but not before? There seem to be
three possibilities: 1) a sudden genetic mutation, 2) techno-
logical superiority, or 3) more sophisticated social networks.
These networks, supported by a greater use of symbols or
even language, would have buffered humans against risks.
A fourth hypothesis is that invading Africans brought with
them epidemic diseases to which the Neanderthals had no
resistance.
In any event, Neanderthals survived long enough to
leave archaeological and/or fossil traces in several sites in
southern Europe that are contemporary with sites of early
modern humans in Europe over a period of at least 6000-
7000 years. Co-existence in the Near East may have oc-
curred over an even longer period. New work on the nuclear
DNA genome of Neanderthals even suggests that mod-
ern populations in Eurasia (but not in Africa) carry a small
percentage (1-4%) of Neanderthal genes, implying that
Neanderthals and modern humans interbred in the Near
East, before modern humans expanded to the rest of
Eurasia. (This and other new genetic studies bearing on
human evolution and migration will be covered in a future
AnthroNotes article).
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AnthroNotes Volume 31 No. 1 Spring 2010
While the answer to the question of why Homo sapiens
was able to replace Neanderthals is almost certainly more
complicated than any of these three simple hypotheses of-
fered above, and may involve combinations of them and
others, the evidence against a revolutionary genetic event is
strong when you consider Africa. That continent is charac-
terized by the earlier appearance of technological and eco-
nomic complexity, as well as of complex symbolic behav-
ior. The patterning of change both during and at the end
of the Middle Stone Age period of early Homo sapiens is
also very different from that consistent with a genetic revo-
lution, as it is both spotty and gradual. Such gradual pat-
terning is much better explained in earlier anatomically
modern humans by assuming the existence in earlier ana-
tomically modern humans of modern behavioral capabili-
ties that are variably expressed when conditions call for
them. When either climate change or population growth
created effective crowding, in an otherwise sparsely inhab-
ited landscape, such pre-adaptation could have become
expressed in modern behavioral capabilities.
Conclusion
Currently available data suggest that our ancestors pos-
sessed some basic capacities for technological innovation
and symbolic behavior before the line leading to Neander-
thals in Europe diverged from the line leading to Ana-
tomically Modern Humans (AMH) in Africa, a split which
genetics and archaeology concur in dating to between 400
and 800 kya. These more human capacities became more
elaborately expressed earlier in Africa because of its larger
population, more diversified landscape, and greater po-
tential for interregional interaction. As a result, by 60 kya,
AMH entering Eurasia were able to expand and replace
Neanderthals, who responded initially with increased ex-
pression of some of these capabilities on their own, but
were ultimately unable to prevail. In the future, new data
from the fossil and archaeological records but also from
the evolutionary history of the brain, its faculties, and genes
that affect behavior may shed further light on the question
of what it means to be human.
References
Ambrose, S. 2001. “Paleolithic Technology and Human
Evolution.” Science 299 (5509): 1748-53.
Anton, S.C., and C.C. Swisher III. 2004. “Early Dispersals
of Homo from Africa.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33:
271-96.
Barham, L.S. 1998. “Possible Early Pigment Use in South-
Central Africa.” Current Anthropology 39: 703-20.
Bouzouggar, A., et al. 2007. “82,000-Year-Old Shell Beads
from North Africa and Implications for the Origin of
Modern Human Behavior.” Proceedings of the National Acad-
emy of Sciences 104: 9964-69.
Brooks, A.S. 2010. “What is a Human? Anthropological
Perspectives on the Origins of Humanness.” In M. Jeeves,
ed., Rethinking Human Nature. Eerdmans. In press.
(continued on next page)
Alison Brooks at Olorgesailie, Kenya.
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AnthroNotes Volume 31 No.1 Spring 2010
Brooks, A.S., et al. 2006. “Projectile Technologies of the
African MSA: Implications for Modern Human Origins.”
In E. Hovers and S. Kuhn eds., Transitions before the Transi-
tion: Evolution and Stability in the Middle Paleolithic and Middle
Stone Age, pp. 233-55. Kluwer Academics/Plenum.
Green, R.E. et al. 2010. “A draft sequence of the Neandertal
genome.” Science 328: 710-722.
Henshilwood, C.S., et al. 2004. “Middle Stone Age beads
from South Africa.” Science 304: 404. (See supporting online
material for pictures). See also Journal of Human Evolution
48, no. 1 (2005): 3-25.
Henshilwood, C.S,et al.. 2002. “Emergence of Modern
Human Behavior: Engravings from South Africa.” Science
295: 1278-80.
Lieberman, P., and R. C. McCarthy. 2007. “Tracking the
evolution of language and speech: Comparing vocal tracts
to identify speech capabilities.” Expedition 49 (2): 15-20.
Lordkipanize D, et al. 2005. “Anthropology: The Earliest
Toothless Hominin Skull.” Nature 434: 717-18.
Marean C.W., et al. 2007. “Early Human Use of Marine
Resources and Pigment in South Africa during the Middle
Pleistocene.” Nature 449: 905-08.
McBrearty, S., and A. Brooks. 2000. “The Revolution That
Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern
Human Behavior.” Journal of Human Evolution 39: 453-563.
McDougall, I., F. H. Brown, and J. G. Fleagle. 2005. “Strati-
graphic Placement and Age of Modern Humans from
Kibish, Ethiopia.” Nature 433: 733-36.
Mercader, Julio, et al. 2007. “4,300-Year-Old Chimpanzee
Sites and the Origins of Percussive Stone Technology.”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (9): 3043-
48.
Pearson, Osbjorn M. 2001. Postcranial Remains and Mod-
ern Human Origins. Evolutionary Anthropology 9 (6): 229-47.
Pettitt, Paul A. 2001. “The Neanderthal Dead: Exploring
Mortuary Variability in Middle Paleolithic Eurasia.” Before
Farming 1: 1-19.
Potts, Richard and Christopher Sloan. 2010. What does it
Mean to be Human? National Geographic.
Roche, H.A., et al. 1999. “Early Hominid Stone Tool Pro-
duction and Technical Skill 2.34 Mya in West Turkana,
Kenya. Nature 399: 57-60.
Semaw, S., M. et al. 2003. “2.6 Million-Year-Old Stone Tools
and Associated Bones from OGS-6 and OGS-7, Gona,
Afar, Ethiopia.” Journal of Human Evolution 45: 169-77.
Sherwood, C. C., F. Subiaul, and T. Zawidzki. 2008. “A
Natural History of the Human Mind: Tracing Evolution-
ary Changes in Brain and Cognition.” Journal of Anatomy
212 (4): 426-54.
Vanhaeren, M., et al. 2006. “Middle Paleolithic Shell Beads
in Israel and Algeria.” Science 312: 1785-88.
For a more complete list of references, email
anthroutreach@si.edu.
Alison S. Brooks is Professor of Anthropology at George
Washington University and Editor of “AnthroNotes.”
Australopithecus afarensis. Starting with a cast skull, artist
John Gurche builds layers of muscle, fat, and skin to create
hyper-realistic busts of human ancestors featured in the
new David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
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