As usual after the weekend, I'm grinding slowly through catchup...
On Sun, 01 Jun 2003, Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In particular, the fourfold description distinguishes us from Homo
>Neanderthalensis who lived very happily and stably for about 500,000
>years with one innovation -- a slightly sharpened piece of stone that he
>could use as a weapon or a hammer (and which was just one step up from
>the chimp's use of any handy piece of stone). The point is that Homo
>Sapiens not only produced a far better stone tool than Homo N -- the
>so-called 'axehead' -- but he kept on producing innovations from then
>onwards!
This is a pretty muddled account: the species with one tool was
Homo erectus, which seems to have managed for almost two million
years with only the "Acheulian hand axe", a tool shaped rather
like a flattened tear drop. The only older tools are called
"Oldowan choppers", and are basically stones with six or eight
flakes broken off one side to make a ragged edge. The Acheulian
tools show a slight improvement in quality of manufacture over
the period of their existence, but with the advent of the Neandertal
"Mousterian" tool culture in europe, and other lineages elsewhere,
over the last half million years, tool variety and quality greatly
increased. The Neandertals had a rich variety of stone and bone
implements, and no doubt had much more in wood, of which only
some "javelins" of uncertain ownership have been found. They
certainly hafted points on spears, and used awls to bore into
wood and bone. Which is not to say that the subsequent Aurignacian
toolkit of the european Hs was not substantially more elaborate
yet, but you slander the poor Neandertals, who never seem to
be able to get good press.
-Pete Vincent
Yes, I *was* rather traducing Neantherthal man. If the wiped-out-by-disease hypothesis is correct, then Hn could possibly be living today, perhaps even to be seen wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase. But I was generalising (but not overmuch) in order to make the point that Neanderthal and other previous Homo species had limited creativity and were confined to restricted habitats. Creativity was certainly going on for a million years or more before we came along. But after we mutated then invention was explosive. The novelty-seeking parts of our brain (the frontal lobes) were considerably larger than those of Neanderthal (with his low, sloping forehead) and this, I suggest, is what instituted consumer demand, drove trade between adjacent tribes and then encouraged migration into all parts of the world, even into habitats which, without trade, would have been totally inhospitable.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
