Radical or progressive evolution

[trehinp]

Radical or progressive evolution? The case of “Savant syndrome”

Homo Sapiens Sapiens apparition dates approximately 120,000 to 150,000 years. Its physical appearance as well as the anatomical observations, from which one could deduce the volume and the form from his brain, shows that he/she was extremely similar to us. One can think that we form only one species.

However, a debate rages in the field of the palaeoanthropology : was the cultural evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens progressive or on the contrary relatively sudden?

Tenets of the second theory use as corner stones of their analysis the sudden apparition, around thirty to forty thousand years ago, of art forms completely unknown before as for example in Chauvet Cave. Some very old artefacts had shown that human beings were interested in art, or at least had an attraction for aesthetics, collecting and sometimes even modifying pebbles or stones with particular marks, at times resembling human shapes like the Berekhat Ram figurine, or the “Mask” of la Roche-Cotard.

Other authors think on the contrary that the evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens was progressive and that it is only because we did not find older artworks yet that we speak about a sudden apparition of art. One even sees the start of a dispute on the dates of the oldest artistic paintings and drawings, such as those found in the Chauvet Cave, with the pretext that this dating would be similar to having found in the documents of the Middle Ages, works in the styles of the renaissance. What these analyses forget to note it is that even the most recent of these forms of Palaeolithic art (Rouffignac, Combarelles, Niaux) appeared well before the much more schematic drawings and engravings of the Neolithic era. This doesn’t mean that Neolithic culture was less advanced, as indeed the complexity of the stories told by those schematic drawings shows. I believe that art expression and overall societal culture are on two different axes.

The assumption "Savant syndrome”, which I developed in another paper, still in the writing (A draft version in French as well as a summary in English is available on my website : http://pagesperso.laposte.net/autismeprehistoire/accueil.html), makes it possible to refute these two interpretations of art and culture evolution.

Here is in a few words the summary of this assumption :  Within the population of "modern men" today there are individuals who have exceptional competences in certain fields, amongst other things in drawing, without ever having learned how to draw. For example Nadia, a young child with autism, was drawing, at age four, horses that have nothing to envy to those of Chauvet Cave, Rouffignac or Niaux drawings. There are several such cases documented with truly exceptional drawing abilities and, in some cases, sculpture abilities.(http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant/default.cfm).

If we admit that we belong to the same human species ever since the apparition of "modern man" on earth, it is probable that the cognitive variations were of the same type during the Palaeolithic times as the ones we observe today. It is hence possible that, as is the case today, individuals with "Savant syndrome" capabilities existed during the upper Palaeolithic and could have been the initiators of a form of realistic and naturalist art. The comparison between the drawings carried out by the people who have what is called "Savant syndrome" and the completely remarkable representations of the artists of the Aurignatian, through to the Magdalenian, makes it possible to observe very many correspondences of styles, methods and behaviours. The fact that most individuals with "Savant syndrome" happen to be people with autism would also give some elements of answers to some of the many questions Palaeolithic art still poses to the specialists of prehistoric art (for details see my website mentioned above).

Using this hypothesis of individuals with "Savant syndrome", the apparently sudden apparition of art in upper Aurignacien would not be the result of a general cultural evolution of our species, but the fact of individual “cognitive accidents”, independent of the ambient culture, although prone to make it evolve. This assumption leads us to just think that a few individuals isolated in space and time had exceptional competences, just like the individuals with "Savant syndrome" which we know today, competences which one hardly starts to understand some of the mechanisms in recent researches (there is an excellent article on savant skills in the latest special issue on “Mind” of Scientific American).

As it is the case that the prevalence of "Savant syndrome" is extremely rare, the manifestations of their talents could be noted only when a sufficiently large population of Homo Sapiens Sapiens was able to remain long enough in a particular geographical area. In view of the rather small populations of the upper Palaeolithic period, such cases would have been extremely rare; perhaps several hundreds of generations may have gone without any cases. This is something that could explain the often very long period between parietal art manifestations, sometimes several thousand years apart. And indeed examples of decorated caves are becoming more frequent in the late Magdalenian period than in the previous periods, this could simply be linked to the larger population. It is even be possible that earlier exceptional naturalistic drawing dating long before Chauvet, made by individuals with “Savant Syndrome”, could be found sometimes in future archaeological researches. That should be however rather improbable given the very small population of Homo Sapiens Sapiens before 50,000 years ago, it would probably have to be found in Africa or in the Middle East where Homo Sapiens Sapiens were at these times.

But that art production has nothing to do with the cultural evolution of the average population, even though such exceptional talents, which exist in other domains than just drawing, may have triggered new ideas in the groups where one was present.

The apparition of art would not thus correspond to a generalized evolution of cognitive competences, the so called "cognitive Big Bang". It would not upset either the order of things with regard to the evolution of art. These completely exceptional competences in drawing and other visual arts upset much more our traditional theories about of the development of cognitive competences of the child...

On this basis, separating general human evolution from art manifestations, one can attempts to rebuild another chronology of the cultural evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, physiologically and neurologically identical to us, with his "cognitive accidents" as evoked above, but who, for the great majority of the population, would have continued to evolve in a very progressive way during the expansion of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, although more rapidly than its predecessors Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Ergaster, Homo Heidelbergensis and even of his/her Neandertal cousin. (a quick and rough analysis of stone industries over time shows that each new technique lasted much less than the previous one before being put in competition with a more effective one : Oldovian about 2 million years, Acheulean, about 700 thousand years, Mousterian about 50,000 years, etc.(Please excuse the approximations here. If some one has already made this analysis, please contact me))

I believe that the major difference between Homo Sapiens Sapiens and his predecessors or cousin was a higher competence in imitation. I have developed that idea of imitation capabilities and their levels of expressions in a draft text, in English, also available on my website (http://pagesperso.laposte.net/autismeprehistoire/accueil.html).

It is likely that early on, the modern man imitated the stone splitting techniques of his predecessors, in particular the Acheulean type, improving slightly on them over time. Then, arriving in contact with the Neanderthal, borrowed from them the most advanced in this field : the Levalois techniques.

I know this goes against the current view that it was likely that Neanderthal borrowed its advances stone splitting technique from Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but this view is quite in question these days, with a revised analysis of the Neanderthal capabilities. It is thus possible, on the contrary, that meeting with Neanderthal could have been initially the basis for enrichment of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, this last profiting from the longer semi sedentary culture of the Neanderthal.  The great difference between Homo Sapiens Sapiens and his Neanderthal cousin was probably residing in a greater freedom in the imitation of the gestures of their models, allowing them more quickly to improve the techniques and the tools.

Questions and comments welcomed…
trehinp@aol.com

Paul Trehin
PS: Bibliographical references available on demand

[Mikey Brass]

Radical or progressive evolution? The case of “Savant syndrome”

Homo Sapiens Sapiens apparition dates approximately 120,000 to 150,000 years.

Here's a nice problem. People such as Stringer & Day have tried to ome up with a uniform series of characteristics which uniqually describe H.s.s. in order to apply the definition to the palaeoanthropological record. They failed; to do so would have resulted in leaving out various existing populations.

When you get back to 100kya and earlier, the fossils are even more difficult due to robusticity and retaining archaic features.

Its physical appearance as well as the anatomical observations, from which one could deduce the volume and the form from his brain, shows that he/she was extremely similar to us.

Our modern cranial capacity was obtained around 250 kya.

However, a debate rages in the field of the palaeoanthropology : was the cultural evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens progressive or on the contrary relatively sudden?

McBrearty & Brooks' December 2000 article, in which they argue for a gradual evolution, is a nice summary in this topic.

Tenets of the second theory use as corner stones of their analysis the sudden apparition, around thirty to forty thousand years ago, of art forms completely unknown before as for example in Chauvet Cave.

Richard Klein uses the faunal remains from Klasies River to argue the same point, but his arguments have imo been effectively answered by Henshilwood & Manean, Deacon and Milo.

Other authors think on the contrary that the evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens was progressive and that it is only because we did not find older artworks yet that we speak about a sudden apparition of art.

Deacon and Henshilwood & Malean, for example, attribute the appearance of art to greater population numbers within Europe, leading to crowding and a need to define one's territory and visual expressions of the social dynamics within the groups. I find this convincing, by analogy, because the rock art of southern African effectively only really begins in the Holocene at the times when there would have been additional crowding in the coastal and mountainous regions.

The comparison between the drawings carried out by the people who have what is called "Savant syndrome" and the completely remarkable representations of the artists of the Aurignatian, through to the Magdalenian, makes it possible to observe very many correspondences of styles, methods and behaviours.

Take a look at the application of the shamanistic hypothesis of Lewis-Williams to the European rock art and the criticisms made of it.

[trehinp]

Take a look at the application of the shamanistic hypothesis of Lewis-Williams to the European rock art and the criticisms made of it.

Thanks for the comments. They are very useful. I will look at ways to take them into account in my research.

About Lewis-Williams I have read his book as well as the one he co-authored with Jean Clottes "Les chamanes de la préhistoire. Texte intégral, polémique et réponses". I read also many of the criticisms of that theory.

I didn't address this shamanistic aspect in my post on this forum but it is an integral part of my research on the origins of art as linked to "autistic savants".

Here is the paragraph where I talk about Shamanism and altered states of consciousness :

<< Shamanism and altered states of consciousness to explain the drawings skills (Clottes & Lewis-Williams 2001)
These authors make the hypothesis that prehistoric artists are in fact reproducing ”visions” such as observed during shamanistic trances. They explore the neurological mechanisms of ”altered states of consciousness”, either induced by hallucinogenic plants or by ritual dances or prolonged stay in deep darkness, showing the different types of drawings depending of the trance level. They use the examples of African tribes who produce fascinating art pieces under trance conditions. They also base their hypothesis on some neuro-psychological experiments with contemporaneous subjects, showing similarities between some drawings made by today subjects placed in a state of trance which they compare to some drawings of the Palaeolithic artists (Lewis-Williams 2002, pp 126-130). ”Hallucinations engendered by entering a cave and by the isolation were probably combined with images already there on the cave walls  to create there a rich and animated spiritual world.”

This analysis is contestable as the style of most so the naturalistic drawings and paintings of the upper Palaeolithic are an extremely realistic representation of animals which Clottes himself describes as "they don’t  represent stereotypes of horses, de bison or mammoths, but precise individuals, for which it is often possible to recognise the age, the gender and the 'attitude." (Langaney et al 1998, pp83). This doesn’t correspond at all pas to the style of the paintings and drawings executed in a state of trance, which are very symbolic and often phantasmagorical.

Besides some counter examples in the Palaeolithic cave art mentionned above, this hypothesis fails to explain several aspects of the process by which prehistoric parietal art was produced.

It doesn't explain why there were such long durations in between artistic rich periods, as often observed in this art, indeed, very long time periods exist between the dates of some decorated caves. Why would shamans have stopped producing cave art for periods often lasting hundreds of years ?  

This hypothesis doesn’t explain either the disappearance of this art form at the end of the Magdalenian. Why would shamans have stopped producing this same art style at the end of the Magdalenian ? >>

I have found that Denis Lewis-Williams, in his book "The Mind in the Cave", paints a very negative picture of Neanderthals, a view that is rather contested by recent publications (Arsuaga 2001, Baffier 1999, Jaubert 1999).

Thanks again for your comments.

Paul Trehin
PS : I'd be interested to know if any publication have been made which provide a "time line" of decorated caves ?

[Mikey Brass]

They use the examples of African tribes who produce fascinating art pieces under trance conditions.

LW draws primarily upon three ethnographic records: the Lloyd & Bleek records of the early 20th century, Richard Lee and Megan Biesele. The former is of the ex-Northern Cape San (/Xam), who are now basically extinct, and the latter two are of the Kalahari Bushmen. They cannot be called tribes because, apart from their physical morphology which now ranges to a greater or lesser extent from interbreeding with Blacks, the various names we have for them (e.g. !Kung, Qwi et al.) are linguistic names. The Bushmen are divided through linguistic groupings.

LW's shamanistic hypothesis has come under criticism in South Africa by, most notably, Anne Solomon and John Parkington. Solomon, in my view, has produced the most damning critiques and a valid counter-hypothesis - see the June 1997 and June 1999 issues of the South African Archaeological Bulletin.

This analysis is contestable as the style of most so the naturalistic drawings and paintings of the upper Palaeolithic are an extremely realistic representation of animals

So are a number of animals represented in the southern African rock art but this isn't held there as a valid counter-argument.

It doesn't explain why there were such long durations in between artistic rich periods, as often observed in this art, indeed, very long time periods exist between the dates of some decorated caves.

Using southern Africa again, it does because the flourishing of SA rock art is in the periods when and where there is high population density. Trance dances are used as a mechanism to reduce social stress and promote harmony and cure illness.

This hypothesis doesn’t explain either the disappearance of this art form at the end of the Magdalenian. Why would shamans have stopped producing this same art style at the end of the Magdalenian ?

That would depend upon numberous socio-economic dynamics.

I have found that Denis Lewis-Williams, in his book "The Mind in the Cave", paints a very negative picture of Neanderthals,

Unfortunately here he is following the arguments of Klein, Randall White and others.

Perhaps others here will know of such a timeline. My archaeological interest is in African archaeology.

[trehinp]

I see that we are pretty much on the same line on the subject of shamanistic interpretation of the origons of art...

My archaeological interest is in African archaeology.

I am also interested by some of the "naturalistic" art forms in Africa. Some look pretty much like drawings of Niaux or Rouffignac. However I have found it extremely difficult to get sources with dates.  I have seen some dates thar are very recent, hence my comment that the naturalistic art form disapeard after the Magdalenian but only from a European centrist point of view...

In my post I said that it could be possible that art forms as sophisticated as Chauvet could be found in Africa, or in the Middle East with datations far earlier than Chauvet. Some of the beautiful rupestre engravings (I think in particular of a Giraffe scratching her chin with her back hoof in "The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art", Bahn 1998, p 145, ) for which Bahn doesn't provide a data "probably prehistoric"... Couldn't that giraffe be anterior to Chauvet ?, I don't really think so, but I think that is the type of drawing we could perhaps foind in Africa long before Chauvet.

Paul

[trehinp]

Dear friends from Palanth,

Just for information, I have somewhat modified and developped the text of the initial post in this thread. I also added the references.

It is available on the following link :

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/gilles.trehin.urville/art_evolution_or_revolution.htm

I hope this modified  version is clearer than the first post...

More generaly, I have spent some time translating in English some texts on my website which were only available in French so far.

They give more background on the arguments I developped in the initial post.

 http://perso.wanadoo.fr/gilles.trehin.urville/prehistoire_et_autisme.htm

Any comments, critiscisms and suggestions will be welcomed.

Paul Trehin

[trehinp]

I've found yesterday on the web a theory that complements my own theory separating the apparition of art and the evolution of culture in palaeolithic societies.

Professor Al Cheyne , Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in a text entitled "Signs of Consciousness: Speculations on the Psychology of Paleolithic Graphics", develops a very well constructed argument about the production of realistic images and the prerequisites for the development of symbolic thinking.

<< The approach taken in this argument is to avoid postulating the possession of capacities by the graphists for which there is little or questionable evidence other than thick interpretation of the images themselves. Rather than assuming cognitive symbolic abilities and cultural traditions that might plausibly have found "expression" in graphics I invert this argument and conjecture that symbolic activities and cultural traditions, myths, and rituals were, in part, a result of the production of images. These images, I argue, preceded and produced the very notion of representation itself. This argument I characterize as a multiple factor theory comprising a componential theory of perception, behavioral strategies for positive identification of ambiguous images, a specialized form of sequential and hierarchical control of fine-motor hand-eye coordination emerging from developments in tool construction that led to a "mastering of the trace," and issues entailed in the sharing and transmission of technology.>>

http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/%7Eacheyne/signcon.html
 
In the hypothesis I make about "savant syndrome" perceptual and expressive capabilities to explain the origin of art, I also make the observation that these early beautiful painting found in Chauvet had probably very limited symbolic content, if any, as do the drawings and paintings made by people who have a "savant syndrome". They produce art for themselves, it is often the case that they don't even show their work to any one. Likewise some paintings and drawings of the Palaeolithic were made in places where nobody could see them.

I argue that it may be the case , later on in the development of art, that some of these talented people may have been used by some kind of spiritual authority (Shaman, Sorcerer, etc.) who might have spoted their talents. It is then that symbolic contents started to develop. I even think that this symbolic content only started to become predominent in the figurative Neolithic art, where artists become far more concerned by telling a story than by depicting an animal in very realsitic fashion.

Further up in his analysis, Pr. Cheyne makes the point that Aurignacians had developped very sophisticated stone industry techniques requiring advanced social and communication skills, yet realistic figurative art didn't appear before about 32 K years BP.

My own argument was that there is no relationship between advanced social and communication abilities and artistic abilities. Don't we find that even nowadays : how many engineers are lousy painters...

I discussed these points with a few French specialists of prehistoric art, and of course they  are not enthusiastic at all by these controvertial ideas.

What is most resented by people whom I have talked bout this hypothesis, is the fact that there could be some form of art without symbolic thinking... Interestingly enough, specialists of autism aren't surprised a bit by my ideas, they find them logical.

When Professor Al Cheyne says "I invert this argument and conjecture that symbolic activities and cultural traditions, myths, and rituals were, in part, a result of the production of images." I think that he is on the same track as mine.

He didn't single out the potential role of "savants" in the production of the early images but the two arguments complement each other, I think.

Comments ?

Paul

[trehinp]

Here is an article that I just finished reading.

ART, PERCEPTION AND INFORMATION PROCESSING: AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
Derek Hodgson dhgson@email.com
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cognit/web/hodgson.html

<< Abstract. Lower and Middle Palaeolithic abstract marks have recently become more available in the archaeological record. Theories concerning the significance of such marks have invariably concentrated upon an intended referentiality, thereby ignoring the possibility of an analysis based upon evolutionary criteria predicated on a gradual, cumulative scenario which does not necessarily have to depend on symbolic explanations. This paper seeks to redress the balance by determining how early mark-making can be sufficiently explained through evolutionary mechanisms in conjunction with how the brain and visual cortex process information. In approaching the origins of art from this perspective, parallels will be drawn with how the brain deals with concomitant types of information, e.g. language, which can give important clues as to why and how mark-making might have developed. >>


This paper was first published in Rock Art Research, in May 2000, Volume 17, Number 1, pp. 3-34.

Perhaps some of you will already have read it. It is so far one of the best articles concerning the cognitive analysis of early art production, linking "mark-making" to phosphenes, without having to use the "skyhook" of shamanism.

This is a brilliant demonstration. Even Pr BEDNARIK, rather severe in his appreciation of research on the origins of art, says of this paper: “Derek Hodgson’s paper is one of the most worthwhile additions of recent years to the discussion of art origins.”

The article presents the continuity of non representational marks through time from the lower and mid Palaeolithic to the upper Palaeolithic markings. The arguments are extremely well built and convincing. The neuro psychological explanation of the role of phosphenes in the production of these markings is very convincing. The links to further prehistoric non representational marks, becoming more and more complex through time, seems compelling.

However in Derek Hodgson’s attempts to establish a link between non representational art and the extremely advanced technique used for the representational art of the upper Palaeolithic, the argument becomes less convincing.
 
After reading this paper, I think that one will not be able to link these two forms of art. The evolution of prehistoric art from non representational marks to figurative representational art should rather be sought in much later forms of art, such as found during the Neolithic very schematic drawings. It is an art that became more and more narrative, as language was developing.

My explanation of the exceptional representational art is that it was the fact of "exceptional people" (People with Savant syndrome, see the argument in the beginning of this thread) rather than a continuation of the markings art forms. These were singularities, not part of the overall continuity of art development. Pr. Al Cheyne, which article I quoted in my previous post, explains how this art may not have had representational value :  “These images, I argue, preceded and produced the very notion of representation itself.”

Such fine “representational” art may have, in places, influenced some early schematic representations in the late Magdalenian (one example could be the scene of the wounded man in Lascaux which starts to be narrative) and later on the Mesolithic, but I think that most of the beautiful narrative Neolithic art comes from an evolution of the early markings art style.

What do you think?

Yours very friendly.

Paul

[trehinp]

Here is a challenging view of what "different people" can bring to creativity and art. The argument is that people with mental illnesses were allowed to survive, against all ods, because their creativity was bringing an adaptive value to the group, even though on an individual basis these people may have had a hard time to survive.

Preti, A. and Miotto, P. 1997; Creativity, Evolution and Mental Illnesses.
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 1.

Preti and Mioto are from the University of Cagliari, Sardegna, Italy.

Abstract:
Mental representations, or memes, transform the space in which they evolve. Their survival is dependent on the survival of the individuals and the groups hosting them. Creativity - the production of new and useful ideas - is closely linked to the social dynamics of the individuals expressing creative ideas: without social confrontation new memes cannot become diffuse. Creative individuals tend to be emotionally unstable, and many are affected by mental disorders. Studies on the link between creativity and mental illnesses show that it is exactly the characteristics of the mental disorder which also confer some advantage on afflicted individuals. These advantages extend to the groups to which the creative, mentally ill individuals belong. The group comprising the most creative personalities will therefore acquire an adaptive advantage which maintains the integrity of the group as a whole, in spite of the vulnerability of the individual.
Click here for full text

This analysis is complementing my own analysis on the autistic savants possible role in the development of exceptional art realisations. People with autism would also have had a difficult time surviving in the harsh environment of the upper palaeolithic period, much like people with mental illnesses.

Yet some of these people could have brought to the "clan" some added adaptive values.

The adaptive value of artistic capabilities could make another interesting debate though... I think art has such a value, but some may contradict me saying that art has nothing to do with evolutionary processes.

Any thoughts ?

Paul
PS : see the post on schizophrenia in the "Human Evolutionary Biology" board, under the topic "Evolutionary aspect of schizophrenia", this is less linked to art but addresses the "group selection process".