Hoffecker on IUP Northern Eurasia

[Daryl Habel]

The latest issue of Evolutionary Anthropology CLICK HERE has an article:

Hoffecker, John (2005). Innovation and technological knowledge in the Upper Paleolithic of Northern Eurasia. Evolutionary Anthropology 14 (5): 186-198.

Abstract:

The technology of modern humans is unique in the animal kingdom with respect to its complexity and capacity for innovation. Evidence of technological complexity and creativity in the archeological record is broadly coincident with and presumably related to traces of creativity in art, music, ritual, and other forms of symbolism. The pattern of modern human technology is part of a larger package of behavior (sometimes referred to as behavioral modernity) that emerges with the appearance of industries in Eurasia classified as Upper Paleolithic, but has deeper roots in the African Middle Stone Age.[1-5].
(end of abstract)

For those with access to Evolutionary Anthropology, the article can be found at: CLICK HERE.
This should be interesting. I'll have to see about acquiring it.   Hoffecker's book on this subject was published in 2002 and there was some discussion on this forum HERE.

Dar

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

The latest issue of Evolutionary Anthropology CLICK HERE has an article:

Hoffecker, John (2005). Innovation and technological knowledge in the Upper Paleolithic of Northern Eurasia. Evolutionary Anthropology 14 (5): 186-198.

Abstract:

The technology of modern humans is unique in the animal kingdom with respect to its complexity and capacity for innovation. Evidence of technological complexity and creativity in the archeological record is broadly coincident with and presumably related to traces of creativity in art, music, ritual, and other forms of symbolism. The pattern of modern human technology is part of a larger package of behavior (sometimes referred to as behavioral modernity) that emerges with the appearance of industries in Eurasia classified as Upper Paleolithic, but has deeper roots in the African Middle Stone Age.[1-5].
(end of abstract)

For those with access to Evolutionary Anthropology, the article can be found at: CLICK HERE.
This should be interesting. I'll have to see about acquiring it.   Hoffecker's book on this subject was published in 2002 and there was some discussion on this forum HERE.

Dar

Dar,

Many thanks for bringing this one up. I have yet to read the paper, but the last sentence of the abstract certainly made my day. I needed that.

Jacques

[trehinp]

The latest issue of Evolutionary Anthropology CLICK HERE has an article:

Hoffecker, John (2005). Innovation and technological knowledge in the Upper Paleolithic of Northern Eurasia. Evolutionary Anthropology 14 (5): 186-198.

Abstract:

The technology of modern humans is unique in the animal kingdom with respect to its complexity and capacity for innovation. Evidence of technological complexity and creativity in the archeological record is broadly coincident with and presumably related to traces of creativity in art, music, ritual, and other forms of symbolism. The pattern of modern human technology is part of a larger package of behavior (sometimes referred to as behavioral modernity) that emerges with the appearance of industries in Eurasia classified as Upper Paleolithic, but has deeper roots in the African Middle Stone Age.[1-5].
(end of abstract)

For those with access to Evolutionary Anthropology, the article can be found at: CLICK HERE.
This should be interesting. I'll have to see about acquiring it.   Hoffecker's book on this subject was published in 2002 and there was some discussion on this forum HERE.

Dar

Thanks Dar,

This sounds like a fascinating paper. Unfortunately I don't subscribe to this magazine. I visited the website and accessing the paper for just 24 hours would cost 25$... It would have to be very good to be worth that much...

I hope that there will be a discussion on the findings proposed by this paper here.

I would be most interested. My own analysis disconnects the artistic production from the lithic industries evolution. At least from those of the Aurignacian, such as in Chauvet or Vogelheart which I attribute to sporadic apparition of exceptional talents raher than to a general cultural development. I have added a graph to my earlier paper on that subject where I illustrate that idea, it is the second graphical time line in my paper. (See on my web page: http://pagesperso.laposte.net/autismeprehistoire/art_evolution_or_revolution.htm). But it is only my analysis.

Yours sincerely.

Paul

[Daryl Habel]

Many thanks for bringing this one up. I have yet to read the paper, but the last sentence of the abstract certainly made my day. I needed that.

And many thanks back to you.  However, now that I've had the opportunity of reading the paper, and hoping it won't ruin your day, while Hoffecker's last sentence equating "behavioral modernity" with "deeper roots in the African Middle Stone Age" is something I also viewed with some optimism, it seems clear to me that he also equates the appearance in Eurasia  of innovations which are classified as Upper Paleolithic with a population expansion Out-of-Africa.  Maybe that's OK too, but I wonder if all behavioral innovations must necessarily always spread on the backs of migrating populations.  Especially  since what I don't see in Hoffecker is acknowledgement that Neanderthals and all other 'archaic' Homo populations of the world might have played any significant role in various aspects of  the  "behavioral modernity" documented in the Upper Paleolithic of Eurasia .   But Hoffecker's synthesis is well worth the read.

Dar

[Robert Henvell]

This article does not comment on the initial Upper Palaeolithic industries in western Europe [ie;Spain and  SW France],which predate known Homo sapiens remains.
Excavations have revealed  a number of rudimentary shelters and modifications to caves,which were constructed prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens.There were indications of  social progress in this region prior to the Neanderthals [ie;Nice].
Contact between different types of people seldom results in unilateral cultural exchange.There is usually a bilateral component.Travellers stranded in the Outback of Australia,who have knowledge of the native survival techniques,have a better chance to live than those ,who have not acquired the indigenous skills.
      It is not inconceivable that the Neanderthals made some contribution to early Palaeolithic  Homo sapiens culture.

[trehinp]

     It is not inconceivable that the Neanderthals made some contribution to early Palaeolithic  Homo sapiens culture.

I agree with you Robert,

Here is a short extract from a post I made on Palanth (http://forum.palanth.com/index.php?topic=423.msg1270#msg1270)

"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. "

In the article written by Hoffecker the idea that Modern humans could learn from previous human species is completely ignored as it is by the way in many other analysis by renowned palaeoanthropologists...

The more I read about this subject, the more I believe that one should disconnect the ambient culture and technological environment of an historical period from the expression of some of the magnificent art and creativity that appear at the same period. I think these exceptional creativity manifestations are the facts of people with exceptional minds that don't fit in the mould of the general culture/technology...

I think that there is a rather continuous development of culture and technology which is accessible to most of us, providing we spend enough time to learn, while some exceptional artists, or otherwise creative minds, crop up as singularities, emerging far above the general culture/technology level available at a certain time in history and for what regards this discussion in prehistory. These exceptional people may have some influence on the general culture/technology by providing boosting cultural/technological elements under some conditions, but that is beyond the subject of this discussion.

Examples of such exceptional minds were recently aired again on an excellent BBC Program : "Fragments of Genius" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1211299.stm)
The hypothesis I make about them is that such individualities must have existed as soon as homo sapiens sapiens appeared but did not exist in earlier hominids, nor among Neanderthals people. Hence the rather slow evolution of culture/technology before homo sapiens sapiens.

Yours very friendly.

Paul TREHIN