An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene

Summary

Abstract

This paper examines some large-scale patterns of behavioural change that are often viewed as indicators for the advent of cultural modernity and developed symbolic communication. Using examples from Africa and Eurasia, the paper reviews patterns of lithic and organic technology, subsistence and settlement as potential indicators of modern behaviour. These areas of research produce a mosaic picture of advanced technology and behavioural patterns that come and go during the late Middle and Late Pleistocene. Based on these data the emergence of modern behaviour, as seen in the archaeologically visible material record, appears to be gradual and heterogeneous in space and time. The evidence for the use of pigments is consistent with these data.

During the early part of the Late Pleistocene personal ornaments in the form of sea shells are documented in south-western Asia and southern Africa. By about 40 thousand years ago (Kya) a diverse array of personal ornaments is documented across the Old World in association with Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans in Europe. These include both modified natural objects and fully formed ornaments. The timing and distribution of the appearance of figurative art and other classes of artefacts including musical instruments point to a more punctuated development of fully modern behaviour during the middle of the Late Pleistocene at approximately 40 Kya. Due perhaps in part to the long and intense history of research much, but by no means all, of the relevant data come from Europe. Early figurative art from the Aurignacian of south-western Germany, northern Italy, Austria and southern France provides undisputed evidence for fully developed symbolic communication and behavioural modernity.

This paper also discusses some of the hypotheses for the development and spread of cultural modernity and rejects a strict monogenetic model in favour of a pattern of historically contingent, polygenetic development within a dynamic equilibrium between archaic and modern humans. The paper highlights the need for new refutable, regional and super-regional hypotheses for the advent and spread of behavioural modernity.

Résumé

Le présent article examine quelques-uns des aspects du changement comportemental généralement considéré comme indicateur de l'apparition d'une modernité culturelle et d'un système de communication symbolique élaboré. Sur la base d'exemples tirés d'Afrique et d'Eurasie nous passerons en revue la technologie lithique et en matière dure animale, les modes de subsistance et d'habitat comme vecteurs potentiels d'un comportement moderne.