The Spirit in Human Evolution - Waldorf Research Institute

Paleolithic cultures. At High Lodge in East Anglia, England, now reliably dated to
around 500,000 BP, stone artifacts have been found which stylistically belong to Middle
Paleolithic types. Most unusually, there is an absence of that archetypal Lower Paleolithic
artefact, the Acheulian hand-axe. At Boxgrove in Sussex, which has been dated to around
0.5 mya, hand-axes were found, confirming its status as a Lower Paleolithic site, but the
axes are of such quality that without the reliable dating of the site they would have been
considered as belonging to a much later date. 12
On the other hand, crude tools including simple hand-axes, core and flake tools
have been found at Pontnewydd in Wales, dated at around 200,000 BP. Their appearance
would otherwise suggest a much earlier date. This paradox of early “advanced”
forms and late “crude” forms occurs at one site, Swanscombe, in the Thames Valley.
A lower level dated to between 420,000 and 360,000 BP contained no hand-axes, but a
comprehensive collection of Clactonian flake tools. Above these at a subsequent level
is an almost classical assemblage of beautifully made Acheulian hand-axes and other
typically Lower Paleolithic artifacts. Both levels are older than Pontnewydd.
To compound matters, the cliff-foot site at La Cotte on Jersey, dated to around
238,000 BP, revealed a dominance of flake tools, notably showing the Levallois technique,
usually associated with the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. The site at Ehringsdorf in
Eastern Germany also shows an absence of hand-axes and a predominance of refined
flake tools, long thought to be late-Neanderthal, but now dated much earlier to 225,000
BP. Vértesszöllös in Hungary is another “early” culture with a surprisingly “late” date.
Here pebble tools of the early Lower Paleolithic style, crude in comparison to Acheulian
hand-axes and Levallois technique, turn out to belong to a period between 210,000 and
160,000 BP! These examples, and similar ones cited below in the context of the appearance
of Upper Paleolithic industries at “early” dates, highlight the following points.
Firstly, they highlight the limitations of assuming a linear ascent of technological
progress proceeding from simple to complex, from primitive to advanced. Secondly,
they introduce the concept of localized developments appearing and then apparently
disappearing, developments which did not necessarily pass on their achievements to the
“cultural gene pool” of mankind in any material way.
At any rate, these and other aspects of archeology discussed below, certainly
identify a divergence between anatomical and cultural developments and may be seen
as a further symptomatic expression of the heterochromous nature of evolution which
is itself a signature of the process of emancipation.
More Climate Change
To return to the question of climatic fluctuation, I will focus on the major changes
that affected the period beginning around 250,000 BP and which saw a progressive
cooling of global temperatures. This period was mainly temperate or cool with some brief
glacial phases. It saw the emergence of the Neanderthals in Eurasia and other regional
groups of Ancients in Africa and China. This was followed by a full glacial (with milder
intervals) which lasted from around 180,000 to 130,000 BP. In Africa this period saw the
probable emergence of early Moderns, whilst Neanderthals consolidated themselves in
Eurasia, Mabas (Ancients) likewise in China, and late erectus continued in Indonesia.
From 130,000 to 115,000 BP warmer interglacial conditions were widespread.
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12
The details cited in what follows are drawn from a variety of sources including Stringer and
Gamble, 1993, Trinkaus and Shipman, 1993, and Gamble, 1993 and 1994.
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