The Spirit in Human Evolution - Waldorf Research Institute

of herbivores, horse, bison, mammoth, reindeer and so on probably undertook seasonal
migrations, covering great distances, too great to follow. When game was more abundant
in the summer months, more organized hunting involving groups of Ancients coming
together providing not only welcome gluts of nourishment but also opportunities for
more extensive social interaction. Such organized hunting was already evident among
Heidelberg Archaics, as testified by fossil evidence of slaughtered horses at Boxgrove
and Schöningen. The site at La Cotte in Jersey is at the foot of high cliffs, and the heaps of
mammoth and mostly woolly rhino bones found there are presumed to be the remains of
herds driven over the cliff above. La Cotte, as noted above, is in many ways an untypical
site, however, since it shows great precision in flake-tool technology as well as apparently
carefully sorted piles of bones.
In general then, the Archaics, and to a great extent the Ancients, were relatively
transient members of the ecology of their environments. Their presence, particularly in
more peripheral regions, ebbed and flowed with the fluctuations of the climate. Towards
the end of the Middle Paleolithic in Europe around 60,000 BP, and earlier in the Middle
East and Africa, this pattern of unstructured sites begins to change.
All the evidence from Middle Paleolithic sites indicates that mobility was the key
feature of life. The nature of the climate and terrain determined how often and how far
the Ancients needed to move. Only with the Upper Paleolithic is there any evidence for
structured base camps (i.e., villages) or storage places which were regularly used.
Taken as a whole, the evidence for organized forms of communal existence both
among Archaics and Ancients, including Neanderthals, seems meager with one or two
early exceptions such as Bilzingsleben in the Thuringia Valley of Germany, and yet it
is important not to see this as a sign of less-than-human behavior. The very ability of
peoples such as the Neanderthals to survive in marginal environments or harsh climates
is a tribute to their skill. The very fact that they were able to adapt to a wide range of
geographical locations, major seasonal changes and, in the wider perspective, rapid
fluctuations in climate shows their qualities. They were skillful at what they did, and
they made good use of both their resources and those of their environment.
Fig 7.8 Map showing the distribution of Neanderthal sites
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