The traits that indicate modern human behaviour are not as clear cut as many would believe. The Upper Palaeolithic is an intensely crucial period for all of human evolution because it helps to trace out the development of cultures in this time period. ‘Primitive human’ refers to early hominids and the ‘modern human’ is a subspecies of homo sapiens. Our understanding is that the modern man came into existence around 200,000 to 100,000 years ago. During this transition period, man made enormous cultural progress. This behavioural modernity can be seen with the standardisation in artefact types such as; organic materials (e.g. worked bone), symbolic expressions (such as art and music), blade technology, expanded trade, rituals and living space. Although it would make sense to use theoretically developed standards such as symbolism and planning capabilities, archaeologists and anthropologists use archaeological record of the European upper Palaeolithic to interpret all modern human behaviour (Klein 2008) in all other periods even though we cannot quite know for certain. Furthermore, we cannot solely rely on archaeological artefacts for abstract thinking because we cannot enter the minds of the Neanderthals/Denisovan or homo sapiens. It is also important to note that relying on artefacts alone leaves room for gaps in our understanding of these permanent settlers because we cannot truly understand how and why they used them even though we can always hypothesise.
The Upper Palaeolithic makes about one tenth of the whole of the Palaeolithic period (Klein
2012). This is the period in which abstract cognition began. The first ever piece of Palaeolithic art (artistic expression in general) was found in in the Blombos Cave in Cape, South Africa (figure 1a). This silcrete flake is drawn on with an ochre crayon which is also thought to be the world’s first ever use of a ‘pencil’. This kind of hatching (or hashtag art) is older than any other piece of art known to archaeologists. Professor Francesco d’Errico believes that it is a ‘tiny fragment, which came from an object that had been bigger’ (Haaretz 2018). The reason why this crosshatching is seen as art and not just any old scribble is because it is clear that the ochre has a fine point and so is carefully traced. The intention of this drawing is unknown but definitely a sign of a new, abstract way of thinking.
Another reason why the lines are accepted as intentional and therefore art is because another dark red slab (ochre) was found in the same cave with similar abstract hatchings. Here, we can infer that the people were playing around with different technologies on different media and were becoming professionals of symbols.
Modern humans came into Europe with one thing on their minds: colonisation. (referring back to the archaeological record: living space.) This was characterised by low population density because they had to adapt to new environmental conditions as they entered unoccupied territory (Udvardy 1969). This, of course, is where many raise their eyebrows. The initial settlement of modern humans in Europe was so densely populated that they did not leave many archaeological sites for us to work with. This also meant that there were not many organic remains (human remains) which in proxy meant that they were not very visible, especially in areas without much natural shelter (John F. Hoffecker et al. 2009).
The specialised tools in the Upper Palaeolithic cultures such as Aurignacian (figure 2b), (Western Europe, which was not homogenised at the time), Solutrean (East Central France) and Magdalenian (Southwestern France) had one or more very distinctive tools. France went through a phase with a very distinct culture with very specialised tools: this was called The Chatelerronian (lower part) stage and is defined by a blunted back, big carved point and a single, razor like, sharp edge. Another culture some scholars would acknowledge would be The Perigordian (which divided it into 5 different traditions/cultures) which differ vastly from other cultures as they had much longer surface flakings. This made them sturdier, so the distinction is all in the manner of the technique used. But all these cultures are so layered that they are often closely related in different parts of Western Europe. On the other hand, the upper Palaeolithic cultures also managed to utilise many other materials like horn, bone and teeth and were likely to be used as batons of some kind. These organic materials and handmade blades (figure 2a) replaced the flint and limestone tools (figure 2b). In fact, some of these modern tools were so delicate, thin and beautiful that in some places they were (Still are) referred to as the ‘laurel leaf’. They were about 9 to 11 cm in length and less than 1 cm in thickness. This can be believed to be the pinnacle of stone age technology. To put this into perspective and take a percentage count, stone tools become less than 15% whereas bone tools become more than 80%. (Vidya Mitra 2016) But why did organic matter become so popular with the Palaeolithic in Europe? It is evident in cultures and traditions that there was a complete over emphasise of working with leather. When cutting the skin of the animal, it requires a blunt edge because if you cut with a sharp edge then you increase the chances of cutting/ tearing the leather. So, in a way the tools that these settlers made were multi-purpose. They would take the back side of the tool to gently scrape the skin of the animal (Vidya Mitra 2016). Of course, we cannot be certain of this however archaeologists cannot really come up Even though we can look at archaeological artefacts to distinguish between early and modern man, we must not forget cognitive development because this plays a huge role in abstract and symbolic concepts. The evolution of neural organisation took at least a million years (Deacon 2010) and involved genetic mutation (Edgar and Klein 2002). This can be seen when we look at the prefrontal cortex of humans which was bigger than primates (Deacon 1997) which in turn made it possible to come up with symbolic abstract concepts and ideas. This changes a lot of things, because if we were to look at artefacts alone, then this transition to the Palaeolithic would have been shockingly abrupt, and what Vere Gordon Childe called it (“The Neolithic revolution”) would have made sense. However, it was so much more gradual than that.
In addition to this, Wynn and Coolidge conjured up the idea of the ‘executive function and working memory model’ (Wynn and Coolidge 2011) which deals mostly on cognitive tasks like; focusing, storing and managing information. This is essential in enhancing memory and therefore essential for things like planning capabilities, symbolism, expanded trade, economic intensification etc. Furthermore, the ability to focus and remember has obviously helped Upper Palaeolithic cultures a lot with being able to draw cave art like the bison found in Cantabria, Spain in the Altamira cave (figure 3a). Most of the rock art depicts animals and some only display hand prints (figure 3b).
The Shamanism hypothesis made scholars consider the possibility that cave art was ritualistic, which again is in the archaeological record. This later developed into the idea which suggested that cave art was the result of a tribe (culture) just documenting their spiritual journeys (or they were high on drugs the whole time). But it is important to keep in mind that everything had art on it. In central Europe there is one site in Austria, close to Vienna, that is worth mentioning in this essay: the Willendorf site. (Zygmont 2015). The excavation that took place here revealed 9 different cultural layers and these have shown a very peculiar development. The cultures that were seen in France (talked about earlier) cannot be found in central Europe. They are neither Perigordian or Aurignacian but layer 1 to 6 has similar characteristics to Aurignacian even though it is still quite not there, and layer 7 to 9 is more upper Perigordian even though it too is still not there. So, as mentioned earlier, because everything is so layered, this implies that there might have been some kind of mixture. The stone found in Willendorf (dated back to 27,000 BC) was 9 cm in height and was curved into a female figurine and we gave her the nickname Venus of Willendorf (figure 4). The reason why this piece is so interesting is because she is not given a face, just a full head with no neck either. She has lines on her face depicting her hair and her hands are very high up. She owns very bulbous breasts and a backside, and this depicts secondary sexual characteristics. What is more is that there seems to be some red ochre in her naval region which could be something to do with religion/ritual or it has something to do with maternity/fertility. This is an extraordinary piece of art because throughout prehistory, there has always been evidence and antiquities of tool types because tools have been used from the very beginning as hunter gatherers needed them too. However, this is the first time that we see antiquities depicting his anxieties, imperatives, happiness, sorrows etc. Many archaeologists and Palaeontologists have interpreted this to mean that man was very worried about fertility, and not just human fertility but all types of fertility. The worries and questions they would have and ask would be, for example, ‘will my animals reproduce?’, ‘will I be able to eat tomorrow?’, ‘have I eaten it all’. Of course, they were likely to be worried about human fertility too: ‘will I reproduce tomorrow?’ ‘how will I eat tomorrow?’, ‘will I be able to reproduce so that we do not go into extinction?’ This is called subsistence reproduction, where they are constantly thinking about how to get to the next day and planning what they will do in order to get there. They did not look for food like hunter gatherers, they produced it themselves and needed more sustainability.
In Eastern Europe, like Moldova, for example, there are amazing habitational details. For instance, 27 fire huts in 1 hut was found: this is a very impressive and intricate living space. The layers here also mixed and were not as clear cut as the cultures that were found in France. Here, not only bone tools were found, but so were bone chains. This show cases personal adornment objects. This is an incredibly developed upper Palaeolithic. Again, this cannot possibly compare to Western Europe and Lynch (Lynch 1968) tried to give an explanation to this that nobody really accepted. He stated that the characteristics of the upper Palaeolithic was a mixture of cultures which started from the middle east and made its way to the west, however when they finally arrived in France, the Atlantic sea forced them to halt because they could not progress any more. So, as a result, then they settled with the four traditions or layers. But this explanation is not widely accepted and easily dismissed because there is absolutely no evidence of this or no evidence similar enough to fit this case.
However, one site is not the other, so we cannot compare one part of Europe to another part of Europe. Therefore, even though the archaeological record helps to steer us in the right direction and allows us to draw out some cultures from this time period we cannot rely on it alone. No two groups are the same (they cannot be the same) and to think that they could be might not leave much room for any more questions, which could not only slow down findings tremendously, but also (in a way) take the beauty out of archaeology and anthropology because we should always be seeking answers instead of stating that we have found them.