>>As far as tools, we have another clear record, recently confirmed by the
discovery that pushes the Oldowan industry back another 250,000 years. You
have primitive toolmaking that remains static for over one million years. The
creatures using them did not advance it an evolutionary whit.
But then what happens? When fully modern man comes on the scene, we have a
number of concurrent, explosive, quantum leap developments. There is the
physiological, of course--reorganizaed skull shape, expanded frontal section
of the brain, less ponderous jaw, etc, -- things that are not predictable from
what came before. These changes coincide with changes in the vocal tract
making articulate language physically possible for the first time. And the
tools? It is also an astounding advance. Strangled blades for hafting into
kinfe handles, precise burins ....">>
No one may be paying attention to me on this, but this is all absolutely
wrong. Oldowan tools were static for about 1 million years.
2.6 MYR - 1 MYR = 1.6 MYR. Modern man was not on the scene 1 myr ago. Homo
erectus was.
Secondly, Homo erectus DID advance the tools. Around 1.8 MYR ago, Acheulian
bifaced hand-axes were first made. These tools were never part of the
Oldowan industry. These hand-axes remained rather consistent for the next
million years and even modern man and Neanderthal made them.
Somewhere around 250,000 years ago, someone started making blade tools in
Africa. The only bones found are indicative of H.erectus but not conclusive.
But then there is a gap with no blade tools made for a long while.
By 38,000 years ago, Neanderthal was the first being in Europe to make blade
tools. It is called the Chatelperonian industry.
Modern man appeared on the scene 120,000 years ago in africa; 100 kyr in
the middle east; 67 kyr in China; and 33 kyr in Europe. Outside of Europe,
modern man made tools like neanderthal and H.erectus. It is not really
until modern man gets to Europe that he begins to make blade tools.
Your "Shaman art" if it can be defined at all, around 31,000 years ago.
Was Adam a Frenchman?
Jim, you say this is all fast. But it isn't and I keep noting that you
are now refusing to even respond to my questions and points.
There is no synchroneity to your "explosion". The blade tools were made
much earlier; art is made much earlier; language is much earlier.
Almost all anthropologists say that Homo erectus could speak. His vocal
tract was exactly like ours. The debate in the anthro literature has
been about Neanderthal.
Jim, I beg you to please get your facts correct. We can disagree on the
interpretation, but the fact is that Oldowan tools do not have hand-axes;
blades do not appear with modern man; language does not appear with modern
man. You are seeing only what you want to see.