Expert: Ralph Salier - 3/4/2009

Question
Hello Mr. Sailer. Again, thank you so much for the time and expertise on these questions. I hope I'm not being a bother, but after asking a recent question I browsed through your past answers, and it's left me with something I'd really like to make sense of:

How do you account for the rapid human advancement of the Holocene epoch vs. the Pleistocene epoch?

For example, approximately 1.5mya there were supporting "blips" that humans had discovered fire. This evidence became more prevalent 400,000-200,000 years ago. There is also evidence of bone and stone tools, along with cave paintings.

Fast forward to the Holocene epoch, where advancements literally EXPLODED: Farming, animal domestication, numeric values, writing, the wheel, knowledge of astronomy, which fuels large-scale monuments scattered all over the globe. And on, and on, and on.

How is this possible?

My first argument was simply that those artifacts that are less than 10,000 years old are more easily found, studied, and cataloged, while those over 10,000 years are either less prevalent, or haven't been found yet. Still, there must be more to it than that.

How is it that it took us 1.5 million years to discover fire, make a few tools, and paint on some caves, while it took us less than 10,000 years to advance to the magnificent state we're in?

Thank you,
Mitch

Answer
Hi Mitch,

No bother at all, that is why I'm here.  Modern Homo Sapien Sapiens arose some 400K years ago and eventually supplanted Homo Sapien Neanderthalis.  The last of the Neaderthals disappeard some 25 - 30 thousand years ago, most likely in southern Spain.  Neaderthal was not well adapted to changes in climate but was well suited to the harsh nature of Ice Age Europe and other northern climes.  Both were tool makers, accomplished hunters, fire users/makers and shelter builders.  They were able to pass down stories, information, educate their offspring (much as we do today).  It is not clear that our predicessors Homo Erectus or Habilis were able to speak as we do today.  This would have limited the amount and quality of information passed from one generation to the next.  This information transferral is key to the later explosion as you call it.

Early on our ancestors were hunter gatherers and there were not many of us partly due to the harsh conditions and nomadic peoples tend to have fewer childern.  Then about 72 thousand years ago there was a ELE (Extinction Level Event) which nearly wiped Modern Man off the planet.  Thankfully there were some who survived this cataclysim and we (all of us) are derived from those who survived.  This is one reason why all modern man is genetically virtually identical.  

Some time around 12  to 15 thousand years ago, some of these nomadic peoples began to camp in one place during the summer finding more then enough food to hunt and gather.  Among the things they discovered is that seed from one year t o the next that were stored over the winter sprouted and made gathering easier.  They aslo began  to domesicate animals like the sheep, cattle and goat.  This lead to small permanent settlements, agriculture and animal husbandry which reduced the need for hunting nomadism.  Once settled in small villages, the population began to rise since more hands are needed to grow crops.  So along about 10,000 villages began popping up in a lot of different places and along with this tools of sedentary living.  These villages were occupied for long periods of time and thus produced a lot of trash.  These kinds of sites are easy to find since they have specific profiles.  Good water sources, lots of land to put under cultivation and either domesic animals or hunting nearby.  

Along with settlements came the development of artisens and other creative peoples and inventions which we still have today.

We continue to look for the nomadic peoples to learn from them what we can but given the fact that they did move around a lot, this makes it hard to find them.  SOme places we can feel confident in, caves, rock shelters, protected camp sites.  But the places in between, this side of impossible.

I hope t his answers your questions,  Ask more ...