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This changes dramatically with the emergence of homo sapiens. While homo sapiens, of whom the Neanderthal man was a variant, did not surpass homo erectus in his hunting skills, they did surpass them geographically by entering the northern forests. Homo sapiens seems to have inhabited the same territory as homo erectus but extended into the north.
This geographical extension was made possible by the increasing ability to communicate culturally over generations. This is indicated in brain size. The brain size of homo sapiens, i.e. the Neanderthaloid, was the same as our own. These technological transmissions allowed these ancient tribes to move into otherwise inhospitable regions of the earth.
ÒThe extension of human settlement over progressively wider territories was made possible by the relatively unspecialized character of Homo sapiens as a biological species, but above all by the possession of culture, by means of which man has been able to adapt himself to the widest range of environments.Ó(Clark, p.15)
Geographical adaptation is an example of culture, itself, as the supreme selective factor. The culture of the tribe passes down information about how best to deal with the cold. The duration of the transmission and its retention is the key difference between man and other animals. If vast amounts of information can be transmitted over generations, what an advantage this confers in dealing with a hostile environment. Now survival is based upon collective knowledge gleaned over longer periods of time. Hence it is the tribe over time – that velocity, which determines the acceleration of their techno-cultural evolution. As the Duration is increased from years to decades to centuries to millennium, the cultural evolution of the collective tribe is also accelerated accordingly.
This evolution to man/tribe culture has been a dimensional extension into time. As such it has also entered the biological realm. It is generally thought that culture itself has led the biological evolution of man forward rather than vice versa. The demands of a more sophisticated culture have selected out evolutionary elements that are more primary than environmental elements. Before the time extension animal evolution was primarily the result of environmental factors, but now for humans the factors become internal as well. Some have suggested that the exceptionally quick evolution of the homo species is due to this cultural extension into time. Others feel that it is divine in nature. Maybe a combination of both.
This cultural extension into time is a fundamental, structural, universal homo trait and in some ways is more elemental than any other. This deep-seated urge is at the root of most creative work. There is this human craving to transmit culturally in order to further survival of the species that goes back to homo habilis and is reflected in their crude stone choppers. The less sophisticated communications would begin with the survival of oneÕs own family. The most sophisticated transmissions would have to do with the species as a whole. Because our species is the one who exists across time, our transmissions can also exist through time. This is where the permanent arts come in.
Let me communicate to my species over the millennium, assisting them through this Veil of Tears, with the words written here. Thank you.
We shouldnÕt forget the Divine Intention that underlies it all.
But we are ahead of ourselves. Homo sapiens were too contented to do art. While the Neanderthaloids extended the geography available to the species, they still had no artistic sense. We would not characterize them as creative. They only used the bone in a limited way. They had no ornamentation.
ÒThere is no evidence that bone or antler was worked to make well-defined implements or weapons of any description. Another and possibly more significant limitation is the absence of any indication of a developed aesthetic sense: Middle Paleolithic man was capable of producing a limited range of tools with an astonishing economy of effort, and the perfection of form and degree of standardization that they achieved, often over great areas and despite wide variations in the qualities of the raw materials used, bear witness to firmness of intention and a definite sense of style; but as far as we know he practiced no art- no sign of carving or engraving for example has been found among all the wealth of bone and antler from Mousterian and kindred sites; nor is there evidence of even so much as a single bored tooth to suggest that he fabricated ornament to adorn his person.Ó (Clark, p 44)
Let us point out a few more universals. There was no art or body adornment before homo sapiens sapiens. Conversely jewelry and art are universals when it comes to the modern human. While jewelry and art are universals, i.e. structurally motivated, style is not. We are pointing out these universals to be able to differentiate between diffusion and structural trends when they occur. We are also attempting to differentiate between the different types of human.
It is during this forest extension that furs are found shaped like clothing. Perhaps the clothes were developed as an adaptation to the cold. This solution to environmental difficulties may have been beyond the structural capacities of earlier sub-species of homo. Thus although Clothes, in the sense of animal skins or furs as coverings, are not universally used by all homo sapiens, but could be considered an universal adaptation.
A universal: No art for homo sapiens. Also they still practiced cannibalism. For homos ecoprotection began with other species and extended logically to other tribes. Homo Sapiens used the same predator techniques upon competing cultures that they used on big game.
This cannibal mentality is still very active today. It is the urge behind dogmatism. Consume, ban, or in some way destroy those that are opposed in order to further chances for success of your ideas or behavior. It is the concept of aggressive ecoprotection applied to ideas and behavior. The persecution or attack on those with different ideas or ways of behavior is based upon the same strategy humans used against the larger predators. This is the force behind Inquisitions, book burnings, and genocide. A built in feature. Sorry about that folks.
While the Neanderthaloids had no art, (their creations were totally functional), they created the first graves. This is the first of the hominids to memorialize death in a significant fashion. The graves of homo sapiens consisted of single graves cut into rock: the final resting place.
Along with the extension of duration and memory associated with cultural transmission comes the acute awareness of mortality. With the increase in brainpower due to cultural demands comes an increase in the ability to differentiate. It is not a litter, or an old one, the pack anymore. Instead it is my child, my father, or the special old one.
Just as existence demands competition to survive it also demands cooperation. The human is a social animal. Before the advent of more advanced technology humans were most effective hunting in a pack. Hence the tribe and culture were extensions of the Pack. The Pack allowed for the nurture of the young that allowed for a longer period of cultural transmission. An extension of the nurture of the young was the care of the old. An extension of this care and nurturing of the living was the care of the dead. The living in a final act of nurture places the loved one in a permanent place of comfort.
Interestingly many of the graves contained small children. The Neanderthaloid parents expressing their grief bury their children in a rock where their bones will not be disturbed by wild animals. These graves then were not necessarily memorializing the great being who advanced the survival of the tribe. Some of these individual gravesites, at least, were seemingly based upon paternal love. The memorializing might have had to do with keeping a memory alive. Visiting the spot of material remains ratifies their continued existence.
Let us not project primitive religious beliefs and practices upon these ancient humans. Individual gravesites are just as prevalent as ever in modern times, for probably much of the same reasons. The archaic idea is that a person lives as long as their memory is kept alive rather than as long as the physical shell, the body, lasts. This is totally tied up with our being cells in the cultural organism. Hence memorializing an existence in any way keeps the loved one a little more alive. Their lives long gone, these memorial graves to the young children still have power to bring tears to the eyes some 80,000 years after the event. No cultural giants these Neanderthaloids, no art whatsoever. But the pain of premature death is felt deeply enough by these proto-humans to the degree that they would cut a hole in the rock, no easy feat, as a grave for the body of their child. The intensity of the expression moves the Neanderthaloid beyond the level of homo erectus.
The expressive power of these testaments to paternal love touches us just as deeply after the tens of thousands of years. A sub species communicates to another sub species without words, without art, just basic primitive expression. This is the Neanderthal, perhaps a proto-human, maybe only our cousins, with a brain as big as ours but without the physical tools, and yet they still communicate this deep felt pain of mortality.
Congratulations fellow Homo sapiens.
We will see different extreme manifestations of this universal human need to memorialize death when we get to Chinese history. It begins with the Neanderthaloid.
Enough drama for now. Back to technology. The mode 3 technology far surpassed anything that we civilized humans could create in a lifetime. This technology is certainly complicated enough that it would take lifetimes to develop. Somehow they were able to hit a prepared rock with a single blow to create a tool that was sharper than anything that had gone on before.
Although the technique started in the north of the settled world, it spread into Africa and also into Western and Central Asia. The technology did not spread into India or China. There is evidence of settlements as far north as Siberia and down into China. The sub-species spread further than the technology. The evidence suggests that this technology was diffusive not universal. These Neanderthaloid sites were from about 60,000 to 30,000 BC.
The path of dispersion for these proto humans was north rather than south. Their technology did not reach the Iberian peninsula or Southeast Asia. They diffused northward across the steppes to Siberia and down into China. Remember that the warm temperature homo erectus spread to China by way of Southeast Asia. Now the cold weather homo sapiens spreads into China by way of Siberia. This is the northern route of cultural dispersion. This is the route connected with Confucian ideas. Hierarchy, elaborate burial rites, ritual and the like. Very rigid. Very Neanderthal. But weÕre a little ahead of ourselves.
The earlier subspecies of the human, homo sapiens, exhibited some interesting characteristics, which bear exploring. These hominids, while never reaching the level of ornamentation that the later species to which we belong did, achieved a Ôperfection of form and degree of standardization over great areas and despite wide variations in the qualities of the raw materials used, bear witness to firmness of intention and a definite sense of styleÓ These proto humans were already holding onto their cultural identity through the style of their technology. The idea here is very subtle but underlies much of the history of humanity.
Homo sapiens, the Neanderthaloid, settled in Northern Asia. The culture of Northern China, which is the culture of China, the Middle Kingdom, was derived from Northern Asia. The Confucian culture of China inherited the Neanderthaloid trait of cultural standardization and raised it to the highest level of civilization. This repetition of form served to bind the Chinese as a cohesive culture for 4,000 years, the longest relatively continuous civilization upon the Earth. T'ai Chi is based upon this same repetition of form, as such it has links to the Confucian Northern China with their Neanderthaloid links.