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Now that weÕve established some basic terminology of the Cultural Ages, let us look a little more carefully at the primary cultures of these ages, in order to discover the roots of many of the concepts of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
Archaeologists start their categorizations with the Stone Age, rightfully so. These are the first things that they can find. Preceding the Stone Age, however, was the Age of Tribe Formation. It took the Tribe to transmit the technology that was to transform the species from homo habilis with his one type of stone tool into homo sapiens sapiens with our modern civilization. Because there is no evidence that survived from pre-Stone technology, all that follows is pure speculation. However the speculation is limited by what was discovered later and what is now. Hence the discussion that follows is led by Ôfacts to beÕ, rather than by Ôfacts that wereÕ. Skip it if you will, but some foundations were laid that we are still dealing with now, a few million years later. As a preliminary warning, let us not take these most ancient homos, so ÔprimitiveÕ that they are still forming tribes, too lightly, the mental programs that were formed so long ago are still bouncing around our brains motivating our behavior. It is these programs that we are trying to isolate in order to more effectively deal with them.
Let us then look at the formation of the Tribe, the first human organization. We will see that the Tribe was a main evolutionary consequence of the need for an extended period of time for cultural transmission to the human young. First any mechanism that would allow more time for this cultural transmission would be selected for because the tribes that had the most time to train their young would have an evolutionary advantage over those with a shorter time. This is based upon the underlying assumption that the more information that was transmitted the more fit an individual would be and consequently the tribe. Hence any mechanism that would further the time available for cultural transmission would be selected for. Let us look at some of these mechanisms.
Where do we begin? What genetic traits are brought into the package? The most primary trait, as we shall see later in another context, is the preservation of the species. In this case it manifests as a ferocious maternal love. Who is the most ferocious mammal when their young are attacked? The mother always. The normally peaceful mother bear will become savage when her cubs are attacked. The main way to turn a female mammal savage is by attacking her young. Of course other species, including birds will also protect their young. Indeed abandoning the young is considered the most cowardly of emotions. This extreme attitude towards the care of the young is based upon preservation of the species, a more primary instinct than self-preservation. Many parents would gladly sacrifice their own lives for their children if need be.
In nearly every species the mother has a deep genetic attachment to the young during their early dependency. This was something that was put into the hardware early on. It was so successful that it hasnÕt been tampered with, but has been passed on from species to species through the evolutionary chain. As mammals the mother breast-feeds her young. The act of feeding the young from the motherÕs own body, must have created an incredible intimacy. During this breast-feeding period, at least, a deep bond exists between mother and child. This period of breast-feeding in early infancy is the time most associated with ferocious love.
Because our ability to transmit over generations was such a fit trait evolutionarily, it was selected for on many fronts. In terms of the human infant, this led to an increasing period of absolute dependency followed by an increasing period of relative dependency, during which this transmission occurred. With many animal societies there is an intimate connection between the mother and child through these two relatively short periods. Then the animal young go their own way – no motherÕs day cards – no calls home. There seems to be no memory of this intimate maternal time.
With the homo species, the period of dependency and semi-dependency has been steadily increasing since our beginning as a species because of its evolutionary advantages. Indeed in modern times it has reached between 18 to 30 years. It takes that much time to transmit enough information to allow our children to fit in and survive in our culture.
As this time increased mothers were selected for with a correspondingly longer period of ferocious love, i.e. the built in emotion that will have the mother fight and sacrifice herself for her young. Hence this was the first homo trait, an increasing period of time where the mother experiences ferocious love. Indeed this period lasts for less than a year for many mammals.
Therefore a growing duration of maternal love was a primary evolutionary trait that was selected for. This extended the time possible for education, which increased the fitness of the species. Those mothers that loved their children the most, i.e. were willing to nurture their children for the longest time, were selected for. The longer they were cared for the better for the preservation of the species. Remember this love had to extend far past total dependency through partial dependency into adulthood. The primacy of this mother-child connection is manifested in relatively modern representations of the Mother Mary and Baby Jesus. As we shall see, beginning with this maternal love, the mother child unit, the rest of human development follows.