Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

Over the last few years, however, the gradualists have been making a strong comeback. Stephen Oppenheimer, of Green College, Oxford, has collected the evidence in his book, Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World.⁵¹ There, he shows that ‘Mode 3’ hand-axes, capable of being hafted, were produced in Africa by archaic H. sapiens from 300,000 years ago. These early humans were also producing bone tools looking like harpoon tips, were quarrying for pigment at 280,000 years ago, used perforated shell pendants in South Africa at 130,000–105,000 years ago, and crafted haematite ‘pencils’ at 100,000 years ago. Figure 1 shows his chronology for the advent of various cognitive advances. Oppenheimer concludes that, by 140,000 years ago, ‘half of the important clues to cognitive skills and behaviour which underpinned those that eventually took us to the Moon were already present’.⁵²

Despite this strong showing recently by the gradualists, it remains true that it is the sudden appearance, around 40,000 years ago, of very beautiful, very accomplished, and very modern-looking art that captures the imagination of all who encounter it. This art takes three main forms – the famous cave paintings, predominantly but not exclusively found in Europe, the so-called Venus figurines, found in a broad swathe across western and eastern Europe, and multicoloured beads, which in some respects are the most important evidence of all. What stands out is the sudden appearance of this art, its abundance and its sophistication. In northern Spain the art consists mainly of engravings but the paintings extend from south-west France to Australia. When the first cave art was discovered in the nineteenth century, it took many years before it was accepted as truly ancient because so many of the images were realistic and lifelike, and modern-looking. It was felt they must be forgeries. But it is now generally accepted (there are still doubters) that, with the paintings spread so far across Eurasia, and with the dating being so consistent, something very important was going on around 40,000 years ago (although this art should probably not be treated as a single phenomenon). This, the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition, as it is known to professionals, is probably the most exciting area of study in palaeontology now, and for three reasons.