Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

6. New Scientist, 13 July 2002, page 6; and 13 July 2002, page 6. As Bernard Wood points out, the Djurab desert is 150 kilometres (95 miles) west of the East African Rift valley, which means this area may no longer be regarded as the exclusive home of early humans: ‘Who are we?’, New Scientist, 26 October 2002, page 47. Sahelanthropus was later criticised as being a form of early ape, not an ancestor of man – see the Times Higher Educational Supplement, 25 October 2002, page 19. The find of a leg bone was reported in 2000, said to be the remains of our ‘Millenial Ancestor’, dated to six million years ago, which had upright posture. New Scientist, 15 December 2000, page 5. Stephen Oppenheimer says the earliest ‘clear evidence’ for bipedalism is seen in the skeleton of A. anamensis at four million years ago. Oppenheimer, Op. cit., page 5.

7. Oppenheimer, Op. cit., page 11.

8. Steven Mithen, The Prehistory of the Mind, London: Thames & Hudson, 1996, page 238.

9. Richard G. Klein with Blake Edward, The Dawn of Human Culture, New York: John Wiley, 2002, page 56.

10. Another theory is that the upright posture allowed for greater cooling of the body in the African heat, via the top of the head, which was now more exposed. Oppenheimer, Op. cit., page 5.

11. One recent theory argues that rapid climate change, which occurs every 100,000 years or so, is responsible for the development of intelligence: Times Higher Educational Supplement, 4 October 2002, page 29.

12. Klein with Edward, Op. cit., page 65.

13. This may have something to do with the fact that when mammals began to flourish, after the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago (after the earth was hit by an asteroid), the early species were nocturnal creatures and therefore required larger brains to process information from several senses – touch, smell and hearing as well as sight. Chimpanzees, for example, seem better at drawing inferences from acoustic clues than from visual ones. Mithen, Op. cit., pages 88 and 114.

14. Oppenheimer, Op. cit., page 11.

15. Mithen, Op. cit., pages 108–109.

16. Wenke, Op. cit., page 120.

17. Mithen, Op. cit., page 22. Homo habilis is known as Australopithecus habilis among some palaeontologists. See Bernard Wood, ‘Who are we?’, New Scientist, 26 October 2002, page 47.

18. Mithen, Op. cit., page 126.

19. Oppenheimer, Op. cit., pages 14–15. John Noble Wilford, ‘Experts place ancient toolmaker on a fast track to northern China,’ New York Times, 5 October 2004, citing a report in the then current Nature.

20. The latest H. erectus discoveries, at Dmanasi, in Georgia, consist of individuals with much smaller brains, with a 600 cc capacity. This suggests they moved out of Africa not because they were more intelligent than other hominids, or had better tools, but because, owing to climate, African conditions extended into Europe. Alternatively, these examples were actually children. The Times (London) 5 July 2002, page 14.

21. Wenke, Op. cit., pages 145–147.

22. Richard Rudgley, The Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age, New York: The Free Press, 1999, page 143.

23. Goudsblom, Fire and Civilisation, Op. cit., pages 16 and 34.

24. Ibid., pages 25–27.

25. Rudgley, Op. cit., page 88 and Mellars and Stringer, Op. cit., page 428. A curious aspect to stone tool technology is that in some sites the hand-axes do not appear to have been used. This has prompted some palaeontologists to suggest that the accumulation of such ‘tools’ was in fact an early form of ‘peacock plumage’, in effect a showing-off device as an aid to attracting mates. Klein and Edgard, Op. cit., page 107. Even today, certain Eskimo groups distinguish between tools used on animals and tools used only on social occasions. Mellars and Stringer. Op. cit., page 359. H erectus is sometimes known as H. rhodesiensis in Africa but this term is falling into disuse.

26. Rudgley, Op. cit., page 163. Experiments conducted on Neanderthal bones, by Steven Churchill at Duke University in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, support the idea that they used both arms to thrust spears, not throw them. This, at 230,000–200,000 years ago. New Scientist, 23 November 2002, pages 22–23. Archaic H. sapiens is also known as H. helmei and H. heidelbergensis.

27. Rudgley, Op. cit., page 176.

28. Ibid., page 177.

29. Ibid., page 226.

30. Mellars and Stringer, Op. cit., 214.