Tanzania (110,000-45,000 BP), a carved warthog tusk, recovered from Border cave, in South Africa, and dated to 80,000 BP, and some mollusc beads from Blombos cave, also in South Africa, dated to between 80,000 and 75,000 BP (the beads were brought from twenty kilometres away and appear to have ochre inside them). These show, they say, that early humans' mental skills developed gradually-and perhaps not in Europe. They imply that Europe is 'the cradle of civilisation' only because it has well-developed archaeological services, which have produced many discoveries, and that if African or Asian countries had the same facilities, these admittedly meagre discoveries would be multiplied and a different picture would emerge. The debate has switch-backed more than once. The gradualists certainly suffered a setback in regard to one other important piece of evidence, the so-called Slovenian 'flute'. This was unveiled in 1995, amid much fanfare, as the world's oldest musical instrument. Dated to 54,000 years ago, it consisted of a tubular piece of bone, found at Divje Babe near Reke in western Slovenia, containing two complete holes, and two incomplete ones, in a straight line. It comprised the femur of a young bear and was the only femur among 600 found in the same cave that was pierced in this way. What drew the archaeologists' attention was the discovery that the holes were roughly 1 centimetre across and 2.5 centimetres apart, a configuration that comfortably fits the dimensions of the human hand. According to some scholars, the instrument was capable of playing 'the entire seven-note scale on which Western music is based.'49 However, Francesco d'Errico and a group of colleagues at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Bordeaux were able to show that this suggestive arrangement was in fact an entirely natural occurrence, the result of the bone being gnawed by other carnivores, possibly cave bears. Similar puncture holes were discovered on bones in several caves in the Basque region of Spain.50 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 Figure 1: The chronology of early cognitive skills [Source: Stephen Oppenheimer, Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World , London: Constable, 2003, page 123] 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 multi-coloured 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. The advent of art is so sudden (in palaeontological terms), and so widespread, that many scientists think it must reflect an important change in the development of early man's mental state. It is, as Steven Mithen puts it, 'when the final major re-design of the mind took place'.53 Once again there was a time lag, between the appearance of anatomically modern humans, around 150,000-100,000 years ago, and the creative explosion, at 60,000-40,000 years ago. One explanation is the climate. As the glaciers expanded and retreated, the available game changed in response, and a greater variety of equipment was needed. Also needed was a record of the animals available and their seasonal movement. Perhaps this is, again, too neat. A second-and more controversial-climatic explanation is that the eruption of the Mount Toba volcano at 71,000 years ago led to a worldwide volcanic winter, lasting ten thousand years and drastically reducing both the human and animal population. This would have been followed by a period of severe competition for resources, resulting in rapid development among very disparate groups, fuelling innovation. Another explanation for the 'creative explosion' derives from the art itself. In north-eastern Spain and south-western France (but not elsewhere) much is contained in highly inaccessible caves, where the superimposition of one image over another implies that these subterranean niches and crevices were returned to time and again-over centuries, over thousands of years. The suspicion is, therefore, that cave art is in fact to be understood as writing as much as art, a secret and sacred recording of the animals which early man relied upon for food. (This is an idea supported by the fact that many contemporary tribes who create rock paintings have no word for art in their language.54) The cave paintings and engravings were in effect a record, possibly of what animals were in the area, when, in what numbers, and showed what routes they followed. These records, which may have been kept outside to begin with, would have been transferred to inaccessible places partly out of concerns for security-so rivals would never find them-and partly out of ritual. The animals may have been worshipped-because life depended on them and their abundance-and reflect what early man knew about their movements, a record, in effect, of his ability to plan ahead. The caves may also have been ritual temples, chosen not only for inaccessibility but because they were thought to be in some sense gateways to and from the underworld. According to the French prehistorian Andre Leroi-Gourhan, the cave art of Europe comprises a 'single ideological system', a 'religion of the caves'.55 There are two important questions to be asked of this art. Why, in the first place, did it emerge 'fully formed', as it were, why was there no primitive version? And what does it mean? One reason it emerged 'fully formed' may simply be that early versions were produced on perishable materials, which have been lost. Steven Mithen, however, has a 'deeper' reason for why this art emerged fully formed. He believes that the three different types of intelligence that evolved in man's primitive brain-the natural history intelligence, the technical intelligence, and the social intelligence-finally came together some time between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago, to form the modern brain as we know it. Indeed, he says that the very fact that early art shows so much technical skill, and is so full of emotive power, is itself the strongest argument for this latest restructuring of the mind. This is speculative, of course; there is no other evidence to support Mithen's view. Richard Klein, professor of anthropological sciences at Stanford University in California, offers a different theory. He believes that humanity's cultural revolution began with one or more genetic mutations that 'transformed the ability to communicate'.56 Professor Klein argues that 'a suite of language and creativity genes, perhaps as few as ten or as many as 1,000, developed as a result of random mutation', giving rise to a new pattern of human culture. He cites as an example the gene FOXP2, which was discovered in 2001 among the fifteen members of a large London family (the 'KE' family), three generations of which have severe speech and language impediments. Researchers have since shown that the human version of this gene differs by only three molecules, out of 715, from the version carried by mice, and by just two molecules from the version carried by chimpanzees. The German researchers who identified the mutation say that it occurred about 200,000 years ago and spread rapidly, in 500-1,000 human generations, or 10,000-20,000 years. 'A sweep that rapid indicates to biologists that the new version of the gene must have conferred a significant evolutionary advantage on the human ancestors lucky enough to inherit it.'57 Another explanation of the cultural explosion arises from demography. Until