- Home
- A...
A Critical Boom in Technology Traced Back More Than Half a Million Years
A leap in stone tool complexity in the fossil record suggests hominin knowledge underwent a sudden increase around 600,000 years ago, helping explain how modern humans and our ancestors became expecially proficient at adapting to new environments.
It's a timing that could potentially even "predate the divergence of the Neanderthal and modern humans and be a shared derived feature of both lineages," explain University of Missouri anthropologist Jonathan Paige and Arizona State University anthropologist Charles Perreault, who report these findings in a new paper.
The researchers analyzed stone tool manufacturing techniques across 3.3 million years of human evolution. They ranked 62 tool-making sequences in order of their complexity for tools found across 57 sites.
The oldest artifact was from Africa, but ancient tools from Eurasia, Greenland, Sahul, Oceania, and the Americas were included in the analysis.
Paige and Perreault found that up until 1.8 million years ago the manufacture sequences of stone tools ranged between two and four procedural units in length. Over the next 1.2 million years an increase in tool complexity took place, reaching up to seven procedural units.
It wasn't until around 600,000 years ago, however, that our ancestors took this to a whole new level.
By this point tool complexity could require up to 18 procedural units. Such a large technological advancement relies on knowledge passed on from previous generations – a cumulative culture – Paige and Perreault suggest. In the generations that followed, point stone tool complexity continued to increase rapidly.
"Cumulative culture is the accumulation of modifications, innovations, and improvements over generations through social learning," Paige and Perreault define in their paper.
"Generations of improvements, modifications, and lucky errors can generate technologies and know-how well beyond what a single naive individual could invent independently within their lifetime. When a child inherits her parent's generation's culture, she inherits the outcome of thousands of years of lucky errors and experiments."
Cumulative culture benefits a population in a number of ways, increasing the chance of solving problems through generations of trial and error much like evolution does through random mutations and natural selection. It also allows individuals to use and advance technologies without needing to fully understand every aspect of their development, opening the way for an ever-increasing and adapting knowledge pool.
As this collective knowledge and associated behaviors grew, genes that affect learning may have also been selected for.
"Products of this gene-culture coevolution process may include an increase in relative brain size, a prolonged life history, and other keystone traits underlying human uniqueness," Paige and Perreault explain.
While the team's findings provide a solid proxy for the presence of cumulative culture near the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, this type of cultural intelligence may have arisen even earlier in our evolutionary history, Paige and Perreault note, in ways that weren't so easily preserved.
"It is possible that early hominins relied on cumulative culture to develop complex social, foraging, and technological behaviors that are archaeologically invisible," they write.
Regardless of the exact technology or timing, reliance on cumulative culture may have provided a strong selective force that shaped many of humanity's unique features.
This research was published in PNAS.
- https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/technology/a-critical-boom-in-technology-traced-back-more-than-half-a-million-years/ar-BB1oq59x?ocid=00000000
Related
Cost of living relief measures come into force today
July 1 marks the new financial year and a raft of changes to government payments are coming into force.
NewsUkraine offers prisoners release at a high price
Ukraine offers prisoners release at a high price - About 27,000 inmates could potentially be eligible for the new program
NewsAER pursuing Origin Energy for cutting power to people on life support systems
The Australian Energy Regulator is pursuing Origin Energy for cutting off power to people on life support systems.
News‘No way’: NRL’s decision on painful Eels calls
Eels fans won’t want to watch Graham Annesley’s weekly briefing after he gave his verdict on a couple of controversial calls.
NewsGovernment ‘rolling out substantial and meaningful’ cost of living relief
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the Albanese government is “rolling out substantial and meaningful and responsible” cost of living relief.
NewsSeek, Indeed and Gumtree urged to join fight against ‘brazen’ job ads
The regulator is asking a broader gamut of organisations to get involved in cracking down on job listings with illegally low pay.
News‘Arctic’ warning for millions of Aussies
Aussies are set to rug up as a high pressure system is expected to bring a burst of cold weather and below average temperatures to much of the country.
NewsMelbourne teacher Paul Hogan mourned after falling to death from school roof
Paul Hogan, 61, is believed to have been retrieving balls from the roof of a school in Melbourne's south-west when he fell through a skylight.
News