Human evolution; new anthropological erectus info II (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, April 03, 2020, 23:31 (1693 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Please look at the following extremely long article, second half of which will give you different brain sizes at different evolutionary stages and how artifacts are considered.

https://paleontology.fandom.com/wiki/Human_evolution

dhw: Sorry, I’m not prepared to accept cookies, but in any case I know there are different brain sizes, and I know that new artefacts are found with new-sized brains

I'll try here. I'm sorry cookies scare you. I use DuckDuckgo in browsing to avoid trouble.

"Using tools is not only a sign of intelligence, it also may have acted as a stimulus for human evolution. Over the past 3 or 2 million years, human brain size has increased threefold. A brain needs a lot of energy: the brain of modern man uses about 20 Watts (about 400 calories per day), one fifth of total human energy consumption.... However, plant food in general yields considerably less energy and nutritive value than meat. Therefore, being able to hunt for large animals, which was only possible by using tools such as spears, made it possible for humans to sustain larger and more complex brains, which in turn allowed them to develop yet more intelligent and efficient tools. (my bold)

"Precisely when early man started to use tools is difficult to determine, because the more primitive these tools are (for example, sharp-edged stones) the more difficult it is to decide whether they are natural objects or human artifacts. There is some evidence that the australopithecines (4 MYA) may have used broken bones as tools, but this is debated.

***

"Until about 50,000–40,000 years ago the use of stone tools seems to have progressed stepwise: each phase (habilis, ergaster, neanderthal) started at a higher level than the previous one, but once that phase had started further development was slow. In other words, one might call these Homo species culturally conservative. After 50,000 BP, what Jared Diamond, author of The Third Chimpanzee, and other anthropologists characterize as a Great Leap Forward, human culture apparently started to change at much greater speed: "modern" humans started to bury their dead carefully, made clothing out of hides, developed sophisticated hunting techniques (such as pitfall traps, or driving animals to fall off cliffs), and made cave paintings. This speed-up of cultural change seems connected with the arrival of modern humans, homo sapiens sapiens. Additionally, human culture began to become more advanced, in that, different populations of humans begin to create novelty in existing technologies. Artifacts such as fish hooks, buttons and bone needles begin to show signs of variation among different population of humans, something that has not been seen in human cultures prior to 50,000 BP. Typically, neanderthalenis populations are found with technology similar to other contemporary neanderthalensis populations. (my bold)

"Theoretically, modern human behaviour is taken to include four ingredient capabilities: abstract thinking (concepts free from specific examples), planning (taking steps to achieve a farther goal), innovation (finding new solutions), and symbolic behaviour (such as images, or rituals). Among concrete examples of modern human behaviour, anthropologists include specialization of tools, use of jewelry and images (such as cave drawings), organization of living space, rituals (for example, burials with grave gifts), specialized hunting techniques, exploration of less hospitable geographical areas, and barter trade networks. Debate continues whether there was indeed a "Revolution" leading to modern man ("the big bang of human consciousness"), or a more gradual evolution."

Comment: The bolded statements, especially the first, fit my approach, to which you now seem to agree, that bigger, better brains (remember souls at work) create the better artifacts. But then you strain credulity by imagining the earlier form absorbing current info thinks a new design might exist, and somehow grows a bigger, better brain to achieve the design. Dreaming a theory out of thin air. Note the authors use my approach: we had to learn to use our newly developed brain over the 315.000 +/- years it has existed. We were just like erectus at our start.