Where Did Modern Human Culture Begin?
We define culture as the collection of beliefs and behaviors that distinguish between one group and others. This includes language, music, literature, technology, architecture, and clothing in the 21st century but tens of thousands of years ago “modern” human cultures would have been differentiated by less stark differences. Language was probably one of the chief differentiating factors. Human groups that had been separated from each other for hundreds of thousands of years almost certainly spoke different languages. Tools and weapons would have been another differentiating factor.
And, of course, different genetic (ethnic) makeups for local populations would reflect the gradual differentiation in culture between once-closely related groups. But why did these groups separate from each other? We can only guess at the probable reasons. The number one hypothesis is that as human populations grew the competition for resources would have forced some groups to leave the homeland and find other resources. But was it really that simple?
We must ask questions and propose hypotheses to answer those questions. Then we must seek out evidence to support or disprove the hypotheses. We will never know the full story of what happened 100,000 to 200,000 years ago but we are finally learning many more pieces of the tale of modern humanity’s cultural history. It is time to look at the growing collection of pieces and see what we can make of the puzzle. Let us do so by asking some questions.
When Did Humans First Learn to Cook?
This is an extremely important question because cooking itself is a cultural behavior that distinguishes human ancestors from their great ape relatives. Apes do not cook food in the wild, although they have been known to eat varied diets. Some apes like chimpanzees even eat meat. This is an important point to remember because one hypothesis about why human brains are so much larger than other primates’ brains is that our ancestors began eating more meat than other primates. We do not know how long chimpanzees have been eating meat but we know that humans and their most recent ancestors have eaten meat for over 1,000,000 years.
The step from eating raw meat to cooked meat has yet to be documented. One hypothesis is that humans may have begun eating meat that was accidentally cooked after animals were killed by lightning or wildfire. But wildfires don’t braise chicken or roast the pig. They can produce temperatures high enough to incinerate living tissue. Hence, the idea that human ancestors probed the ashes of burned forests for freshly cooked meat is very difficult to support.
What may be more important to the development of cooking is man’s use of fire. That is one of the few behaviors that distinguished our ancestors from their ape cousins. Somewhere in the long distant past we picked up a flaming branch and used it for some purpose. One possible scenario is that human ancestors living near a volcano saw the light produced by lava and realized that it could be useful. They might even have found burning plants and trees in the night casting off light and decided to capture it.
A mastery of fire would give humans an advantage at night over other animals, and even in the daytime fire could prove to be man’s best friend, especially against dangerous animals. Another hypothesis is that the first technological weapons were burning pieces of wood used to frighten animals, maybe even to drive game toward waiting hunters.
Chimpanzees’ own hunting and warlike activities prove to us that primates do not have to be fully evolved into modern humans in order to work together and develop killing skills. Some chimpanzees have indeed learned to make weapons. Since chimps do not use fire it follows that early humans probably learned to make simple tools and weapons before they learned to use fire.
So far the oldest evidence of the use of fire for cooking by human ancestors has been unearthed in South Africa. Scientists estimate the remains of these early campfires are about 1 million years old. We believe that human ancestors separated from chimpanzee ancestors about 6-7 million years ago. There is no evidence to suggest that those ape-like ancestors did anything more than start walking upright all the time and relying on tools more often than their chimpanzee ancestor relatives. All we can be sure of is they had a reason to change their behavior from that of other ancient apes.
It follows that human cooking skills probably arose somewhere between 1 million and 6 million years ago. We need more evidence to take that story farther.
When Did Humans Learn to Cook With Liquids?
The step from eating fruits, nuts, vegetables and insects to eating small animals was itself a major leap forward for primates. The next leap, for human ancestors, was to start hunting larger game. But plentiful evidence shows that we never stopped eating fruits and vegetables. In fact, we now know that ancient humans and human ancestors were eating wild grasses in an opportunistic manner for a long, long time. Sorghum (which is and was plentiful in south and east Africa) is the oldest known wild grain eaten by humans and their ancestors.
An interesting find in Mozambique (situated on the coast of east Africa across from Madagascar) revealed in 2009 showed that humans were transporting wild sorghum into a cave around 100,000 years ago. The team who made this discovery, led by Dr. Julio Mercader, concluded that the humans were preparing and eating the grain. But other scientists including Lyn Wadley argue that the sorghum remains could suggest several possible uses, and not all of them food-related. Dr. Mercado’s argument is that these early humans were making porridge, which requires milk or water.
Professor John Speth published a paper in 2006 arguing that Neanderthals were cooking food and living a lifestyle similar to that of much more recent hunter-gatherer societies. Speth’s research is supported by work from a Smithsonian archaeologist and her team showing that Neanderthals left behind resides of cooked barley. In 2014 a team of Israeli scientists announced they had found evidence that human ancestors repeatedly used fire in Qesem Cave about 300,000 years ago, and they also found evidence that the fire was used for cooking.
The case for Neanderthal cooking may not be completely accepted by all scientists but the evidence so far suggests that the Neanderthals’ ancestors probably carried fire-based skills including cooking with them on the migration out of Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago. Also in 2014, Speth suggested that Neanderthals learned to boil their food in skin pouches or bark trays.
The oldest clear evidence for boiling is less than 30,000 years old and it shows that modern humans heated stones and then dropped them into water. But this does not have to be the only method used for boiling. If the Mercader theory holds out, then we will know that humans were boiling food long before the Toba Event of about 70,000 years ago, which some scientists believe may have sparked the last major expansion of humans from Africa to other parts of the world.
But Why Did Any Human Ancestors Leave Africa?
The several waves of outward migration from Africa have yet to be explained. Humans who had been living in southern and eastern Africa for millions of years should not suddenly have developed a wanderlust that caused them to divide into “those-who-stayed” and “those-who-left”. There had to be a reason for the migrations. That they happened several times implies a cyclical environmental cause was behind the migrations. We know that Africa went through several dry and wet periods as the current ice age (the Quarternary Ice Age, which has so far lasted about 2.6 million years) cycled through warm (wet) and cold (dry) periods. Each cold period, called a glaciation, froze substantial amounts of water in huge ice glaciers across northern Europe, Asia, and North America.
The last glacial period ended about 12,000 years ago (the process lasted for thousands of years and actually continues today). Scientists call that the (Würm, Wisconsin, Weichselian, Devensian, or Llanquihue) Glaciation depending on which region is being discussed. It began around 71,000 years ago (about the same time as the Toba Event). The last interglacial period (the Eemian, which was approximately equivalent in temperatures to the current interglacial period) extended from Circa. 130,000 BCE to 115,000 BCE. The current interglacial period is named the Holocene (although some scientists are now pressing for the naming of a new epoch, the Anthropocene, to reflect human influence on environmental change).
Modern humans left Africa during the Eemian period but they appear to have died out. Some scientists speculate that the glacial period following the Toba Event may have killed off those modern human groups living outside of Africa, even though the Neanderthals of Europe and western Asia survived, as well as the Denisovans. Although many archaeologists have assumed that modern humans were superior to the Neanderthals the evidence suggests that the first wave of modern humans to leave Africa were not so superior. Their numbers may have been too few, or their cultures may have been too dependent upon warmer climates. As the world cooled many of the warm-climate animals that had spread throughout the northern lands would have retreated or died off.
Neanderthals (and probably Denisovans) were descendants of Homo heidelbergensis, our own direct ancestors, who lived from about 700,000 to 200,000 years ago (some estimates push them back to 1.3 million years). Homo heidelbergensis probably left Africa during the Pastonian Stage interglacial period (Circa. 800,000 – 600,000 BCE) or the Bramertonian (Circa. 1,550,000 – 1,300,000 BCE). These are very rough date ranges. Also, we don’t know if there was one migration or many migrations out of Africa by the Hh groups. Homo heidelbergensis used fire and hunted large game animals.
They may also have fought with each other. Scientists found almost 30 Homo heidelbergensis skeletons in a pit inside Atapuerca cave in northern Spain. They dated the remains to approximately 400,000 years ago and found a stone axe nearby. The usual interpretation of this finding is that it may represent some sort of ritualistic location. But we just don’t know what, if anything, the remains signify.
One important find in northern Africa is a “carpet of tools” covering about 1 million years’ of stone tool-making history. This isolated region has revealed an extensive history of near-continuous tool-making. Scientists speculate that human groups may have vied for control of the area because it would have been extremely productive for them.
Conflict over resources would easily explain why humans would split off from African cultures across hundreds of thousands of years. Improvements in food-gathering and preparation, as well as tool-making and use, should have led to increases in population. Climate change would also have figured into the process. None of these factors alone would be sufficient to explain the division of populations. If it was climate change alone then why wouldn’t the humans simply follow the food sources to more hospitable lands. Their populations must have increased enough that some people felt compelled to leave (perhaps as a result of feuds over hunting grounds and natural resources).
Illness could also explain some of the migrations. Any disease that killed whole groups might inspire a wave of panic migrations as survivors fled the areas with illness. People might not wander back into such lands until several generations had passed and social memory of the illnesses had faded.
Natural disasters could also explain some migrations, including tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and extended droughts. Any natural event that forced people to seek farther afield for food and shelter could have divided the ancient human populations. But unless they increased their numbers again (leading to conflicts over resources) it seems unlikely these causes would explain the great migrations.
Human Expansion Is Driven by Population
History teaches us that every time a tribe becomes strong and numerous it either begins to conquer other tribes around it or sends off some of its members to establish a new colony in some other land. The Greek City-states did this, the Semites did this, the Celts and Germans did this, the Mongols and Turks did it, too.
Prehistoric human groups must also have reached population points where their local resources could no longer sustain their numbers. These overlarge groups must have subdivided every few generations and in the process they would have put pressure on their closest neighbors to either move or fight. The losers would have had to migrate and may have been forced to wander farther and farther afield. The migration cycles could have lasted anywhere from 100 to 150 years. In a 15,000 year period as many as 100 migrations could have pushed human populations out of Africa. If each migrating group averaged about 100 miles the outermost fringe groups would be about 10,000 miles from the starting point.
Scientists believe that the last main wave of modern humans began leaving Africa around 60,000 BCE. By about 45,000 BCE the European branch of modern humans came into contact with the last major populations of Neanderthals. The Neanderthals as a distinct human species were no more by about 30,000 BCE having either died off or merged with Homo sapiens. The Denisovans may have lasted no longer than the Neanderthals.
Only a very modest growth in population would be required to trigger this kind of slow expansion. But what could facilitate such growth in population that did not occur among other primates? Large game animals and predatory species also expanded out from Africa. Hippopotami at one point lived along the Rhine river, for example. Human culture must have repressed ape culture early in the process 6 million years ago and in so doing our ancestors may have developed aggressive behaviors that pushed our growth in a direction the apes could not follow.
Perhaps conflict itself is the chief reason for why humans left Africa so many times. Perhaps conflict is the chief reason for advances in tool and weapon making. Perhaps conflict, competition for control of resources and maybe mates, is the root cause behind what makes us human and not apes. Our ancestors proved to be better at social organization for conflict and thereby acquired the skills to create human cultures and technologies.