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How do you explain the advancement of cultural practices and tools during the 95% of time (assuming 100k years) that behaviorally modern humans lived prior to i
by quickthrowman 1y ago
How do you explain the advancement of cultural practices and tools during the 95% of time (assuming 100k years) that behaviorally modern humans lived prior to inventing writing 5,000 years ago? This includes the invention of agriculture and large scale building projects like Gobleki Tepe and so on. Also, there were cities for thousands of years before writing was invented.
I’m definitely no scholar, just a guy that is interested in prehistory.
- mattdeboard 1y agoI'm not saying there wasn't any cultural advancement prior to the invention of using written language to store information for use by others. Just that there wasn't any human behavior that distinguished it as unique among all other species on earth.
- quickthrowman 1y agoI’m not sure I follow, which other animals have cities and agriculture?
- mattdeboard 1y agoBees.
- quickthrowman 1y agoI never even considered insects but bees are a perfect example, I can see where you’re coming from now. A hive as a city, honey as a crop they farm by collecting pollen and refining it. There’s even specialized roles and a class hierarchy, just like humans! Ants build nests that could similarly be considered cities as well.
- mattdeboard 1y agoexactly! it's really hard to find something that's truly _uniquely_ human...