Stone tools stayed similar for ~300,000 years during the Middle Paleolithic — then cave art, symbols, trade, and music suddenly appeared. This 'Upper Paleolithic Revolution' (~50,000–40,000 years ago) followed — not coincided with — humanity's most severe population bottleneck, the genetic crash around ~70,000 years ago. Brain-related human accelerated regions (HARs) are largely unique to humans, but they accumulated changes over millions of years of evolution, not during a narrow recent window. 🧬🎨
Upper Paleolithic Revolution coincides with human genetic bottleneck
Key facts
- Stone tools remained unchanged for 300,000 years before abruptly shifting
- The Upper Paleolithic Revolution introduced cave paintings, abstract symbols, long-distance trade, sophisticated weapons, music, and personal ornamentation
- The behavioral revolution coincided with one of the most severe population reductions in human history
- Human accelerated regions in genes controlling brain development and cognitive function were selected for during this window
- These genetic sequences appear only in humans and no other species
- Every modern human lineage carries these selected sequences
Sources
sciencedaily.com
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med.virginia.edu
Linked in video description
Behavioral modernity - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
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The Upper Paleolithic revolution[J]. A single-species model for the origins of modern human behavior in Europe[J].
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Modernity has been described in various ways: symbolic behavior (including language), gendered division of labor, managed foraging, material innovation, and so ...
The revolution that still isn't: The origins of behavioral complexity in ...sciencedirect.com
At a time when human behavioral 'modernity' was inexorably linked to the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe, McBrearty and Brooks (2000) blazed ...
Questioning the gap between anatomical and behavioral modernitydienekes.blogspot.com
It concludes that behavioral modernity and allied concepts have no further value to human origins research. Research focused on the strategic ...
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