Biases about prehistory

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There persists a general ignorance of human prehistory. Prehistoric human beings are thought to have been the most primitive of bipedal creatures who huddled in caves. Cro-magnon is thought to be a species separate from homo sapiens. Popular opinion is that our human ancestors were less intelligent and as wild as beasts. We believe they were entranced by magic and mystery. They were plagued by irrational fears. Their world was filled with animal and evil spirits. None of this is true, yet we build from these foundations to view our cultures as advanced and superior.

Some people think our ancestors were without structured speech, that they grunted and gesticulated wildly. Truthfully, they were as articulate as anyone today. It is their vocabulary that was elementally different.

Hollywood loves to perpetuate the idea that prehistoric males fought over women. Movies depict loutish cavemen kidnapping and raping voluptuous skin-clad women. The truth is that our male ancestors respected women and treated them as equals in every way. If there was a question of deciding between two suitors, it would have been the woman who decided.

There are more subtle popular biases. The concept of progress has created a subtle impression that all things improve over time. Technological advances and increased scientific knowledge seem to bear this out. We like to think that anything in the past is not quite up to our standards. It is simply a bias and prejudicial thinking. We have had 10,000 years to improve human Civilization, yet wars still exist, poverty still exists and people still make bad choices. The thought that human beings are smarter is certainly debatable. Our prehistoric ancestors were intelligent enough to survive 150,000 years under the most inhospitable conditions.

Regarding evolution, humans like to think they are the acme of evolutional achievement, that they are the final and ultimate effort. The natural world has no such opinion. Evolution did not stop creating new species when homo sapiens began to walk the earth. In most biological estimations insects and protozoa are more successful lifeforms than human beings.

When studying the small groups of hunter-gatherers that survived into the 20th century, ethnologists, anthropologists and sociologists have used systematized analysis appropriate for Modern societies. They have defined individual and societal behaviors with inappropriate concepts and language. The following terms may apply to Modern societies, but they have no meaning for hunter-gatherers:

Division of Labor

Male dominance over female

Status

Territory / ownership

Gift reciprocity rules

Kinship definitions

Kinship as a social factor

Marriage as a political factor

Marriage to cousins avoided as a cultural absolute

Peer pressure

Aggression, coercion as social factors

Crime

Scholars assume behaviors of Modern men to be universal throughout time, e.g. antagonistic, coercive, domineering; belligerent. Scholars use the motivations of Modern Man to explain hunter-gatherer societies. e.g. intimidation, peer pressure; ostracizing. These terms do not apply to nomadic hunter-gatherer societies. They are about Modern, Civilized men only.

Scholars often fail to differentiate between nomadic / semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers and sedentary hunter-gatherers. There is a world of difference which is why they have been categorized as simple and complex hunter-gatherers.

Academic research often begins with hypothesized theories. These theories are based on intellectualized perceptions of human beings as we are today. When beginning with something to prove, all collected data is viewed and interpreted with the bias of the proposed theory. Sometimes one or two observations are extrapolated to cover a myriad of factors.

Vague comparisons with modern primitive peoples seem sufficient to hypothesize shamanistic motivations for the prehistoric cave art of France and Spain as in Lewis-Williams’ The Mind in the Cave. There is no reason to believe that cave paintings had spiritual or psychological connection to deeply profound and mystic philosophy. It is wishful thinking on the part of imaginative academics.

Psychologist Peter Gray observed that hunter-gatherer societies played a lot and suggested our societies might be happier if we did the same. It is fun to think about, but the understanding should be that the play is noncompetitive and that there is an underlying psychological reason that it is possible for those people to play without any competition.

Genetics has become the latest fashion in explaining human behavior. It seems to give a sense of scientific credibility for any argument. A recent article in Scientific American regarding the migration of humanity to the American continents claims “a gene for cooperation” suddenly appeared and sent homo sapiens in all directions. Human beings had cooperative societies for more than 150,000 years. Cooperation had nothing to do with genetics, but rather was founded in psychology as is most behavior.  It would also seem that cooperation had nothing to do with the human migration throughout the planet. Genes are the claim for familial behaviors which are surely learned at a young age from parents. Genes have been credited with such outlandish things as a penchant for grammar in language. Genes do not make the man when it comes to discussing behavior.

Ethology has attempted to biologically rationalize human nature by comparison with animal societies and behaviors. This seemingly inspired idea ultimately fails because it only relates to behavior of Modern men for the past 10,000 years. Our biology did not change 10,000 years ago… well, our birthrates did, and that was everything.

Another popular academic theory is that the extinction of Neanderthals and Ice Age megafauna was caused by homo sapiens. This seems to be based on an assumption of aggressive and bellicose human behavior. Paleolithic humans were not aggressive nor did they overkill dangerous prey for food. It is more likely that the changes in environmental and/or climatic conditions led to a natural extinction of many  Ice Age species. Giving humans credit for dramatic unexplained events is simply anthropocentric hubris.

Placing academic theories before the actual research taints results. It is the same as research in a chemistry or physics lab. Research first and try to get an explanation that fits all the data.

We approach sociological and anthropological studies with a belief that human nature is an absolute, that people are always people; that we have always had the same motivations and emotions. Unfortunately, that has been proven to be a false assumption.  

20,000 years ago human nature was very different from what we think of as human nature today. Violence and aggression, competition and ambition; vanity and greed are all part of Modern human nature. We excuse antisocial behaviors because they are inherent in our human race. But none of these traits existed among simple hunter-gatherer societies (and therefore among our prehistoric ancestors.) For 150,000 years human nature was kinder and gentler, non-aggressive and considerate. Our ancestors were intelligent, extremely competent, egalitarian, and selfless. That is the human nature of our homo sapiens species before the advent of Civilization became necessary.