Beads and Cognitive Evolution

Abstract

The study of human evolution has largely focused on skeletal developments and on the stone tools of successive technological traditions. The cultural and cognitive evolution of hominins has been comparatively neglected. Here it is proposed that beads and pendants provide some of the most reliable evidence for our non-physical (cognitive) evolution. The available corpus of such finds from the Middle and Late Pleistocene periods is presented and reviewed. It is shown to demonstrate not only the use of complex symbolisms several hundred millennia ago, but also the application of concepts of perfection and self-awareness. This finding agrees with other indicators of hominin cognition, but it clashes with the dominant notion that “modern” human faculties appeared with a hypothetical replacement of Europeans by Africans just 35,000 years ago. This notion is reviewed and shown to be based on fake datings and misidentifications of numerous human fossils, on questionable genetic contentions, and on inadequate consideration of the available empirical evidence.

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