Replies

So what caused this sudden burst of cognitive output?

27 posted on 04/21/2006 11:50:53 AM PDT by mlc9852

So what caused this sudden burst of cognitive output?

I'm not sure there was a "cause," per se, but evidently a population stumbled on a winning formula that made them and their descendents much more fit than other hominin populations. Think of it as analogous to the discovery of iron, 3000 years ago: populations that had iron in a very short time were able to overrun every population in Eurasia that didn't have iron.

Another part of it is a population question -- these more advanced hunter/gather societies were able to support far larger populations that essentialy swamped what had been there before.

There is documented, gradual evolution in tool technologies leading up to this explosion, but if you're asking what the key turning point was, I don't know.

29 posted on 04/21/2006 11:56:16 AM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)

So what caused this sudden burst of cognitive output?

34 posted on 04/21/2006 12:05:38 PM PDT by ASA Vet (Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know.)

More meat in the diet?

42 posted on 04/21/2006 12:19:37 PM PDT by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink)

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