I was reading a very interesting article in the latest American Scientist, Refuting a Myth About Human Origins by John J. Shea. It reminded me of a passage from D. H. Lawrence's St Mawr. In the novel, Lou despairs of finding the 'real human animal' she yearns for in her men. What's that, some kind of caveman? No, according to her:
I don't consider the cave man is a real human animal at all. He's a brute, a degenerate. A pure animal man would be as lovely as a deer or a leopard, burning like a flame fed straight from underneath. And he'd be part of the unseen, like a mouse is, even. And he'd never cease to wonder, he'd breathe silence and unseen wonder, as the partridges do, running in the stubble. He'd be all the animals in turn, instead of one, fixed, automatic thing, which he is now, grinding on the nerves.
Lawrence felt that primitive humans experienced a kind of consciousness that we in modern times are barely capable of, which endowed them with a rich sensitivity to both their surroundings and fellow men. They were 'real human animals' living vividly in their natural state, unlike the 'automatic things' of today, but also far removed from our familiar caricature of the stupid and brutish caveman.
Professor Shea's article has some connection with this last point regarding the myth of the caveman. He sets out to counter the idea 'that prehistoric Homo sapiens can be divided into "archaic" and "modern" humans'. For evidence, he has looked at the variety of stone tool-making technologies in use at different stages of history. In fairly modern times, 7,000 years ago, a good variety of methods were extant. What is surprising is that this diversity does not tail off as you look further back in time. It kind of fluctuates instead. In the earliest times, 250,000 years ago, tool makers had as rich a repertoire as their descendants did just 7,000 years ago.
