Modern human origins and the fate of the Neanderthals are
arguably the most compelling and contentious arenas in
paleoanthropology. The much-discussed split between advocates of a
single, early emergence of anatomically modern humans in
sub-Saharan Africa and supporters of various regional continuity
positions is only part of the picture. Equally if not more
important are questions surrounding the origins of modern behavior,
and the relationships between anatomical and behavioral changes
that occurred during the past 200,000 years. Although modern humans
as a species may be defined in terms of their skeletal anatomy, it
is their behavior, and the social and cognitive structures that
support that behavior, which most clearly distinguish Homo sapiens
from earlier forms of humans.
This book assembles researchers working in Eurasia and Africa to
discuss the archaeological record of the Middle Paleolithic and the
Middle Stone Age. This is a time period when Homo sapiens last
shared the world with other species, and during which patterns of
behavior characteristic of modern humans developed and coalesced.
Contributions to this volume query and challenge some current
notions about the tempo and mode of cultural evolution, and about
the processes that underlie the emergence of modern behavior. The
papers focus on several fundamental questions. Do typical elements
of "modern human behavior" appear suddenly, or are there earlier
archaeological precursors of them? Are the archaeological records
of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age unchanging and
monotonous, or are there detectable evolutionary trends within
these periods? Coming to diverse conclusions, the papers in this
volume open up new avenues to thinking about this crucial interval
in human evolutionary history.
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