Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Human Condition pp 1–23Cite as

A Little Epistemology

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 1179 Accesses

Part of the book series: Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects ((DIPR))

Abstract

For a species described as intelligent, we have not been very successful in determining what it is that made us the way we are. The popular explanation of how we became human reflects a kind of consensus view forming the dogma that orthodox archaeology has created over recent decades. That dogma will be examined critically in this book, together with the epistemological currents that have formed its conceptual framework. One fundamental question may be a little perplexing to many readers: why do specialists consider human origins almost exclusively in terms of the somatic and technological development of our species? Surely “humanness” is not so much determined by the shape of supraorbital tori (brow ridges) or the mode of retouching flint tools. Surely what most distinguish us from other primates—and other animals—are a suite of distinctly “human” attributes: for instance, the ability to “store” symbolic information outside our brain; or our development of symboling capacities to such sophistication that they made it possible to modify our physical environment (or niche) on an extraordinary scale; and to harness its resources and energies in the ultimate quest of all species—the conversion of a significant part of the planet’s biomass into themselves.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Alemseged, Z., F. Spoor, W. H. Kimbel, R. Bobe, D. Geraads, D. Reed and J. G. Wynn 2006. A juvenile early hominin skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia. Nature 443(7109): 296–301.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ayala, F. J. 1996. Response to Templeton. Science 272: 1363–1364.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Barinaga, M. 1992. ‘African Eve’ backers beat a retreat. Science 255: 686–687.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 1984. The nature of psychograms. The Artefact 8: 27–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 1985. Editor’s response to letter by B. J. Wright. Rock Art Research 2: 90–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 1990. On the cognitive development of hominids. Man and Environment 15(2): 1–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 1994a. On the scientific study of palaeoart. Semiotica 100: 141–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 1994b. A taphonomy of palaeoart. Antiquity 68: 68–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 1995. Traces of cultural continuity in Middle and Upper Palaeolithic material evidence. Origini 18: 47–67.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 2002. The human ascent: a critical review. Anthropologie 40(2): 101–105.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 2007. Antiquity and authorship of the Chauvet Cave rock art. Rock Art Research 24: 21–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 2008. The mythical moderns. Journal of World Prehistory 21: 85–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. 2010. Australian rock art of the Pleistocene. Rock Art Research 27: 95–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bednarik, R. G. and M. Kuckenburg 1999. Nale Tasih: eine Floßfahrt in die Steinzeit. Jan Thorbecke, Stuttgart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bräuer, G. 1980. Die morphologischen Affinitäten des jungpleistozänen Stirnbeins aus dem Elbmündungsgebiet bei Hahnöfersand. Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie 71: 1–42.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bräuer, G. 1984. The ‘Afro-European sapiens hypothesis’ and hominid evolution in East Africa during the late Middle and Upper Pleistocene. In P. Andrews and J. L. Franzen (eds), The early evolution of man, with special emphasis on Southeast Asia and Africa, pp. 145–165. Volume 69, Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brookfield, J. F. Y. 1997. Importance of ancestral DNA ages. Nature 388: 134.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cann, R. L., M. Stoneking and A. C. Wilson 1987. Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature 325: 31–36.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Clottes, J. (ed) 2001. La Grotte Chauvet: l’art des origines. Seuil, Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clottes J., J.-M. Chauvet, E. Brunel-Deschamps, C. Hillaire, J.-P. Daugas, M. Arnold, H. Cachier, J. Evin, P. Fortin, C. Oberlin, N. Tisnerat and H. Valladas 1995. Les peintures paléolithiques de la Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, à Vallon-Pont-d’Arc (Ardèche, France): datations directes et indirectes par la méthode du radiocarbone. Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences de Paris 320, Ser. II: 1133–1140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collingwood, R. G. 1940. An essay on metaphysics. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Consens, M. 2006. Between artefacts and egofacts: the power of assigning names. Rock Art Research 23: 79–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, D. 1984. Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, I. and W. Noble 1989. The archaeology of perception: traces of depiction and language. Current Anthropology 30: 125–155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, I. and W. Noble 1990. Tools, humans and evolution—the relevance of the Upper Palaeolithic. Tools, language and intelligence: evolutionary implications, pp. 1–21. Wenner-Gren Foundation, Cascais, Portugal.

    Google Scholar 

  • d’Errico, F. 1995. Comment on R. G. Bednarik, ‘Concept-mediated markings of the Lower Palaeolithic’. Current Anthropology 36: 618–620.

    Google Scholar 

  • Descola, P. 2005. Par delà nature et culture. Gallimard, Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eswaran, V. 2002. A diffusion wave out of Africa. Current Anthropology 43(5): 749–774.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ewens, W. J. 1983. The role of models in the analysis of molecular genetic data, with particular reference to restriction fragment data. In B. S. Weir (ed), Statistical analysis of DNA sequence data, pp. 45–73. Marcel Dekker, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ewick, P. and S. Silbey 1995. Subversive stories and hegemonic tales: towards a sociology of narrative. Law and Society Review 29(2): 197–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Falk, D. 1983. Cerebral cortices of east African early hominids. Science 221: 1072–1074.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Falk, D. 1987. Brain lateralization in primates and its evolution in hominids. Year-Book of Physical Anthropology 30: 107–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foley, R. and M. M. Lahr 1997. Mode 3 technologies and the evolution of modern humans. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7: 3–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Handwerker, W. P. 1989. The origins and evolution of culture. American Anthropologist 91: 313–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartl, D. and A. Clark 1997. Principles of population genetics. Sinauer, Sunderland, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollis, M. 1967. The limits of irrationality. Archives Européenes de Sociologie 7: 265–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jerison, H. J. 1973. Evolution of the brain and intelligence. Academic, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, R. G. and B. Edgar 2002. The dawn of human culture: a bold new theory on what sparked the “big bang” of human consciousness. Wiley, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krause, J., C. Lalueza-Fox, L. Orlando, W. Enard, R. E. Green, H. A. Burbano, J.-J. Hublin, C. Hänni, J. Fortea, M. de la Rasilla, J. Bertranpetit, A. Rosas and S. Pääbo 2007. The derived FOXP2 variant of modern humans was shared with Neandertals. Current Biology 17(21): 1908–1912.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, T. 1970. The structure of scientific revolutions, 2nd edn. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laudan, L. 1977. Progress and its problems. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, C. I. 1929. Mind and the world order. Charles Scribners Sons, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieberman, P. 1984. The biology and evolution of language. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddison, D. R. 1991. African origin of human MtDNA re-examined. Systematic Zoology 40: 355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mannheim, K. 1929–1936. Ideologie und utopie. F. Choen, Bonn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, J. C. 1989. Reply to P. Lieberman, J. T. Laitman, J. S. Reidenberg, K. Landahl and P. J. Gannon, ‘Folk physiology and talking hyoids’. Nature 342: 486–487.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mithen, S. (ed) 1998. Creativity in human evolution and prehistory. Routledge, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble, W. and I. Davidson 1996. Human evolution, language and mind: a psychological and archaeological inquiry. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pennisi, E. 1999. Genetic study shakes up out of Africa theory. Science 283: 1828.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pettitt, P. and P. Bahn 2003. Current problems in dating Palaeolithic cave art: Candamo and Chauvet. Antiquity 77: 134–141.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfeiffer, J. E. 1983. The creative explosion: an inquiry into the origins of art and religion. Harper & Row, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plotkin, H. 2002. The imagined world made real: towards a natural science of culture. Penguin Books, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polanyi, M. 1958. Personal knowledge. Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Protsch, R. and A. Semmel 1978. Zur Chronologie des Kelsterbach-Hominiden. Eiszeitalter und Gegenwart 28: 200–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Protsch von Zieten, R. R. R. 1973. The dating of Upper-Pleistocene Subsaharan fossil hominids and their place in human evolution: with morphological and archaeological implications. PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V. O. 1960. Word and object. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Relethford, J. H. 2001. Genetics and the search for modern human origins. Wiley-Liss, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Relethford, J. H. and L. B. Jorde 1999. Genetic evidence for larger African population size during recent human evolution. Journal of Physical Anthropology 108(3): 251–260.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Renfrew, C. and I. Morley (eds) 2009. Becoming human: innovation in prehistoric material and spiritual culture. MacDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schulz, M. 2004. Die Regeln mache ich. Der Spiegel 34(18 August): 128–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle, J. R. 1995. The construction of social reality. Allen Lane, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, F. H., I. Janković and I. Karavanić 2005. The assimilation model, modern human origins in Europe, and the extinction of Neandertals. Quaternary International 137: 7–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sreenathan, M., V. R. Rao and R. G. Bednarik 2008. Paleolithic cognitive inheritance in aesthetic behavior of the Jarawas of the Andaman Islands. Anthropos 103: 367–392.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strauss, E. 1999. Can mitochondrial clocks keep time? Science 283: 1435–1438.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Swoyer, C. 2002. Judgment and decision making: extrapolations and applications. In R. Gowda and J. Fox (eds), Judgments, decisions, and public policy, pp. 9–45. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tangri, D. 1989. Science, hypothesis testing and prehistoric pictures. Rock Art Research 6: 83–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Templeton, A. R. 1993. The ‘Eve’ hypothesis: a genetic critique and re-analysis. American Anthropologist 95: 51–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Templeton, A. R. 1996. Gene lineages and human evolution. Science 272: 1363.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Terberger, T. 1998. Endmesolithische Funde von Drigge, Lkr. Rügen — Kannibalen auf Rügen? Jahrbuch für Bodendenkmalpflege Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 46: 7–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Terberger, T. and M. Street 2003. Jungpaläolithische Menschenreste im westlichen Mitteleuropa und ihr Kontext. In J. M. Burdukiewicz, L. Fiedler, W.-D. Heinrich, A. Justus and E. Brühl (eds), Erkenntnisjäger: Kultur und Umwelt des frühen Menschen, pp. 579–591. Halle: Veröffentlichungen des Landesamtes für Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt – Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte, Vol. 57/2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valladas, H. and J. Clottes 2003. Style, Chauvet and radiocarbon. Antiquity 77: 142–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valladas, H., J. Clottes and J.-M. Geneste 2004. Chauvet, la grotte ornée la mieux datée du monde. À l’Échelle du Millier d’Années 42: 82–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vishnyatsky, L. B. 1994. “Running ahead of time” in the development of Palaeolithic industries. Antiquity 68: 134–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viveiros de Castro, E. 1992. From the enemy’s point of view: humanity and divinity in an Amazonian society. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, R. H., B. L. Frazier, K. Dew-Jager and S. Pääbo 1991. Extensive mitochondrial diversity within a single Amerindian tribe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 88: 8720–8724.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Watson, E., K. Bauer, R. Aman, G. Weiss, A. von Haeseler and S. Pääbo 1996. MtDNA sequence diversity in Africa. American Journal of Human Genetics 59: 437–444.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Webb, S. 2006. The first boat people. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Weiss, M. L. and A. E. Mann 1978. Human biology and behavior: an anthropological perspective. Little, Brown and Co., Boston, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Werry, E. and B. Kazenwadel 1999. Garten Eden in der Sahara. Bild der Wissenschaft 4/1999: 18–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winch, P. 1970. Understanding a primitive society. In B. R. Wilson (ed), Rationality. Harper & Row, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolpoff, M. and R. Caspari 1996. Race and human evolution — a fatal attraction. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziegert, H. 2007a. A new dawn for humanity: lower Palaeolithic village life in Libya and Ethiopia. Minerva 18(4): 8–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziegert, H. 2007b. Report of the Hamburg Archaeological Mission to Budrinna (Fezzan, Libya). http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/helmut-ziegert/pdf/projects/permanentsettlement/HZiegert-BudrinnaReport(2007).pdf

  • Zuechner, C. 1996. The Chauvet Cave: radiocarbon versus archaeology. International Newsletter of Rock Art 13: 25–27.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Federation of Rock Art Organisations, Caulfield South, VIC, 3162, Australia

    Robert G. Bednarik

Authors
  1. Robert G. Bednarik
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert G. Bednarik .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bednarik, R.G. (2011). A Little Epistemology. In: The Human Condition. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9353-3_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation