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70-876: Fertile Crescent : Europe : Africa : Siberia : Behavioral modernity is a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits believed to distinguish current Homo sapiens from other anatomically modern humans , hominins , and primates . Most scholars agree that modern human behavior can be characterized by abstract thinking , planning depth, symbolic behavior (e.g., art , ornamentation ), music and dance , exploitation of large game , and blade technology, among others. Underlying these behaviors and technological innovations are cognitive and cultural foundations that have been documented experimentally and ethnographically by evolutionary and cultural anthropologists . These human universal patterns include cumulative cultural adaptation, social norms , language , and extensive help and cooperation beyond close kin . Within

140-607: A 'pivot area' surrounded by an 'inner crescent', Alfred Thayer Mahan's Middle East , and Friedrich Naumann's Mitteleuropa . In current usage, the Fertile Crescent includes Israel , Palestine , Iraq , Syria , Lebanon , Egypt , and Jordan , as well as the surrounding portions of Turkey and Iran . In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates , riverwater sources include the Jordan River . The inner boundary

210-533: A change from archaic to modern humans. Most researchers argue that a neurological or genetic change, perhaps one enabling complex language, such as FOXP2 , caused this revolutionary change in humans. The role of FOXP2 as a driver of evolutionary selection has been called into question following recent research results. Building on the FOXP2 gene hypothesis, cognitive scientist Philip Lieberman has argued that proto-language behaviour existed prior to 50,000 BP, albeit in

280-549: A late Upper Paleolithic "revolution" soon before which prompted migration out of Africa. A variety of evidence of abstract imagery, widened subsistence strategies, and other "modern" behaviors have been discovered in Africa, especially South, North, and East Africa. The Blombos Cave site in South Africa, for example, is famous for rectangular slabs of ochre engraved with geometric designs. Using multiple dating techniques,

350-562: A long history of irrigation. Prehistoric seedless figs were discovered at Gilgal I in the Jordan Valley , suggesting that fig trees were being planted some 11,400 years ago. Cereals were already grown in Syria as long as 9,000 years ago. Small cats ( Felis silvestris ) also were domesticated in this region. Also, legumes including peas , lentils and chickpea were domesticated in this region. Domesticated animals include

420-497: A mental template of the process they would follow), possibly using pyrotechnology to facilitate fat extraction from bone, using a probable recipe to produce the compound, and the use of shell containers for mixing and storage for later use. Modern behaviors, such as the making of shell beads, bone tools and arrows, and the use of ochre pigment, are evident at a Kenyan site by 78,000–67,000 years ago. Evidence of early stone-tipped projectile weapons (a characteristic tool of Homo sapiens ),

490-534: A metric for modern human behavior. Since 2018, recent dating methods utilized on various cave art sites in Spain and France have shown that Neanderthals performed symbolic artistic expression, consisting of red "lines, dots, and hand stencils" found in caves, prior to contact with anatomically modern humans. This is contrary to previous suggestions that Neanderthals lacked these capabilities. The Late Upper Paleolithic Model, or Upper Paleolithic Revolution, refers to

560-541: A more primitive form. Lieberman has advanced fossil evidence, such as neck and throat dimensions, to demonstrate that so-called “anatomically modern” humans from 100,000 BP continued to evolve their SVT (supralaryngeal vocal tract), which already possessed a horizontal portion (SVTh) capable of producing many phonemes which were mostly consonants. According to his theory, Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens would have been able to communicate using sounds and gestures. From 100,000 BP, Homo sapiens necks continued to lengthen to

630-457: A point, by around 50,000 BP, where Homo sapiens necks were long enough to accommodate a vertical portion to their SVT (SVTv), which is now a universal trait among humans. This SVTv enabled the enunciation of quantal vowels : [i]; [u]; and [a]. These quantal vowels could then be immediately put to use by the already sophisticated neuro-motor-control features of the FOXP2 gene to generate more nuanced sounds and in effect increase by orders of magnitude

700-474: A population also can significantly decrease the amount of diversity in neutral cultural traits, regardless of cognitive ability. Research from 2017 indicates that Homo sapiens originated in Africa between around 350,000 and 260,000 years ago. There is some evidence for the beginning of modern behavior among early African H. sapiens around that period. Before the Out of Africa theory was generally accepted, there

770-601: A reliance on predictable shellfish deposits, for example, could reduce mobility and facilitate complex social systems and symbolic behavior. Blombos Cave and Site 440 in Sudan both show evidence of fishing as well. Taphonomic change in fish skeletons from Blombos Cave have been interpreted as capture of live fish, clearly an intentional human behavior. Humans in North Africa (Nazlet Sabaha, Egypt ) are known to have dabbled in chert mining , as early as ≈100,000 years ago, for

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840-569: A spontaneous leap in cognition among ancient humans, some anthropologists like Alison S. Brooks , primarily working in African archaeology, point to the gradual accumulation of "modern" behaviors, starting well before the 50,000-year benchmark of the Upper Paleolithic Revolution models. Howiesons Poort , Blombos , and other South African archaeological sites, for example, show evidence of marine resource acquisition, trade,

910-711: A unique opportunity to test hypotheses of multi-regionalism, replacement, and demographic effects. Unlike Europe, where initial migration occurred around 50,000 years ago, human remains have been dated in China to around 100,000 years ago. This early evidence of human expansion calls into question behavioral modernity as an impetus for migration. Stone tool technology is particularly of interest in East Asia. Following Homo erectus migrations out of Africa, Acheulean technology never seems to appear beyond present-day India and into China. Analogously, Mode 3, or Levallois technology,

980-412: A variety of problems with this concept, arguing instead for "behavioral variability", which, according to the author, better describes the archaeological record. The use of trait lists, according to Shea, runs the risk of taphonomic bias, where some sites may yield more artifacts than others despite similar populations; as well, trait lists can be ambiguous in how behaviors may be empirically recognized in

1050-428: Is approximately contemporary to the earliest known Homo sapiens fossil remains from Africa (such as at Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad ), and they suggest that complex and modern behaviors had already begun in Africa around the time of the emergence of anatomically modern Homo sapiens . In 2019, further evidence of early complex projectile weapons in Africa was found at Aduma, Ethiopia, dated 100,000–80,000 years ago, in

1120-460: Is believed to be the first region where settled farming emerged as people started the process of clearance and modification of natural vegetation to grow newly domesticated plants as crops . Early human civilizations such as Sumer in Mesopotamia flourished as a result. Technological advances in the region include the development of agriculture and the use of irrigation , of writing ,

1190-408: Is debated by several authors, they still possessed the capacity for complex culture described by behavioral modernity. As discussed above, if Neanderthals also were "behaviorally modern" then it cannot be a species-specific derived trait. Most debates surrounding behavioral modernity have been focused on Africa or Europe but an increasing amount of focus has been placed on East Asia. This region offers

1260-653: Is delimited by the dry climate of the Syrian Desert to the south. Around the outer boundary are the Anatolian and Armenian highlands to the north, the Sahara Desert to the west, Sudan to the south, and the Iranian plateau to the east. As crucial as rivers and marshlands were to the rise of civilization in the Fertile Crescent, they were not the only factor. The area is geographically important as

1330-686: Is married to Patricia L. Crawford and resides in Stony Brook, New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Shea's research focuses on stone tools and how they relate to major issues in human evolution. He has experience in flintknapping and other ancient technologies. He is specialized in Paleoanthropology , the evolution of hominin behavior, pleistocene archaeology of the Near East and of Eastern Africa , lithic analysis, as well as experimental archaeology Highlights of Shea's research include

1400-466: Is not apparent in China following later hominin dispersals. This lack of more advanced technology has been explained by serial founder effects and low population densities out of Africa. Although tool complexes comparative to Europe are missing or fragmentary, other archaeological evidence shows behavioral modernity. For example, the peopling of the Japanese archipelago offers an opportunity to investigate

1470-498: Is not expressed consistently until that point. With small population sizes, human groups would have been affected by demographic and cultural evolutionary forces that may not have allowed for complex cultural traits. According to some authors, until population density became significantly high, complex traits could not have been maintained effectively. Some genetic evidence supports a dramatic increase in population size before human migration out of Africa. High local extinction rates within

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1540-486: Is the view—currently supported by archaeologists Chris Henshilwood, Curtis Marean , Ian Watts and others—that there was indeed some kind of "human revolution" but that it occurred in Africa and spanned tens of thousands of years. The term "revolution," in this context, would mean not a sudden mutation but a historical development along the lines of the industrial revolution or the Neolithic revolution . In other words, it

1610-471: The Basques and Canary Islanders of the same time period, as the studies demonstrate those ancient peoples to be "clearly associated with modern Europeans". Additionally, no evidence from the studies demonstrates Cro-Magnon influence, contrary to former suggestions. The studies further suggest a diffusion of this diverse population away from the Fertile Crescent, with the early migrants moving away from

1680-522: The Bronze Age , the region's natural fertility has been greatly extended by irrigation works, upon which much of its agricultural production continues to depend. The last two millennia have seen repeated cycles of decline and recovery as past works have fallen into disrepair through the replacement of states, to be replaced under their successors. Another ongoing problem has been salination —gradual concentration of salt and other minerals in soils with

1750-469: The Near East —westward into Europe and North Africa , northward to Crimea , and northeastward to Mongolia . They took their agricultural practices with them and interbred with the hunter-gatherers whom they subsequently came in contact with while perpetuating their farming practices. This supports prior genetic and archaeological studies which have all arrived at the same conclusion. Consequently, contemporary in situ peoples absorbed

1820-1028: The Tigris–Euphrates river basin , including Sumer , Akkad , Babylonia , Assyria , and the Abbasid Caliphate . It is in this region where the first libraries appeared about 4,500 years ago. The oldest known libraries are found in Nippur (in Sumer) and Ebla (in Syria), both from c.  2500 BCE . Both the Tigris and Euphrates start in the Taurus Mountains of what is modern-day Turkey . Farmers in southern Mesopotamia had to protect their fields from flooding each year. Northern Mesopotamia had sufficient rain to make some farming possible. To protect against flooding they made levees. Since

1890-474: The cattle , sheep , goat , domestic pig , cat , and domestic goose . Mesopotamia Egypt Iran Anatolia The Levant Arabia Cosmology Modern analyses comparing 24 craniofacial measurements reveal a relatively diverse population within the pre- Neolithic , Neolithic and Bronze Age Fertile Crescent, supporting the view that several populations occupied this region during these time periods. Similar arguments do not hold true for

1960-411: The exodus . Archaeologically, a number of empirical traits have been used as indicators of modern human behavior. While these are often debated a few are generally agreed upon. Archaeological evidence of behavioral modernity includes: Several critiques have been placed against the traditional concept of behavioral modernity, both methodologically and philosophically. Anthropologist John Shea outlines

2030-582: The wheel , and glass , most emerging first in Mesopotamia . The term "Fertile Crescent" was popularized by archaeologist James Henry Breasted in Outlines of European History (1914) and Ancient Times, A History of the Early World (1916). He wrote: It lies like an army facing south, with one wing stretching along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the other reaching out to

2100-536: The "bridge" between North Africa and Eurasia , which has allowed it to retain a greater amount of biodiversity than either Europe or North Africa , where climate changes during the Ice Age led to repeated extinction events when ecosystems became squeezed against the waters of the Mediterranean Sea . The Saharan pump theory posits that this Middle Eastern land bridge was extremely important to

2170-508: The African Middle Stone Age—though this model is more difficult to substantiate due to the general thinning of the fossil record as one goes further back in time. To classify what should be included in modern human behavior, it is necessary to define behaviors that are universal among living human groups. Some examples of these human universals are abstract thought , planning, trade, cooperative labor, body decoration, and

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2240-499: The African record, it is not fully apparent until that time. Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( Arabic : الهلال الخصيب ) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East , spanning modern-day Iraq , Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Palestine , and Syria , together with northern Kuwait , south-eastern Turkey , and western Iran . Some authors also include Cyprus and northern Egypt . The Fertile Crescent

2310-562: The Central African site of Katanda dating to about 90,000 years ago. Evidence also exists for the systematic heat treating of silcrete stone to increase its flake-ability for the purpose of toolmaking, beginning approximately 164,000 years ago at the South African site of Pinnacle Point and becoming common there for the creation of microlithic tools at about 72,000 years ago. In 2008, an ochre processing workshop likely for

2380-484: The Persian Gulf, while the center has its back against the northern mountains. The end of the western wing is Palestine; Assyria makes up a large part of the center; while the end of the eastern wing is Babylonia. [...] This great semicircle, for lack of a name, may be called the Fertile Crescent. There is no single term for this region in antiquity. At the time that Breasted was writing, it roughly corresponded with

2450-634: The South African data. Others focus on the slow accumulation of different technologies and behaviors across time. These researchers describe how anatomically modern humans could have been cognitively the same, and what we define as behavioral modernity is just the result of thousands of years of cultural adaptation and learning. Archaeologist Francesco d'Errico , and others, have looked at Neanderthal culture, rather than early human behavior exclusively, for clues into behavioral modernity. Noting that Neanderthal assemblages often portray traits similar to those listed for modern human behavior, researchers stress that

2520-432: The agricultural way of life of those early migrants who ventured out of the Fertile Crescent. This is contrary to the suggestion that the spread of agriculture disseminated out of the Fertile Crescent by way of sharing of knowledge. Instead, the view now supported by a preponderance of evidence is that it occurred by actual migration out of the region, coupled with subsequent interbreeding with indigenous local populations whom

2590-433: The archaeological record. In particular, Shea cautions that population pressure , cultural change, or optimality models, like those in human behavioral ecology , might better predict changes in tool types or subsistence strategies than a change from "archaic" to "modern" behavior. Some researchers argue that a greater emphasis should be placed on identifying only those artifacts which are unquestionably, or purely, symbolic as

2660-510: The archaeological signatures of such behavior appearing only through demographic or subsistence-based changes. Many cite evidence of behavioral modernity earlier (by at least about 150,000–75,000 years ago and possibly earlier) namely in the African Middle Stone Age . Anthropologists Sally McBrearty and Alison S. Brooks have been notable proponents of gradualism—challenging Europe-centered models by situating more change in

2730-730: The cave art produced by H. sapiens . Despite this, European evidence has shown a variety of personal ornaments and artistic artifacts produced by Neanderthals; for example, the Neanderthal site of Grotte du Renne has produced grooved bear, wolf, and fox incisors, ochre and other symbolic artifacts. Although few and controversial, circumstantial evidence of Neanderthal ritual burials has been uncovered. There are two options to describe this symbolic behavior among Neanderthals: they copied cultural traits from arriving modern humans or they had their own cultural traditions comparative with behavioral modernity. If they just copied cultural traditions, which

2800-462: The cave dated to around 34–20,000 years ago. These remains have associated personal ornaments in the form of beads and worked shell, suggesting symbolic behavior. Along with possible burials, numerous other symbolic objects like punctured animal teeth and beads, some dyed in red ochre , have all been found at Zhoukoudian. Although fragmentary, the archaeological record of eastern Asia shows evidence of behavioral modernity before 50,000 years ago but, like

2870-477: The cognitive change must have diffused back into Africa or was already present before migration. In light of a growing body of evidence of Neanderthal culture and tool complexes some researchers have put forth a "multiple species model" for behavioral modernity. Neanderthals were often cited as being an evolutionary dead-end, apish cousins who were less advanced than their human contemporaries. Personal ornaments were relegated as trinkets or poor imitations compared to

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2940-477: The construction of stone tools . Evidence was found in 2018, dating to about 320,000 years ago, at the Kenyan site of Olorgesailie , of the early emergence of modern behaviors including: long-distance trade networks (involving goods such as obsidian), the use of pigments, and the possible making of projectile points. It is observed by the authors of three 2018 studies on the site that the evidence of these behaviors

3010-521: The control and use of fire. Along with these traits, humans possess much reliance on social learning . This cumulative cultural change or cultural "ratchet" separates human culture from social learning in animals . In addition, a reliance on social learning may be responsible in part for humans' rapid adaptation to many environments outside of Africa . Since cultural universals are found in all cultures, including isolated indigenous groups, these traits must have evolved or have been invented in Africa prior to

3080-588: The earliest era of prehistory, this debate is unlikely to be resolved in the near future. The evidence that does exist suggests that, by the third millennium BCE and into the second, several language groups already existed in the region. These included: Links between Hurro-Urartian and Hattic and the indigenous languages of the Caucasus have frequently been suggested, but are not generally accepted. 36°N 40°E  /  36°N 40°E  / 36; 40 John Shea (archaeologist) Shea

3150-544: The early use of watercraft. Although one site, Kanedori in Honshu, does suggest the use of watercraft as early as 84,000 years ago, there is no other evidence of hominins in Japan until 50,000 years ago. The Zhoukoudian cave system near Beijing has been excavated since the 1930s and has yielded precious data on early human behavior in East Asia. Although disputed, there is evidence of possible human burials and interred remains in

3220-650: The emergence of language as a "revolutionary" development, this school of thought generally attributes it to cumulative social, cognitive and cultural evolutionary processes as opposed to a single genetic mutation. A further view, taken by archaeologists such as Francesco d'Errico and João Zilhão, is a multi-species perspective arguing that evidence for symbolic culture , in the form of utilised pigments and pierced shells, are also found in Neanderthal sites, independently of any "modern" human influence. Cultural evolutionary models may also shed light on why although evidence of behavioral modernity exists before 50,000 years ago, it

3290-561: The evolution of behavioral modernity. These approaches tend to fall into two camps: cognitive and gradualist. The Later Upper Paleolithic Model theorizes that modern human behavior arose through cognitive, genetic changes in Africa abruptly around 40,000–50,000 years ago around the time of the Out-of-Africa migration , prompting the movement of some modern humans out of Africa and across the world. Other models focus on how modern human behavior may have arisen through gradual steps, with

3360-491: The evolution of many "r" type annual plants , which produce more edible seeds than "K" type perennial plants . The region's dramatic variety in elevation gave rise to many species of edible plants for early experiments in cultivation. Most importantly, the Fertile Crescent was home to the eight Neolithic founder crops important in early agriculture (i.e., wild progenitors to emmer wheat , einkorn , barley , flax , chick pea , pea , lentil , bitter vetch ), and four of

3430-460: The five most important species of domesticated animals— cows , goats , sheep , and pigs ; the fifth species, the horse , lived nearby. The Fertile Crescent flora comprises a high percentage of plants that can self-pollinate , but may also be cross-pollinated . These plants, called " selfers ", were one of the geographical advantages of the area because they did not depend on other plants for reproduction. As well as possessing many sites with

3500-411: The form of points considered likely to belong to darts delivered by spear throwers. Olduvai Hominid 1 wore facial piercings. While traditionally described as evidence for the later Upper Paleolithic Model, European archaeology has shown that the issue is more complex. A variety of stone tool technologies are present at the time of human expansion into Europe and show evidence of modern behavior. Despite

3570-634: The foundations for behavioral modernity may in fact, lie deeper in our hominin ancestors. If both modern humans and Neanderthals express abstract art and complex tools then "modern human behavior" cannot be a derived trait for our species. They argue that the original "human revolution" theory reflects a profound Eurocentric bias. Recent archaeological evidence, they argue, proves that humans evolving in Africa some 300,000 or even 400,000 years ago were already becoming cognitively and behaviourally "modern". These features include blade and microlithic technology, bone tools, increased geographic range, specialized hunting,

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3640-691: The idea that, though anatomically modern humans first appear around 150,000 years ago (as was once believed), they were not cognitively or behaviorally "modern" until around 50,000 years ago, leading to their expansion out of Africa and into Europe and Asia. These authors note that traits used as a metric for behavioral modernity do not appear as a package until around 40–50,000 years ago. Anthropologist Richard Klein specifically describes that evidence of fishing, tools made from bone, hearths, significant artifact diversity, and elaborate graves are all absent before this point. According to both Shea and Klein, art only becomes common beyond this switching point, signifying

3710-519: The key transition in modern human evolution. Recently discovered at sites such as Blombos Cave and Pinnacle Point, South Africa, pierced shells, pigments and other striking signs of personal ornamentation have been dated within a time-window of 70,000–160,000 years ago in the African Middle Stone Age, suggesting that the emergence of Homo sapiens coincided, after all, with the transition to modern cognition and behaviour. While viewing

3780-489: The making of bone tools, blade and microlithic technology , and abstract ornamentation at least by 80,000 years ago. Given evidence from Africa and the Middle East, a variety of hypotheses have been put forth to describe an earlier, gradual transition from simple to more complex human behavior. Some authors have pushed back the appearance of fully modern behavior to around 80,000 years ago or earlier in order to incorporate

3850-399: The migrants came in contact with. The studies show also that not all present day Europeans share strong genetic affinities to the Neolithic and Bronze Age inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent; the closest ties to the Fertile Crescent rest with Southern Europeans. The same study further demonstrates all present-day Europeans to be closely related. Linguistically, the Fertile Crescent

3920-414: The modern distribution of Old World flora and fauna , including the spread of humanity . The area has borne the brunt of the tectonic divergence between the African and Arabian plates and the converging Arabian and Eurasian plates, which has made the region a very diverse zone of high snow-covered mountains. The Fertile Crescent had many diverse climates , and major climatic changes encouraged

3990-457: The number of distinct sounds that can be produced, allowing for fully symbolic language. Goody (1986) draws an analogy between the development of spoken language and that of writing : the shift from pictographic or ideographic symbols into a fully abstract logographic writing system (such as hieroglyphics ), or from a logoprahic system into an abjad or alphabet , led to dramatic changes in human civilization. Contrasted with this view of

4060-551: The problems of conflating specific tools with cultural groups, the Aurignacian tool complex, for example, is generally taken as a purely modern human signature. The discovery of "transitional" complexes, like "proto-Aurignacian", have been taken as evidence of human groups progressing through "steps of innovation". If, as this might suggest, human groups were already migrating into eastern Europe around 40,000 years and only afterward show evidence of behavioral modernity, then either

4130-440: The production of paints was uncovered dating to c. 100,000 years ago at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Analysis shows that a liquefied pigment-rich mixture was produced and stored in the two abalone shells, and that ochre, bone, charcoal, grindstones, and hammer-stones also formed a composite part of the toolkits. Evidence for the complexity of the task includes procuring and combining raw materials from various sources (implying they had

4200-473: The rivers Tigris and Euphrates , lies in the east of the Fertile Crescent), also saw the emergence of early complex societies during the succeeding Bronze Age . There is also early evidence from the region for writing and the formation of hierarchical state level societies. This has earned the region the nickname "The cradle of civilization ". From ancient times empires arose and fell in

4270-1013: The site was dated to be around 77,000 and 100,000 to 75,000 years old. Ostrich egg shell containers engraved with geometric designs dating to 60,000 years ago were found at Diepkloof , South Africa. Beads and other personal ornamentation have been found from Morocco which might be as much as 130,000 years old; as well, the Cave of Hearths in South Africa has yielded a number of beads dating from significantly prior to 50,000 years ago, and shell beads dating to about 75,000 years ago have been found at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Specialized projectile weapons as well have been found at various sites in Middle Stone Age Africa, including bone and stone arrowheads at South African sites such as Sibudu Cave (along with an early bone needle also found at Sibudu) dating approximately 72,000–60,000 years ago on some of which poisons may have been used, and bone harpoons at

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4340-819: The skeletal and cultural remains of both pre-modern and early modern humans (e.g., at Tabun and Es Skhul caves), later Pleistocene hunter-gatherers , and Epipalaeolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers (the Natufians ); the Fertile Crescent is most famous for its sites related to the origins of agriculture . The western zone around the Jordan and upper Euphrates rivers gave rise to the first known Neolithic farming settlements (referred to as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)), which date to around 9,000 BCE and includes very ancient sites such as Göbekli Tepe , Chogha Golan , and Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) . This region, alongside Mesopotamia (Greek for "between rivers", between

4410-631: The stone tips of javelins or throwing spears, were discovered in 2013 at the Ethiopian site of Gademotta , and date to around 279,000 years ago. Expanding subsistence strategies beyond big-game hunting and the consequential diversity in tool types has been noted as signs of behavioral modernity. A number of South African sites have shown an early reliance on aquatic resources from fish to shellfish. Pinnacle Point , in particular, shows exploitation of marine resources as early as 120,000 years ago, perhaps in response to more arid conditions inland. Establishing

4480-589: The territories of the Ottoman Empire ceded to Britain and France in the Sykes–Picot Agreement . Historian Thomas Scheffler has noted that Breasted was following a trend in Western geography to "overwrite the classical geographical distinctions between continents, countries and landscapes with large, abstract spaces", drawing parallels with the work of Halford Mackinder , who conceptualised Eurasia as

4550-605: The tradition of evolutionary anthropology and related disciplines, it has been argued that the development of these modern behavioral traits, in combination with the climatic conditions of the Last Glacial Period and Last Glacial Maximum causing population bottlenecks , contributed to the evolutionary success of Homo sapiens worldwide relative to Neanderthals , Denisovans , and other archaic humans . Debate continues as to whether anatomically modern humans were behaviorally modern as well. There are many theories on

4620-489: The use of aquatic resources, long-distance trade, systematic processing and use of pigment, and art and decoration. These items do not occur suddenly together as predicted by the "human revolution" model, but at sites that are widely separated in space and time. This suggests a gradual assembling of the package of modern human behaviours in Africa, and its later export to other regions of the Old World. Between these extremes

4690-882: Was a region of great diversity. Historically, Semitic languages generally prevailed in the modern regions of Iraq , Syria , Jordan , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Sinai and the fringes of southeast Turkey and northwest Iran , as well as the Sumerian (a language isolate ) in Iraq, whilst in the mountainous areas to the east and north a number of generally unrelated language isolates were found, including; Elamite , Gutian and Kassite in Iran , and Hattic , Kaskian and Hurro-Urartian in Turkey. The precise affiliation of these, and their date of arrival, remain topics of scholarly discussion. However, given lack of textual evidence for

4760-401: Was a relatively accelerated process, too rapid for ordinary Darwinian "descent with modification" yet too gradual to be attributed to a single genetic or other sudden event. These archaeologists point in particular to the relatively explosive emergence of ochre crayons and shell necklaces, apparently used for cosmetic purposes. These archaeologists see symbolic organisation of human social life as

4830-634: Was born in 1960 to Joseph P. and Gloria C. (Cyr) Shea. In 1982 he earned a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Boston University and a PhD from Harvard in Anthropology in 1991. His first doctoral advisor was Glynn Isaac, after whose death, Ofer Bar-Yosef , David Pilbeam, and K.C. Chang oversaw his training. Shea has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Israel, Jordan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Belize, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. He

4900-470: Was no consensus on where the human species evolved and, consequently, where modern human behavior arose. Now, however, African archaeology has become extremely important in discovering the origins of humanity. The first Cro-Magnon expansion into Europe around 48,000 years ago is generally accepted as already "modern", and it is now generally believed that behavioral modernity appeared in Africa before 50,000 years ago, either significantly earlier, or possibly as

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