Southeastern Louisiana University
Matt J. Rossano received his doctorate in Psychology from the University of California at Riverside in 1991. He is a Professor of Psychology at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, LA. He is the author of Supernatural Selection: How Religion Evolved, released in June 2010 by Oxford Press. His interests include: Evolution and human nature, evolutionary psychology, consciousness, evolution of the mind/brain, religion and science, and evolution of religion.
Around 100,000 years before present(ybp), anatomically modern humans (AMH)(these are not the same as Neanderthals and other hominids at the time) went back to the place from whence they emigrated, Africa; however, their retreat did not last as they were expanding again into the Eurasian landmass again 60,000 ybp and showing evidence of a much more sophisticated social structure and developed levels of cognition. This might have been due to ecological conditions in Africa at the time that created an extinction environment for AMH. From this, a level of social complexity partly based in religion emerged.
According to Stanley Ambrose, a professor at the University of Illinois, during this period of difficulty for AMH, there was an eruption that caused a 6-10 year volcanic winter followed by a 1000 year winter winter(an ice age). This served to bottleneck AMH’s population to about only 2000 individuals, which luckily is the closest humans have ever come to extinction. This problem set the stage for a series of developments for human cognition’s development into what it is today.
The Social Solution
Around 75,000 ybp, we see evidence of trade going on around Africa: stashes of beads and sets of tools are found together, and we know they have intrinsic value as the beads are all the same type and the tools have a sophistication that man should not have accomplished at this time. These tools were a “social response to ecological stress.” The eruption made it so that AMH had to band together and trade resources or risk extinction. This solution (social solution) remained a part of human interaction even after AMH escaped extinction and is a critical part of today’s horticulture society.
Another aide to the development of society was the usage of ritual: a rule-governed pattern of formalized, attention-demanding behavior. The main usage of ritual in mammals is to confront tense or awkward situations in a way that releases tension. It draws attention away from threatening cues and defensive responses and so creates conditions for extended social interaction. Ritual behavior is also the basis of many other social and cognitive skills and so no matter how few rituals were observed, the fact that they happened at all served as a keystone to the development of social bonds.
Origins of Modern Cognition
Archaeologists have suggested that modern cognition is based on the use of symbols to organize behavior. Put another way, symbols help us organize our society by having a set standard (think of the alphabet). The symbols have purely arbitrary value decided by the culture that uses them. The reason we are able to use these symbols as social cues is because of the increase in working memory during this period. We gained the ability to hold goal-relevant information while completing other tasks. This increased memory combined with the development of symbols, humans began to master the concept of shared intentionality, which is just a fancy way of saying we can understand what another person is doing or thinking and so we can create shared meanings and communicate.
This working memory was also extremely important in the establishment of more complex rituals as these rituals needed increasing levels of self-restraint. The ability to ignore an intuitive response to complete a ritual takes a level of mental fortitude that AMH developed. Evidence shows that rituals in place to develop group trust and solidarity are the most demanding of self-control and focus. Three main types of social rituals were key in building group alliances and trust: trust building and reconciliation, initiation, and shamanistic.
Rituals of Trust-Building and Reconciliation: These types of rituals likely saw a rise in polarity as AMH started grouping up more and more. Individuals had to show that they could restrain their instinct when it came to interactions with the group to show that they were indeed members who embodied the group’s best interests. The individuals who could not inhibit these instincts were probably left to survive alone as outcasts.
Rituals of Initiation: Even today, over 70% of traditional societies have rites of passage from adolescence to adulthood. As society during this period become more and more complex, the initiation practices became more intense. The ability to have self-control during these rites is a hallmark of the increased working memory needed for symbolic thought.
Shamanistic Healing Rituals: Shamanism combined supernatural authority to social norm which led to increased within group cohesion. Groups that were bonded by these emotionally taxing rituals would more likely exhibit altruism during times of scarcity and this gave the group a fitness advantage over other hominids. These shamanistic rituals were also heavy on their usage of mind altering drugs ad most of the practices during the rituals served the gual of achieving an altered state of consciousness. This process of ritual healing shows evidence of being viable at the time for increasing survival rate and the rituals might have even played a roll in increasing working memory necessary for modern cognition with the mind altering drugs.
The Fortuitous Mutation
Stanford archaeologist Richard Klein’s theory on human development is that the difference between AMH and other hominins was genetic mutations that restructured AMH’s brains in a way to conduce social interaction resulting in a cognitive advantage. In 1896, three researchers studied the process known as the Baldwin effect which provided a mechanism for allowing environmental phylogenic traits to become genetically expressed through processes of natural selection. Acquired traits do not necessarily affect the genes, but they might create an advantage in these individuals that could contribute to this gene becoming expressed in future generations. Complex cognitive skills could have emerged as a necessity of the environment and as that necessity persisted, the traits required for cognitive abilities were genetically expressed and become stabilized in the gene pool.
Baby Rituals
When we observe rituals in mammals, we can see all of the elements associated (attention-demanding, formalized, rule governed) in interactions between infants and adults. Within an hour of birth, human babies start imitating facial expressions indicating these reactions are more than just reflexes, they are genetically coded and expressed. Even in later infancy, we notice a pattern in mother-child interactions:
- Initiation- engage attention
- Mutual orientation- excitement calms and voices soothing
- Greeting- infant moves limbs, mother more animated
- Play Dialogue- take turns making sounds (protoconversation)
These elements show that there is a specific order followed, and even if this ritual is not used to confront an awkward situation, it teaches the baby the process of ritual behavior. Why does a baby laugh every single time you play peek-a-boo? It’s not like it has not leaned what is going on, it is part of the ritual of the game (you would be hard pressed to find a baby that doesn’t laugh at peek-a-boo). These interactions with adults and especially mothers teach infants the critical skills of how to regulate emotions based on interactions, how to use social partners as cues for emotion and as a source of information, and how to use the ritual context to interpret a situation and the emotions attached to it.
The parents of AMH 70,000 years ago did not share this level of intricacy in parent-infant interactions, but ones that showed increased levels of it were more likely to reproduce and this possibly became a part of genetic code through the Baldwinian process.
Unique Culture Produces Unique Cognition
After all of this, we only have one question: why us? There were other hominids like the Neanderthals that shared many features with us, but did not show this level of cognition. The only differences were the wide ranged trading patterns of AMH and supernatural beliefs associated with shamanistic rituals. Basically, increased social rituals were the only differences that allowed humans to develop cognition and developed highly complex social rituals because of this. The reason humans are so unique, no matter how corny it sounds, is because we worked in groups as a species due to survival needs.
First of all, it’s difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that humans today may have evolved directly from a group of only 2000 individuals. If you think about the multitude of variations in the human gene pool for level of fitness, prevalence to disease, inclination to certain behaviors and idiosyncrasies, not to mention all of the diverse phenotypes present today, the fact that all of it spurred from such a small group is truly amazing. To think of how we’ve advanced our “tool making” into technology worthy of science fiction, and to think how we transformed our ancestor’s coping mechanism to environmental stress into a highly productive international market, 75,000ybp doesn’t seem like such a long time.
What caught my attention about this article was the fact that Neanderthals and other hominids did not develop the complex and sophisticated cognition that defines these anatomically modified humans. I understand that these developments came about in response to an environmental stress that obligated the remaining individuals to work as a cohesive society which, of course, required mutual trust among group members and the ability to exercise self-control over one’s instincts. Did Neanderthals and other hominids not experience the same environmental stress when Toba erupted? Evidence shows that based on the regions where they lived, Neanderthals may have been better acclimated to cold environments and therefore less affected by the drastic temperature drop experienced after the eruption of Toba. This may mean that because they were not distressed to the same extent as our ancestors, the measures they took to survive were not as cognitively altering.
On a different note, I find it interesting how the rituals mentioned for trust-building and reconciliation are still heavily present in society today. Even more remarkable is how the genes/traits for individuals who can’t control their emotional outbursts or exhibit self-control have subsisted through the years. Modern society functions through a universal understanding of the need to conduct oneself in public, to collaborate with other individuals and to be a productive member of a group. Anyone, or any group, that poses a threat to maintaining or achieving a copasetic environment is reprimanded to the degree of the violation. You can’t just go streaking through a grocery store shooting people with your BB gun without some sort of consequence enforced by society. But there are people who behave in this way. As we’ve all seen on the news, there is a striking amount of people who completely lack the ability to refrain from emotional outbursts. They appear reluctant to recognize even the most basic social norms and have no intentions to collaborate or build trust with others (talking about serial criminals of course). If these characteristics were a one-way ticket to being ostracized from the group which, after Toba erupted, potentially meant radically sabotaging your lifespan, how did they survive?
First off, a question about this post:
What does it mean that “the tools have a sophistication that man should not have accomplished at this time”? Why shouldn’t they have? I don’t understand the reasoning behind this claim.
But anyway, this topic of social rituals immediately made me think of my experiences in doing high school theatre, which interestingly enough had not crossed my mind relating to topics previously addressed in this course; my personal experiences as part of the religion in which I was raised, family dynamics, and ideas relating to my primary studies, sure, but I have somehow overlooked a highly ritualized social interaction of my recent past, which actually explains much of my current (DEAD) social life.
I am not a social person. I am very introverted, very introspective, and very deliberate in developing new relationships. I rely a lot on regular and somewhat structured, and yet genuine social settings and require conditions of extensive and experience and time in order to consider a relationship a friendship. On the one hand, it means I’m often pretty lonely—particularly in a large community like the University—but on the other, the handful of friends I do have are the true “trust them with my life” kind of friends. And so, from my personal experience, I would like to propose that theatre (or performing arts in general) is an elaborate and artistic form of trust rituals, as developed (according to this article) 60,000 years ago by this endangered species of Anatomically Modern Humans.
You see, the performing arts generate a vulnerable situation and demand an exceptional level of trust, which, when successfully executed, not only create great art, but achieve unparalleled confidence within and community among the artists. In order to deliver your lines, act your part, sing your harmony, dance your steps, you have to rely on the other performers on stage to deliver their part, and they rely on you. A play, dance number, etc. is essentially a circular trust fall. The consequences of any one failing in their contribution ranges from disappointment, to embarrassment, to even a dangerous situation. (For example, in one scene in my high school’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat my junior year, I was choreographed to leap of the stage on one distinct beat in the music, and land in “Joseph’s” arms the next beat. One particular night of the performance, “Joseph” missed the cue, I leapt off stage without confirming his attention, and there were no arms waiting to catch me. Thankfully, “Joseph” had quick reflexes and managed to at least prevent me from falling too hard, and we played it off as intentional ‘slap-stick’ humor, but it could have been much worse.)
Nevertheless, in participating in such structured trust-rituals in theatre and show choir throughout high school, I gained a very strong community of friends which I have not yet been able to replicate since leaving the program. Perhaps I should have joined a sorority after all.
I think you're onto something. A student in Evolution for Everyone suggests something similar & even proposed a study of theater majors using an in-group/out-group & Behavioral Immune System paradigm based on the stressful inculcation of vulnerability they share.
It’s amazing to think that humans may have once been on the verge of extinction, but if history has shown anything it’s that humans work best together when united by a common enemy. Developing social skills as a response to fend off our demise just seems so…human. I’m not much of a history buff but I think we can draw parallels between the evolution of AMH’s and modern humans in fairly recent times. In the 30s America was failing and on the verge of collapse. World War II forced American industry to evolve and 10 years later the US was the most powerful country in the world. Out of the dark ages rose the Renaissance which was the greatest expansion of scientific knowledge ever seen. Both of these changes arose from external threats that demanded change, and once overcome periods of unheard of expansion occurred. In the same way early humans faced insurmountable odds, with numbers dwindling during a harsh ice age and extinction around the corner. But from this hardship a social revolution occurred and we developed some of our most important traits, still seen in modern humans today. This accomplishment feels that much more impressive to me when you realize that we were the only hominid species to socially adapt. While Neanderthals and our other close relatives failed to make the social evolutionary changes required for survival, humans developed characteristics that have never been seen in any other situation. The fact that we gave value to items for trade shows the extent we appreciated them and goes hand in hand with the importance of symbols setting a standard. If we can establish that x weapon is equal to y cooking accessory then I can see how creating an organized alphabet and even establishing currency was almost a natural step in our progress. I find it amazing that this one social adaptation catalyzed our ability to adapt for the next 60,000 years.
The mention of play dialogue immediately made me think of the twin baby conversation. Probably one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen (link in case you haven’t seen it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lih0Z2IbIUQ). I’m convinced those kids can understand each other but that seems hard to believe without any words other than “da ba da da”. I guess mimicry of these mother-infant relations is a better explanation for their behavior than some telepathic secret twin language. Having the honor of being go-to babysitter for my cousins new born last semester I never would have thought of so many of his early behaviors (like faces and “baby talk”) as learned traits, but it does make sense after thinking about it. If developing rituals is how our society progressed from our early ancestors, then it isn’t surprising to me that a set of progressively more complex rituals is how babies learn to interact with people. In fact I guess most of growing up is a ritual, going through grade school isn’t much more than a rite of passage into adulthood in our culture. It teaches us how to interact with peers, be subordinate to our higher-ups and we’re supposed to learn what we want to do with the rest of our lives.
It does not surprise me that humans survived due to advanced social skills. As a whole we thrive off of human interaction, in fact, according to one study a person can go insane if they have not had any human contact in three months. Crazy! I’m assuming that our need to interact and trade with other AMH forced our brains to evolve to have better communicative skills. My roommate is a Communicative Disorders major and from what I gather there is a lot going on in the brain in it comes to communicating with others.
Its also interesting that in response to the Ice Age humans began to barter and create rituals. Could this be the origin of culture? According to your blog if rituals were a way for humans to release stress, and I’m assuming they had a lot of that at the time. But you can also say that rituals helped to create a sense of belongingness and commitment to a particular group. By participating in these rituals a person was signaling their commitment to the group, it probably also created a sense of community. When I participate in the rituals during a church service or even for my sorority, I feel connected to the others that are also participating. During these rituals we have created a bond due to a shared belief and understanding of the ritual. Therefore, to me it makes perfect since why rituals would be the beginning of social bonding in AMH.
Rituals and symbols go hand in hand with each other. Within rituals we create symbols, which again goes with what your said on how symbols coincide with higher cognitive thinking. To develop relationships with arbitrary signs reveals a higher level of thought. Therefore rituals and symbols, along with speech, could have helped in the evolution of the human’s cognitive thinking.
The development of baby rituals and their relationship with AMH’s development was interesting. I never really thought about the correlation parent-infant relationships had with genetic coding. Yet, it does make since, if humans were beginning to communicate with one another at this time, it would be a desirable trait to pass on. What better way of starting communication with other humans than by starting with your own child? In our modern society it is a known that infants who lack a parent interaction take longer to develop communication skills.
It appears that human development to higher cognitive skills to also connected with human interaction that is separate than how other animals interact. By creating rituals and applying symbols to things humans were able to expand on their thinking capacity. Before this humans were showing their advance skills in their ability to trade with other groups and create a since of culture. It does shock me that it took humans to be on the prink of extinction to get it together and begin to develop higher level thinking.
I am not so sure I agree with this theory. What I got from it was that humans are as conscious and sophisticated as we are because we learned how to use tools (trade) and socially interact with each other in order to survive. How this is any different from Hilarie’s earlier post on monkeys? They used tools and they are social creatures and they didn’t all evolve into humans. I see how tool use and socializing makes a species more intelligent, just by looking at the species that are known to do these things. I think the answer lies more in self-recognition and awareness. You have to be self-aware in order to socialize with others, but I believe it is more about the extent to which you are self-aware.
I do however agree that these aspects make us more cognitive, just not to the point that this is the main reasons that we developed from our ancestors. Tool use means that a species is self-aware enough to know that they have the ability to hold an object and use it in different ways. It is also a sign of sophistication to make beads and the like because this extends past basic needs. It shows the ability to comprehend aesthetics.
The social theory I completely agree with because how much you can be aware of others depends on how much you can be aware of yourself. It is proven that babies with strong parental involvement and attention in the early portion of their life gain stronger communication skills faster. I really liked the baby playing peek a boo example. An infant laughing during this game is not a reaction, but a learned behavior. It is a fact that twins learn how to speak, walk, ect. quicker because they learn from each other. We all learn from each other through competition, admiration, and repetition. If someone does something better than you, you admire this and want to learn how to do this on your own. Competition pushes you to do more than you thought capable. Repetition makes you learn thinks as you copy others and gain a new skill.
Revisiting this blog again made me think about how it is immediately applicable to my life. I am Keeper of the Ritual for my sorority and am in the process of planning a trust building ritual as we speak,our fall initiation of new members. This is our sorority’s rite of passage from pledgeship to membership, and confirms our loyalties to each other. I have to say it definitely does take a certain amount of self-control (which reflects the ability to symbolically think) to sit still for over four hours standing in a sometimes boiling hot room. I am not going to expose any of our secrets, but when the new members become initiated, they prove this ability again through doing and repeating a series of things that makes us gain their trust and vice versa. No other species, to my knowledge, is capable to perform this with complete and total understanding and self-control.
I think it’s funny that Hannah mentions being surprised by a human population as low as 2,000 individuals which resulted in as much genetic variation as we have now. One of the most famous genetic bottlenecks was in cheetahs and their entire population was less than 7 individuals 10,000 years ago. That is nuts to me. And while cheetahs do have extremely low genetic diversity, they also have a “cheat” to increase this diversity- at least more so than if they simply used regular mating techniques. Female cheetahs mate with multiple males for a single litter. The males they mate with are typically extremely far away- meaning they don’t choose neighbor males as mates. They also never choose the same male as a mate again. This means that all of their cubs have very distinct genetic identities! If a population of 7 cheetahs can make it to 10,000 current individuals, even with habitat loss, extreme inbreeding, and poaching, I hardly think it would be that difficult for 2,000 humans to make it to where we are today.
Just as modern cheetahs mate with far away neighbors, humans were probably also inclined to do so when when they were experiencing a bottleneck. I like to think that forming these bonds with other groups was not just for trade but also genetic diversity. However, unlike female cheetahs who raise the cubs by themselves, humans have a tendency to raise offspring in groups. I think this is where those tension releasing rituals come into play. These rituals not only serve to proclaim a potential member’s loyalty to the group, but also, if two groups are coming together, relieves the stress opposite members may be experiencing.
Of all of the suggestions for why modern cognition evolved, I like this one the best. Though I have not done any research outside of reading the original article, this one seems to be the least outlandish. In ANT 450, I read a hypothesis that stated humans didn’t develop modern cognition until the Early Bronze Age- including self-awareness. This does not account for other great apes who seemingly have self-awareness according to the mirror test. At least with this hypothesis, self-awareness does not seemed to be mentioned. Why does self-awareness have to be a part of modern human cognition? Why can’t it simply be another facet which other species have as well?
Symbolic communication is pretty unique to humans, and it is amusing to think that perhaps that method came about because of the use of “money.” Money is entirely symbolic. They’re just pieces of paper. It’s the same way diamonds have such a high value- it’s the value we set for these things ourselves, but not the real worth.
I thought what we discussed in class was interesting, where we imagined what those early humans were thinking during the Ice Age. I never really thought about the mentally of the humans left to survive this time period. Never thought of how humans’ relationship with fire would lead to a group contribution in either lighting it or keeping it going. As we discussed in an earlier class, the fire was the original TV for humans. It was where they could relax after the day, gathering those in the group together. Therefore, it makes since for humans to create rituals to signal commitment to the group and having this start around a fire. Especially in such a harsh environment where humans’ goal was to simply survive to child-bearing age. I can see why these groups would want to make sure an individual was dedicated to the overall survival of the group.
As mentioned in the blog the survival of humans versus Neanderthals was due to social interaction. This interaction contributed to a higher level of cognition. I’m under the impression that because humans had to create ways to communicate, this forced their cognitive skills to increase. Along with this capacity to communicate among each other, humans’ imaginary ability probably increased with higher cognitive skills. Which could have lead to supernatural rituals to appease their beliefs. These rituals required corporation, again asserting the idea that socializing helped humans' cognitive development.
This article made me marvel at the feats of ancient humans, as well as realize the fact that all of the humans alive today are the product of about 2000 individuals. It really made me think about the fact that every human alive today is the result of inbreeding (perhaps not brother and sister couples, but there are only so many combinations of mates). It also brought me back to a senior speech I heard my freshman year where the speaker drew upon the point that everybody alive today is the result of their parents having sex at the exact moment in time necessary for us to be created, as well as their parents and every other generation back to the small group of humans you mentioned in the article. It's kind of a beautiful, though chaotic, way of looking at our existence.
As far as the existence of the human race against extinction goes, it was absolutely necessary for our race, as it exists today, to encounter those insurmountable odds. It is simply what makes us what we are today. Without difficulty, I don't see how our species, or any species for that matter, can advance without facing great difficulty. Perhaps I am making a bit of a stretch here, but the article makes me think of how the competition with Russia during the Cold War fueled scientific and military advancement. Had there been no threat of an opposing power prevailing, maybe our country wouldn't have invested so much in space exploration. Without the threat of death, why would countries continue to search for the best technology for their armies or to fight diseases? Maybe I'm getting off on a bit of a tangent, but the threat of extinction is our greatest motivation to keep pushing the boundary of human accomplishment.
Anyways, I'll get back to other parts of the article. Rituals, whether we realize it or not, are a part of every society. Perhaps we don't recognize rituals in our society because we typically associate ritualistic behavior with 'coming of age' stereotypes only in specialized societies (such as the Jewish bar mitzvah), but we face them every day; the exams that we take at the end of every semester are a sort of ritual where we prove that we have learned the material. Drawing upon the point you made in the article, it is through rituals that we prove to others that we are mature and able enough to cooperate within the group (that has now become a massive network in society). It's so fascinating to me that everything we have talked about in this course is some ancient human adaptation that still affects how we behave today.
Follow up:
Rereading this post and Ashlyn’s comments, I did realize a few things I didn’t quite understand about this hypothesis as well. As Ashlyn states, other apes do use tools and and chimps have the ability to construct tools (pulling leaves from twigs) which was once thought of as distinctly human. While our tools are “sophisticated” now, and some of our more primitive ones were seen as also extremely sophisticated, how much better could they really be? As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently watched a NOVA video about Raven cognition. Ravens are extremely adept problem solves. They also are capable of making and using tools.
I think, though, that the thing I liked most about this hypothesis was how it focused on human use of symbolic meaning. But now I find myself wondering, is that really such a distinctively human ability? I think parrots are able to understand symbols as well.. or maybe I’m just watching really well trained ones on youtube. I worked for a summer in the tropical bird house at my zoo and I learned a lot about bird personalities. They are extremely distinctive. Most of them are straight up assholes and they mean to be mean. It’s awful. But others are absolutely darling and trill upon a familiar face’s approach.
I guess the reason I have such a hard time accepting these hypotheses which aim to prove humans as superior in some way is because I just cannot find something that some type of animal can’t do just as well as a human, but perhaps in a different way.
As I’m sure everyone else has said, it amazes me that this time period existed, where humans were 2,000 strong and fighting to survive a volcanic winter. How resilient are we? *high fives self* To me this is the most important time span we have studied, because it seems to be so critical for the evolution into who we are today. It kind of helps everything make sense—these humans were pressured, tested, invited to evolve, and they rose to the challenge. It makes a lot more sense to me than trying to conceptualize a large population of early humans kind of lumbering about all over the world, not really being tested by anything in order to survive and evolve. But I agree with Hillarie’s idea that other species have experienced this too, and still experience similar things to humans, just in different ways. Somewhere along our evolution it became our nature to assume we are superior to the other species, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that idea surfaced somewhere around this time period. Heck, I’d be proud if I was part of that original 2,000 too. But just as we discussed with the Behavioral Immune System, just because some reflex, reaction, or viewpoint seems to come naturally to us (“I eat meat because I just do” or “Humans are smarter than dolphins because reasons”) doesn’t mean that we can’t question it. Perhaps this system of checks and balances for our no-longer-very-helpful instincts can help us continue evolving.
I agree with Jacob's comment that human's have used this same type of social strategy to get through some pretty sticky times in our history. Even other species utilize this technique in times of struggle. For instance, this reminds me of the elephant video we watched in class at the beginning of the semester. In order to get to their food, the elephants learned to work as a team and would wait on each other so that they could successfully obtain it. I think we talked about or watched a video of monkeys performing the same type of behavior also. When it comes down to it, there is definitely some level of safety in numbers. What were we like before the volcanic eruption of Toba that forced us to adapt these abilities? I can't imagine a civilization any different than it is today. This dependence we have on other people to act appropriately and contribute to society is so cemented in our culture that it doesn't even make sense that we had to evolve to be this way. We have turned such a simple concept into a socially and economically dependent model way of life.
Looking back at my own article after responding to some of the posts from early in the semester showed my just how well this article wrapped everything up. This could be because I researched this topic more than the rest of the articles to present it properly, but I feel like many of the other posts about facets of human cognition find their origin in the African Interregnum that this book chapter was about(not all mentioned in the article or the post but the connections can be inferred). Looking back at the possible origins for certain “human” characteristics such as ability to learn (ritual learning) and mimicking behavior (originating from self-cognition—refer to the post on mirrors) is assumed to be the main subject of a course titled, “Primate Religions,” however, I felt that relating these origins to these characteristics was more to understand the morphological beginnings of consciousness. Not necessarily knowing; but knowing that there’s a possibility that the reason I go out to drink on the weekend with my friends (well, it’s more accurate to say the motivation behind us drinking) is because 60,000 years ago humans that participated in these rituals involving mind altering substances had a higher chance of survival blows my mind. This boost in survival came from increased fitness due to better overall health that Charlie was talking about with the shamanistic rituals and increased sense of “group” that allowed humans to spread across the African continent and eventually the world. It should be apparent by now that I am a huge fan of the model of evolution where cognition stems from specific events that increased fitness (the name of the theory was mentioned in passing during class but it escapes me now), but it seems to answer all of my questions regarding the topic.
We’ve learned about various rituals throughout the year, such as Zar possession and healing rituals of shamanism but we’ve never looked into how they and why they were developed. A recurring theme has been the survival implications in religion. According to Boyer rituals are the first of the four practices that represent religion. It seems cool that the first rituals developed were to develop trust in a community and became a source of natural selection, and eliminating people who couldn’t support the group in any way. The development of trust rituals probably coincided with morality in people, as a set rules on what are expected for social behavior. It’s amazing how this revolution along with the development of trade changed let us develop possibly saved us from extinction and definitely created the world we see today.
You said symbols are an important social construction that sets a standard. In Charlie’s presentation we learned how important symbols were to shaman rituals and visual stimulation that can create altered consciousness. I wonder if there was any ritualistic implications in creation of these symbols. Speaking of which I would love to know how letters were created and if there was a significance to why each is shaped the way it is. Rituals are prevalent even today, at least some extent (i.e. school), and I think developing and changing them determine the growth of humanity just as it shaped it 100,000 years ago.
Follow-up comment:
In my earlier comment, I discussed the social, trust-building rituals of being in high school theatre. These activities, in a safe environment with supportive peers, was an extremely positive experience that led to the growth of not only the theatre group (class, cast, Thespian troupe, whatever the case), but of the individuals in that group. We as individuals became more confident and self-aware of our abilities and strengths, as discovered by recognizing what we contributed to the group effort, and also more socially capable. As a group, our projects and productions were of especially excellent quality for high school theatre owing to our cooperation, trust, and understanding of each other and our collaborative efforts.
I have also participated in many group-rituals in the setting of the particular religion of my upbringing, which now, looking back on with a more objective perspective, were not quite as positive. These activities were much more structured and done out of a sense of absolute obligation, not a mutual passion (as much as we liked to say that was the case). They did not promote creativity, innovation, and cooperative individualism, as my projects in the arts have. They promoted only obedience and conformity. It is actually very disappointing to look back and realize.
I really enjoy the way that this article touches on so many aspects of human beings as social creatures. We have come a long way over time as individuals working for ourselves, but we have wen able to achieve so much more since we became more social creatures. Our collaboration with one another can be traced pretty far back in time with the start of our creation of a shared language. As humans we knew that if we learned. That if we wanted to survive and thrive, we needed to work with one another to achieve common goals, and it definitely helps if you can communicate with one another. After our creation of language it was much easier for us to work and live together, and thus the human race was able to survive. It is fascinating to think that we once were a completely independent and isolated form of life, to suddenly changing our way of life so that we could spend our time relying on others to help us, and exchanging our sense of teamwork I return. It's odd to think of our world if we had never decided to make steps towards progress by working with each other. I imagine that world would be very lonely (if we were even still around at this point).
When attempting to tie all of these lessons together in my last post, I think my overall take-away from this is that even though popular thought would tell you religion and evolution are at odds, the two actually worked together in numerous ways throughout history to allow humans to flourish across the globe. What I am skeptical of however, is the necessity of religion to create these benefits. None of the factors that we have studied that led to evolutionary benefits in humans are a direct result of belief in a deity. Rather, the benefits are usually an indirect result of the religious practices of a particular group or culture. In summary of this entry, Uday notes that we are such a successful species because we worked together. In ancient times, humans may have needed something as powerful and influential as religion to unite a group together for survival. However, in modern times, I believe that humans are capable of continuing to use the evolutionary advantage of our superior social skills to our advantage without religion's influence. Secular governments are capable of producing many of the same beneficial outcomes as religion for humans. Saying that the actual belief in a particular deity is necessary to create more highly evolved brain function discredits the great apes, who evolved into socially complex animals without the belief in a deity. I am weary of attributing the evolutionary benefits mentioned throughout this class to religion, because I think that creates the idea that believing in a specific deity provides the benefits, when it is really more about the structures in place that facilitated group interactions.