Evolutionary emergence  From a Darwinian standpoint, symbolic culture has proved hard to explain. One difficulty is that the concept itself often seems unsettling and philosophically unacceptable to natural scientists. Modern science became established in opposition to the idea that culturally accepted fictions can be equated with facts. Yet the concept of symbolic culture requires us to grasp just that paradoxical possibility. Long before the late twentieth century invention of the Internet, evolution allowed humans to flit between two realms, reality on the one hand, virtual reality on the other. Symbolic culture is an environment of virtual entities lacking counterparts in the real world. It was once thought that art and symbolic culture first emerged in Europe some 40,000 years ago, during the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition – often termed the 'symbolic explosion' or 'Upper Palaeolithic revolution'. Some archaeologists still adhere to this view. Others now accept that symbolic culture probably emerged in sub-Saharan Africa at a much earlier date, during the period known as the Middle Stone Age.Henshilwood, C. and C. W. Marean 2003. The origin of modern human behavior. Current Anthropology 44(5): 627-651. The evidence consists of traditions of ground ochre with strong selection for the colour red, examples of so-called ochre 'crayons' which appear to have been used for purposes of design, probably on the body, and geometric engravings on blocks of ochre. All this apparently formed part of a cosmetics industry dated to between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.Knight, C., C. Power and I. Watts, 1995. The Human Symbolic Revolution: A Darwinian Account. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5(1): 75-114. One theory is that this constitutes evidence for a ritual tradition.Watts, I. 2009. Red ochre, body painting, and language: interpreting the Blombos ochre. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 62-92  . In addition, from about 100,000 years ago, there are pierced shells which appear to show signs of wear, suggesting that they were strung together to make necklaces. If the ochre tradition has been correctly interpreted, it constitutes evidence for the world's first 'art'—an aspect of 'symbolic culture'—in the form of personal ornamentation and body-painting.Power, C. 2010. Cosmetics, identity and consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 17, No. 7-8, pp. 73-94. It was initially countered that pigment-only decorative systems are merely individualistic display, not necessarily indicative of ritual, whereas the bead traditions testify to language, institutionalised relationships and full-scale ritual and symbolic culture.Henshilwood, C. S. and B. Dubreuil 2009. Reading the artifacts: gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 41-61.Kuhn, S. L. and Stiner, M. C. 2007. Body ornamentation as information technology: towards an understanding of the significance of beads. In P. Mellars, K. Boyle, O. Bar-Yosef and C. Stringer (eds), Rethinking the Human Revolution, Cambridge: McDonald Institute Research Monographs, pp. 45-54. More recently, however, those making this criticism have conceded that the evidence for ochre pigment use, stretching back towards 300,000 years ago, must indeed be recognised as the earliest durable media testifying to a collective ritual tradition.Kuhn, S. L. 2014. Signaling Theory and Technologies of Communication in the Paleolithic. Biological Theory 9 (1): 42-50.
Evolutionary emergence 30,000-year-old cave hyena cave painting From a Darwinian standpoint, symbolic culture has proved hard to explain. One difficulty is that the concept itself often seems unsettling and philosophically unacceptable to natural scientists. Modern science became established in opposition to the idea that culturally accepted fictions can be equated with facts. Yet the concept of symbolic culture requires us to grasp just that paradoxical possibility. Long before the late twentieth century invention of the Internet, evolution allowed humans to flit between two realms, reality on the one hand, virtual reality on the other. Symbolic culture is an environment of virtual entities lacking counterparts in the real world. It was once thought that art and symbolic culture first emerged in Europe some 40,000 years ago, during the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition – often termed the 'symbolic explosion' or 'Upper Palaeolithic revolution'. Some archaeologists still adhere to this view. Others now accept that symbolic culture probably emerged in sub-Saharan Africa at a much earlier date, during the period known as the Middle Stone Age.Henshilwood, C. and C. W. Marean 2003. The origin of modern human behavior. Current Anthropology 44(5): 627-651. The evidence consists of traditions of ground ochre with strong selection for the colour red, examples of so-called ochre 'crayons' which appear to have been used for purposes of design, probably on the body, and geometric engravings on blocks of ochre. All this apparently formed part of a cosmetics industry dated to between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.Knight, C., C. Power and I. Watts, 1995. The Human Symbolic Revolution: A Darwinian Account. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5(1): 75-114. One theory is that this constitutes evidence for a ritual tradition.Watts, I. 2009. Red ochre, body painting, and language: interpreting the Blombos ochre. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 62-92 . A bone apparently engraved with six lines from ~120 kya may be the earliest evidence of human use of symbols . In addition, from about 100,000 years ago, there are pierced shells which appear to show signs of wear, suggesting that they were strung together to make necklaces. If the ochre tradition has been correctly interpreted, it constitutes evidence for the world's first 'art'—an aspect of 'symbolic culture'—in the form of personal ornamentation and body-painting.Power, C. 2010. Cosmetics, identity and consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 17, No. 7-8, pp. 73-94. It was initially countered that pigment-only decorative systems are merely individualistic display, not necessarily indicative of ritual, whereas the bead traditions testify to language, institutionalised relationships and full-scale ritual and symbolic culture.Henshilwood, C. S. and B. Dubreuil 2009. Reading the artifacts: gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 41-61.Kuhn, S. L. and Stiner, M. C. 2007. Body ornamentation as information technology: towards an understanding of the significance of beads. In P. Mellars, K. Boyle, O. Bar-Yosef and C. Stringer (eds), Rethinking the Human Revolution, Cambridge: McDonald Institute Research Monographs, pp. 45-54. More recently, however, those making this criticism have conceded that the evidence for ochre pigment use, stretching back towards 300,000 years ago, must indeed be recognised as the earliest durable media testifying to a collective ritual tradition.Kuhn, S. L. 2014. Signaling Theory and Technologies of Communication in the Paleolithic. Biological Theory 9 (1): 42-50.
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30,000-year-old cave hyena cave painting
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. A bone apparently engraved with six lines from ~120 kya may be the earliest evidence of human use of symbols