David Lewis-Williams is convinced of the shamanistic nature of the first religions and their link to the layout of cave art. He puts together the idea that, with the emergence of language, early humans would have been able to share the experience of two and possibly three altered states of consciousness: dreams, drug-induced hallucinations, and trance. These, he says, would have convinced early humans that there was a ‘spirit world’ elsewhere, with caves – leading to a mysterious underworld – as the only practical location for this other world. He thinks that some of the lines and squiggles associated with cave art are what he calls ‘entoptic’, caused by people actually ‘seeing’ the structures of their brains (between the retina and the visual cortex) under the influence of drugs.70 No less important, he notes that many paintings and engravings in the caves make use of naturally occurring forms or features, suggesting, say, a horse’s head or a bison. The art, he suggests, was designed to ‘release’ the forms which were ‘imprisoned’ in the rock. By the same token, the ‘finger flutings’, marks made on the soft rock, and the famous hand prints, were a kind of primitive ‘laying on of hands’, designed again to release the forms locked in the rock.71 He also notes a form of organisation in the caves. Probably, he thinks, the general population would have gathered at the mouth of the cave, the entrance to the underworld, perhaps using forms of symbolic representation that have been lost. Only a select few would have been allowed into the caves proper. In these main chambers Lewis-Williams reports that the resonant ones have more images than the non-resonant ones, so there may have been a ‘musical’ element, either by tapping stalactites, or by means of primitive ‘flutes’, remains of which have been found, or drums.72 Finally, the most inaccessible regions of the caves would have been accessed only by the shamans. Some of these areas have been shown to contain high concentrations of CO2, an atmosphere which may, in itself, have produced an altered state of consciousness. Either way, in these confined spaces, shamans would have sought their visions. Some drugs induce a sensation of pricking, or being stabbed, which fits with some of the images found in caves, where figures are covered in short lines. This, combined with the shamans’ need for a new persona every so often (as is confirmed today, among ‘stone age’ tribes), could be the origin of the idea of death and rebirth, and of sacrifice which, as we shall see, looms large in later religious beliefs.73
Lewis-Williams’ ideas are tantalising, but still speculative. What we can be certain of, however, is that none of the complex art, and the ancient ceremonies that surrounded the painted caves, could have been accomplished without language. For Merlin Donald the transition to mimetic cognition and communication was the all-important transformation in history, but the arrival of spoken language was hardly less of a breakthrough.
It is too soon to say whether the picture given above needs to be changed radically as a result of the discovery of Homo floresiensis, on the Indonesian island of Flores, and announced in October 2004. This new species of Homo, whose closest relative appears to be H. erectus, lived until 13,000 years ago, was barely one metre tall, and had a brain capacity of only 380 cc. Yet it appears to have walked upright, to have produced fairly sophisticated stone tools, may have controlled fire, and its predecessors must have reached Flores by rafting, since there is no evidence that the island was ever attached to the mainland of Asia. The new species’ small size is presumably explained by adaptation to an island environment, where there were no large predators. But, on the face of it, H. floresiensis shows that brain size and intelligence may not be as intimately linked in early species of man as previous scholarship had suggested.74
2
The Emergence of Language and the Conquest of Cold
The acquisition of language is perhaps the most controversial and interesting aspect of early humans’ intellectual life. It is, so far as we know, and together with mimetic cognition (if Merlin Donald is right), the most important characteristic that separates Homo sapiens from other animals. Since the vast majority of the ideas considered in the rest of this book were expressed in words (as opposed to painting, or music, or architecture, say), an understanding of the invention and evolution of language is fundamental.
Before we come to language itself, though, we need to consider why it developed. And this is where we return to the significance of meat-eating. As was outlined in Chapter 1, the brain size of Homo habilis showed a marked increase over what went before, and this was associated with an advance in stone tool technology. Important in the context of this chapter is the discovery of stone tools up to ten kilometres from the raw material source, which implies that, beginning with H. habilis, early man was capable of ‘mental maps’, planning ahead, predicting where game would be and transporting tools to those sites, presumably in advance. This is intellectual behaviour already far beyond the capacities of other primates. But we also know, from the archaeological remains at sites, that early man ate antelope, zebra, and hippopotamus. Searching for large animal prey would have pitted early humans against hyenas when scavenging, and against the prey itself when hunting. Some palaeontologists argue that this could not have been accomplished as solitary individuals or even, perhaps, as small groups. A relationship has been observed by some zoologists between brain volume and the average size of social groups among primates. There is even a view that brain size is correlated with what Steven Mithen calls social intelligence. According to one estimate, the australopithecines lived in groups with an average size of sixty–seventy individuals, whereas H. habilis groups averaged around eighty.1 These provided the basic ‘cognitive group’ of early man, the group he had to deal with on an everyday basis, and the increasing size of this cognitive group would, say the palaeontologists, have stimulated the growth of man’s social intelligence. Distinguishing one group member from another, and one’s own kin within this wider group, would have become much easier once language had developed, and easier still once beads and pendants and other items of bodily adornment had been created, with which people could emphasise their individuality. Against this, George Schaller, who was mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 1, points out that lions hunt quite successfully in groups without language.
We do also see a marked change in technology in the Upper Palaeolithic, and in hunting technique, both of them changes that are difficult to imagine without language. In Europe at least a whole range of tools appear – including hafted tools, harpoons and spear throwers made of shaped antler and bone (the first ‘plastics’); at the same time we see the development of blades, produced as ‘standardised blanks’ that could be turned into burins, scrapers, awls or needles as required.2
In southern Africa we see a very different picture when comparing the remains excavated at Klasies River Mouth (120,000–60,000 BP) with the much younger Nelson Bay cave (20,000 BP). The latter contains more bones of large dangerous prey, like buffalo and wild pigs, and far fewer eland. By this time too, people had developed projectiles such as the bow and arrow that allowed them to attack prey at a distance. And there is an equivalent difference between the seal remains at Klasies and Nelson Bay. The age of the seals at Klasies indicates that ancient humans lived on the coast all through the year ‘including times when [food] resources were probably more abundant in the interior’.3 At Nelson Bay, however, the inhabitants timed their coastal visits to late winter/early spring when they could catch the infant seals on the beach, and then moved inland when it was more productive to do so.4 There is a final difference in these two sites as regards fishing. There are no fish among the debris at Klasies, while fish predominate at Nelson Bay. As we saw above, by now harpoons had been invented. Could such co-operation have been achieved without language? Could the concept of the harpoon barb be passed on without a word for it?