RE: Do you believe in behavioural modernity?
May 13, 2013 at 12:37 pm
(This post was last modified: May 13, 2013 at 12:54 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(May 13, 2013 at 11:35 am)dazzn Wrote: I get that it's an observation, however it seems fanciful that all of a sudden we acted as fully sapient beings 50,000 years ago.
Why do you suppose homo sapient 50,000 years ago were "all of sudden" " fully sapient"?
There is evidence to suggests that some specific humans genes which are thought to be influential in elements of human behavior continues to be under very strong selective pressure, and has exhibited rapid evolution just in the last 6,000 years.
Within the last 50,000 years there is also evidence that homo sapiens on the whole have show morphological tendency towards skull gracilization (thinning of skull and delication of facial bones) and accompanying behavioral tendency towards delayed onset of behavioral maturization which in other animals, such as dogs, wolfs, foxes, and chimps, have been shown to be a genetically driven and associated behavior development loosely termed "tameness" and "domesticability".
In other words, behaviorally we are genetically still evolving towards greater tameness, as well as delayed transition from infantile and adulescent to adult behavior, and the genes which control these probably also exhibit itself in changes to our skeletal morphology.
