Early Human Development
Human history is largely a story of advancements in our verbal-based cognitive skills. The advancements in human groups and civilizations chronicle developments in “group-think”. As a correlate, this suggests that the human mind (especially the verbal-based mind) was not as well developed earlier in history than it is now. Although this makes perfect sense from a developmental point of view, it is sometimes difficult to realize that the human mind was not always what it is today.
The World from which we emerged
We emerged from an animal world in which cognition was dominated by the sense of vision. Every advanced animal had a concept of “world”, “self”, and “group”. All creatures had self-awareness and were driven to survive. Survival involved reproduction. Survival of the group was the ultimate goal.
Our earliest ancestors were not very distinct from the animals around us. Our behavioral patterns were already deeply ingrained, and were consistent with behavior patterns in the animal world around us.
Animals clearly group with one another, as do humans. Advanced animals also demonstrate special behaviors and apparent feelings and emotions towards family members. Humans obviously have these same behaviors. Many animals show herding behavior. Humans also display a type of herding behavior in terms of our propensity to congregate in groups – both small and large.
Dominance hierarchy is another attribute that is common to groupings of most advanced animals. Dominance is usually asserted by the strongest member of the group with a pecking order down through the ranks. Such hierarchies often provide reproduction, feeding, or other advantages to the dominant members of the group, thereby encouraging favorable selection and evolution. Even in today’s societies we observe dominance hierarchies. In fact, dominance hierarchies seem a necessary part of group management, whether animal or human.
We also have some of the hunter and the hunted in our genes. We have conquered both and needed to use our thinking to conquer both. We domesticated most of the hunted (cattle, pigs, sheep) and killed to extinction most of the large animals, including the hunters (tigers, lions). We were expert hunters. Dogs and cats are real interesting. They have become close companions and both are examples of domesticated hunters.
These were the models of grouping behavior in the vision-based animal world from which humans emerged. These were the models upon which early human groupings and early human civilizations were based.
Human group instincts and basic human group models came from the animal world from which we emerged.
Early Human Groups
We Homo sapiens existed as hunter-gatherers until the beginning of agriculture 9,000-10,000 BCE. Prior to that time we lived in small groups without permanent shelter (other than a cave) and in nomadic search of food.
Archaeological evidence suggests that some of the very earliest burials, art, and evidence of belief in Gods may have occurred as long ago as 100,000 years. However, culture in Homo sapiens flowered during a period of 60,000 to 30,000 years ago – especially near the latter part of that period. Art and hard evidence of religions appear. This is also the period of time during which items of personal decoration such as beads, pendants and perforated animal teeth are found. The wearing of personal items such as these shows a sense of personal identity. During this period of time it is quite clear that human behavior is quite distinguished from that of animals. We must certainly be speaking and thinking during this period of time.
At about this same time (60,000 to 30,000 years ago), tools become more complex and the hunting habits of humans changed quite significantly. Early humans were still hunter/gatherers during this period of time. They subsisted by hunting animals for food and clothing and picked food from the plant world as it was naturally available in nature around them. Humans are also eating and hunting ibex and seals – animals that require considerable planning and coordination to locate and kill. Steven Mithen, author of The Prehistory of the Mind – the Cognitive Origins of Art and Science, suggests that our ability to anthropomorphize animals, i.e. attribute human thinking and characteristics to the ways in which animals behave, allowed us to predict animal behaviors and was extremely valuable in hunting.
It is also at approximately this same time that elaborate burials are found. These burials include clothing, food, and thousands of beads. Why would early humans be decorated so much in burial? The most logical reason is that they were being prepared for an after-life. The earliest artistic remnants from our history show religions and belief in Gods.
“Self” and “Group” in early human history
Our Homo ancestors, including Homo Erectus, Neanderthal, and early Homo sapiens, were hunter-gatherers. We lived in small groups and each group had to totally provide for itself. Considerable cooperation was required to provide protection and sustenance for the group and its propagation. We needed one another for protection and survival. This sense of community originated from our vision-based cognition coming from the world of animals.
Each individual had a right-brain sense of “group”, shared with other humans, that was tied to the survival instinct embedded in the right brain. However, we also knew that both individually and collectively we were different from the other animals around us. We had separated ourselves from nature with our left brain thinking – both as individuals and as groups. We became reliant upon one another. We also knew or sensed that we had mental prowess that exceeded any that existed elsewhere in the animal world – a world from which we were inherently different. Collectively we were much stronger than we were individually.
In those early days, we were surrounded by a harsh and dangerous world. Commitment to the group was strong and emanated from the right-brain sense of “self” within our selves. Survival of each human and their individual ego was dependent on the group. We developed a sense of “group-responsibility”. Individuals within the group began to acquire knowledge or skills that could benefit the group. This information was shared with others and became part of the verbally-based “group-think” that was overlaid on the right brain sense of “group” that is a fundamental part of human and animal cognition. Some humans became more skilled at hunting, others at food preparation, child rearing, or jewelry making. A group identity developed and each human felt commitment to the group.
Figure. Early human groupings included a God who served to provide life answers to individuals and structure for the group. The early groups were guided by and governed by the right brain sense of “group”.
The social organization of humans progressed from small groups of individuals largely based upon family, to small bands of dozens of people, to tribes with hundreds of people, chiefdoms with thousands, and states with hundreds of thousands. Beyond the development of city-states and nations is the development of larger civilizations. Small bands and tribes of people still exist in what we consider the lesser-developed areas of the world. (Today we can also see small bands and tribes within larger groupings – such as Girl Scouts, Yankees fans, Porsche owners, etc.)
The early “group-think”, or the collective knowledge base of humans, was considerably less than it is today. The collective knowledge, or at least portions of it, became the common knowledge of all humans. It becomes part of the base knowledge that we are taught as children. Each individual might not know everything in the collective data base, but today we can Google it. We can easily see the advance of the collective knowledge base even within the span of one or two current generations - today’s children are much more knowledgeable than we were at their age. This is because the knowledge developed and acquired by each generation is added to the collective database that is passed along to the next.
