Can I toss this idea in for comment? I'd be really interested in your
views.
Where people write about Evolutionary Fitness or the Paleo lifestyle
(usually diet) and our human ancestors, they often refer to eras or date
ranges to indicate a benchmark 'Golden Age' which epitomizes most fully
the distinguishing features they want to emphasize.
'10,000 years ago', for example, is used as shorthand for 'a hunter-
gatherer lifestyle before any settled cultivation, domestication or
consumption of grains'.
'40,000 years ago' is also used less often, but it seems to imply the
same. However, when it is used, it seems to be as the benchmark date for
writers who want to include cu
ltural, social and cognitive aspects.
40,000 years ago, the last of the Neanderthals were still around; the
fabulous cave paintings at Chauvet were close to being produced by the Cro-
Magnons and the transition was occurring (in Western Europe) from the
Chatelperronian tool technologies (which could be described as the most
advanced of the Middle Paleolithic) to the Aurignacian technologies
(which, with their combination of form, function and aesthetics is often
taken as a marker of the appearance of modern humanity in the best sense).
This is my own personal take on the 40,000 year date. I'd be interested
to hear your views as well. Can you enrich the above description of what
we are meant to understand when 40,000 is used as a benchmark?
By the way, I recall Art DeVany also used 40,000 as shorthand for the
period when anatomically modern humans appeared and as the benchmark date
for selection of Paleo foods. Thanks, Robb, for posting the links to your
article and Art's interview. It was great to hear from Art and to know
that the movie industry studies (which, I guess, funded him and fascinated
him for years and which I understand he used as a vehicle for the
application and development of his interest in the universal application
of power laws to natural phenomena) will soon be at the point where he can
re-focus on Evolutionary Fitness.
My only comment on the interview transcript is to say that I was reminded
forcefully in reading it that Art is his own man! His inclusion of bacon,
ham, a largish proportion of eggs and a powerful anti-oxidant supplement
might be questioned by some of the paleo purists! But, hey! when they can
do with their legs what Art can do with his we'll know who is closer to
looking after that Paleolithic body in the pinstriped suit - in Art's own
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