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Palaeoanthropology

Sharpening the mind

Nature volume 491, pages 531–532 (2012)Cite this article

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The discovery of stone tools dating to 71,000 years ago at a site in South Africa suggests that the humans making them had developed the capacity for complex thought, and passed this knowledge down the generations. See Letter p.590

The origin of human consciousness has historically been of interest to philosophers, clerics, linguists, psychologists and anthropologists. In the past decade, it has also become a key issue for archaeologists. Did the modern manner of human thinking emerge early or late in our species' history, and did it evolve gradually or suddenly? On page 590 of this issue, Brown et al.1 report the discovery of minute stone artefacts that indicate that the bow and arrow was used by people in Africa as early as 71,000 years ago. The manufacture and use of this weaponry system strongly suggest that Homo sapiens had by this time already attained mastery of complex technology and ideasFootnote 1.

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Figure 1: Archaeological evidence for modern behaviour in early Homo sapiens.
Figure 2: A complex point.

Notes

  1. *This article and the paper under discussion1 were published online on 7 November 2012.

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  1. Sally McBrearty is in the Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-2176, USA.,

    Sally McBrearty

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McBrearty, S. Sharpening the mind. Nature 491, 531–532 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11751

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