Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology: Dialogues in Wisdom, Humility and Grace (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies) [1 ed.] 9780367221805, 9780429273650, 0367221802

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Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology

This book sets out some of the latest scientific findings around the evolutionary development of religion and faith and then explores their theological implications. This unique combination of perspectives raises fascinating questions about the characteristics that are considered integral for a flourishing social and religious life and allows us to start to ask where in the evolutionary record they first show up in a distinctly human manner. The book builds a case for connecting theology and evolutionary anthropology using both historical and contemporary sources of knowledge to try and understand the origins of wisdom, humility, and grace in ‘deep time’. In the section on wisdom, the book examines the origins of complex decision-­ making in humans through the archaeological record, recent discoveries in evolutionary anthropology, and the philosophical richness of semiotics. The book then moves to an exploration of the origin of characteristics integral to the social life of small-­scale communities, which then points in an indirect way to the disposition of humility. Finally, it investigates the theological dimensions of grace and considers how artefacts left behind in the material record by our human ancestors, and the perspective they reflect, might inform contemporary concepts of grace. This is a cutting-­edge volume that refuses to commit the errors of either too easy a synthesis or too facile a separation between science and religion. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of religious studies and theology – especially those who interact with scientific fields – as well as academics working in anthropology of religion. Celia Deane-­Drummond is Director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute and Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, University of Oxford, UK. Agustín Fuentes is the Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Professor and Departmental Chair of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, USA.

Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies

The Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers. This open-­ended monograph series presents cutting-­edge research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society. Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience Pastoral and Clinical Insights Edited by Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook The Fourth Pentecostal Wave in South Africa A Critical Engagement Solomon Kgatle Resacralizing the Other at the US-­Mexico Border A Borderland Hermeneutic Gregory L. Cuéllar Paradoxical Virtue Reinhold Niebuhr and the Virtue Ethics Tradition Edited by Kevin Carnahan and David True Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology Dialogues in Wisdom, Humility, and Grace Edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ religion/series/RCRITREL

Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology Dialogues in Wisdom, Humility, and Grace Edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-­Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-22180-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-27365-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Acknowledgments vii List of contributorsviii

Introduction: dialogues in theology and evolutionary anthropology

1

CELIA DEANE-­D RUMMOND AND AGUSTÍN FUENTES

PART I

Mapping the terrain11   1 Setting the stage: developing the human niche across the Pleistocene

13

AGUSTÍN FUENTES

  2 The emergence of complexity and novelty in the human fossil record

29

REBECCA ROGERS ACKERMANN AND LAUREN SCHROEDER

PART II

Wisdom: introductory commentary47 CELIA DEANE-­D RUMMOND WITH WENTZEL VAN HUYSSTEEN

 3 On Homo naledi and its significance in evolutionary anthropology

51

JOHN HAWKS AND LEE BERGER

  4 Becoming wise: what can anthropologists say about the evolution of human wisdom? MARC KISSEL

69

vi  Contents   5 On the origin of symbols: archaeology, semiotics, and self-­transcendence

86

ANDREW ROBINSON

PART III

Humility: introductory commentary111 WENDY BLACK

  6 Archaeological evidence for human social learning and sociality in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa

119

JAYNE WILKINS

  7 An animal in need of wisdom: theological anthropology and the origins of humility and wisdom

142

JAN-­O LAV HENRIKSEN

  8 The loss of innocence in the deep past: wisdom, humility, and grace within a developing understanding of the emergence of human moral emotions

160

PENNY SPIKINS

  9 Searching for the soul of Homo: the virtue of humility in deep evolutionary time

182

CELIA DEANE-­D RUMMOND

PART IV

Grace: introductory commentary203 CELIA DEANE-­D RUMMOND AND AGUSTÍN FUENTES

10 What difference does grace make? An exploration of the concept of grace in the theological anthropology of Karl Rahner

209

KAREN KILBY AND J. MATTHEW ASHLEY

11 Grace in evolution

228

OLIVER DAVIES

12 Continuities and discontinuities in human evolution

243

JONATHAN MARKS

Index264

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mary Ann Meyers from the John Templeton Foundation for supporting this project through the Humble Approach Initiative. The grant entitled ‘Humility, Wisdom, and Grace in Deep Time’ awarded to Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes funded a symposium of the same name held at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in South Africa, 19–22 January 2017. The event was a time of rich multidisciplinary conversation between theologians and anthropologists. In addition to the symposium participants named in this volume, we are thankful for the graduate students, including Tessa Campbell, Nomawethu Hlazo, Robyn Humphreys, Teddy Chalwe Sakupapa, and Kerryn Warren, who provided input and feedback at the symposium. We are also grateful for support from the University of Notre Dame through the Global Collaborative Initiative at Notre Dame International. We also appreciate Dr. Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser and Katie Routledge for their hard work in planning the symposium from afar. In addition, we are very grateful to Dr. Joshua Kaiser who managed the editing of this volume and completed the index. Finally, we are thankful for Joshua Wells from Routledge who supported our project with great enthusiasm from the beginning of this work until its completion.

Contributors

Rebecca Rogers Ackermann is a biological anthropologist, Professor in the Department of Archaeology, and Deputy Dean of Transformation in the Faculty of Science at the University of Cape Town. She was the founding Director of UCT’s Human Evolution Research Institute, and is currently its Deputy Director. Her research focusses on evolutionary process, and specifically how gene flow, drift, and selection interact to produce skeletal diversity through time, with a focus on human evolution. J. Matthew Ashley is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Besides his teaching and research, he has served as the Director of Graduate Studies and Department Chair for the Department of Theology. He has written on the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz, liberation philosophy and theology, Ignatian spirituality, and the relationship between science and religion, with a focus on the reception of evolution by Christians in the United States. He has written two books and edited and/or translated five others. His forthcoming book examines the relationship between the practice of spirituality and of theology: Ignatius and the Theologians: Ignatian Spirituality and Academic Theology. Lee Berger is the Phillip V. Tobias Chair of Palaeoanthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, a Fellow of the Explorers Club, and Explorer-­at-­Large with the National Geographic Society. His research into human origins has resulted in the discovery of two new species of early human relatives, Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi. He is the author of many academic articles as well as the recent publication (with John Hawks), Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story (National Geographic, 2017). Wendy Black is currently the Curator of Archaeology at Iziko Museums of South Africa. She specialises in the population history and bioarchaeology of the indigenous hunter-­gatherer people of southern Africa, the Khoesan. Her research interests are broadly related to Later Stone Age population dynamics and genetics, but more recently she has become involved

Contributors ix with indigenous rights and transformation issues as they relate to human remains and sacred object collections in museums, associated cultural identities, and group representations within South African institutions. Oliver Davies holds a Senior International Research Chair in the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China, Beijing, and is Professorial Fellow of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Renmin. He is Emeritus Professor of Christian Doctrine at King’s College London, and a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion. The present focus of his research is developing contemporary philosophical understandings of traditional philosophies in East and West, in the light of current science. Celia Deane-­Drummond is Director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute and Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. She is also visiting Professor in Theology and Science at the University of Durham, UK. Her recent publications include The Wisdom of the Liminal: Human Nature, Evolution and Other Animals (Eerdmans, 2014); Technofutures; Nature and the Sacred, edited with Sigurd Bergmann and Bronislaw Szerszynski (2015); Ecology in Jürgen Moltmann’s Theology, 2nd edition (2016); Religion in the Anthropocene, edited with Sigurd Bergmann and Markus Vogt (Wipf and Stock, 2017); The Evolution of Human Wisdom, edited with Agustín Fuentes (Lexington, 2017); Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home edited with Rebecca. Artinian-Kaiser (Bloomsbury, 2018); Theological Ethics through a Multispecies Lens: The Evolution of Wisdom, Volume I (Oxford University Press, 2019). Agustín Fuentes is the Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. His current research includes processes and patterns in human evolution, ethnoprimatology and multispecies anthropology, evolutionary theory, and interdisciplinary approaches to human nature(s). Recent books include Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature (University of California, 2015); The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional (Dutton, 2017); and Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being (Yale/Templeton, 2019). John Hawks is the Vilas-­Borghesi Distinguished Achievement Professor of Anthropology and Associate Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-­Madison. He is a visiting Professor at the Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. His research into the bones and genes of ancient humans has taken him to sites in Africa, Asia, and Europe. He is the author of many scholarly articles and book chapters as well as the recent book (with Lee Berger), Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story (National Geographic, 2017).

x  Contributors Jan-­Olav Henriksen is Professor of Systematic Theology at the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society. His research focuses especially on the philosophy of religion and the conditions for religion in a post-­secular world. Among his recent publications are Religious Pluralism and Pragmatist Theology (Brill, 2019) and Christianity as Distinct Practices – A Complicated Relationship (Bloomsbury, 2019). He was the initiator behind the interdisciplinary Research School Religions-­Values-­ Society, which serves doctoral students and senior scholars in the areas of religion and theology in the main academic institutions of Norway and several important international institutions. Karen Kilby is the Bede Professor of Catholic Theology at the Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Durham. She is a systematic theologian who has worked on questions related to the Trinity as well as evil and mystery, and has published books on Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar. She was one of the editors of the Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology and has served as the president of both the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain and the Society for the Study of Theology. Marc Kissel is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Appalachian State University. He was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Notre Dame from 2014–2017, where he worked on a project on the evolution of human symbolic thought, collaborating with scholars from philosophy, theology, psychology, and other related disciplines. He has published on various topics such as early hominin mandibles, semiotics, and the processes by which hominins became human. Jonathan Marks is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, with primary interests in human diversity and human origins, and in the history of scientific investigations into those questions. He has been published in scholarly journals ranging from American Anthropologist to Zygon, and is the author of several books, including  What It Means to be 98% Chimpanzee (California, 2002) and Is Science Racist? (Polity, 2017). His work has been awarded the J.I. Staley Prize from the School of American Research and the W.W. Howells Prize from the American Anthropological Association. Andrew Robinson is a medical practitioner with a doctorate in theology, and is currently a Research Fellow in Theology at the University of Exeter. He has interdisciplinary research interests in theology, philosophy, theoretical biology, and semiotic theory. He is author of God and the World of Signs: Trinity, Evolution, and the Metaphysical Semiotics of C.S. Peirce (Brill, 2010) and Traces of the Trinity: Signs, Sacraments, and Sharing God’s Life (James Clarke, 2014). Lauren Schroeder is a palaeoanthropologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her research is broadly focused on

Contributors xi understanding the evolution of cranial and mandibular diversity within hominins. This research agenda combines a variety of quantitative methods, including statistical analyses of 3D models, with the analytical approaches of quantitative genetics to address questions about the evolutionary mechanisms underlying morphological variation. Penny Spikins is a senior lecturer in the archaeology of human origins at the University of York. Her recent research interests focus on the evolution of human social-­moral emotions. She has produced papers on the evolution of compassion (Time and Mind), egalitarian dynamics (Journal of World Prehistory, Open Quaternary), diversity and inclusion (Time and Mind, Open Archaeology), Neanderthal childhood (Oxford Journal of Archaeology), and Neanderthal healthcare (World Archaeology, Quaternary Science Reviews), as well as a dedicated single author volume, How Compassion Made us Human (Pen and Sword, 2015). She has recently completed a John Templeton-­funded project on the evolution of social-­ moral emotions leading to a new volume, Hidden Depths: the Palaeolithic Origins of Our Most Human Emotions (White Rose University Press, in press). Wentzel van Huyssteen was the James I. McCord Professor of Theology and Science at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1992–2014. He received his MA in philosophy from Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and his PhD in philosophical theology from the Free University of Amsterdam. His areas of expertise are theology and science as well as religion and scientific epistemology. He is currently on the editorial board for the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, the Nederduits Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif, and the Journal of Theology and Science, and he is co-­editor of the Science and Religion Series. Jayne Wilkins is a palaeoarchaeologist with expertise in human evolution, lithic analysis, and the Middle Stone Age in Africa. She has held a previous position as Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Currently, she is Affiliate Director of the Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University.

Introduction Dialogues in theology and evolutionary anthropology Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes There is no doubt that many would question why we produced a volume placing philosophical and theological reflections on wisdom, grace, and humility in dialogue with evolutionary anthropological assessments of human evolutionary processes and patterns. Unlike many other efforts that place theology and science in dialogue, this volume seeks a transdisciplinary engagement, where views from the disciplines not only present work at the leading edge of their fields, but also enable the companion disciplines in the dialogue to raise new and interesting questions not only engendered by areas of disagreement or compatibility, but also via the friction at the intersection of very different disciplinary boundaries. We have therefore boldly explored those areas where we might anticipate finding both consonance and friction in order to stimulate a lively discussion. This volume was inspired by an intensive advanced symposium supported by the John Templeton Foundation Humble Approach Initiative that was held in January 2017 at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, engaging scholars at the forefront of their fields in evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, and theology. Wisdom, humility, and grace are all characteristics of what makes us human and have intrigued theologians for centuries. Arguably, they are integral to a flourishing social and religious life. But the interesting scientific questions on these topics largely concern where (and how) they first show up in a distinctly human manner in the evolutionary record. Is it even possible to ask such questions with validity? Taking wisdom, humility, and grace in turn we gradually build a case for a fruitful intersection between theologians and anthropologists using both historical and contemporary sources of knowledge in order to try and understand the origins of these characteristics in deep time. The commentaries at the start of each section serve as mini vignettes in order to guide the reader through the chapters that follow and point out ways in which the chapters can usefully and creatively intersect with each other more clearly. Celia Deane-Drummond offers the commentary on the first section on wisdom along with Wentzel van Huyssteen, who is a leading theological voice in bringing anthropological research to a theological audience. The second commentary by Wendy Black provides an anthropological perspective on discussions about humility. The final commentary by the editors will guide the reader through the final chapters on grace.

2  Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes We address, in the first instance, the general anthropological quandary about the evolution of complexity as such, since our discourse on what we consider to be socially mediated characteristics such as wisdom or humility does not make sense otherwise. In the section on wisdom, we deal with the philosophical richness of Charles Peirce’s semiotics and the ways his theory is fruitful for both anthropologists and theologians. We discuss the special significance of recent discoveries in evolutionary anthropology, with a case study on the particularly advanced burial practices of Homo naledi by leading experts in this research. Such work challenges the view that complex characteristics, including a sense of the afterlife, are confined to our own sub-­species, Homo sapiens sapiens. And if that is the case, what might be the theological implications for those who have habitually identified ‘Adam and Eve’, and many other human origins figures and narratives, either with individuals or, more likely, with an early Homo sapiens community? The third section explores the origin of characteristics that are integral to the social life of small-­scale communities: above all, the capacity for humility. But what might that humility mean in its expression in inner and outer worlds? Finding ways in which the inner workings of the human mind leaves traces in external archaeological records leads to some fascinating hints not just about how our ancestors behaved, but also how they related and responded to each other in compassion, gratitude, and generosity. Our discussion in the fourth section of grace, or the sense of the sacred in the world, includes theological dimensions that are equally challenging in terms of their intersection with evolutionary anthropology. Not all theologians agree with each other in how to make sense of such challenges and our book opens up this conversation in an interesting way. We believe that such challenges need to be faced in order to have an honest and fruitful discussion, while refusing to avoid the tensions that such discussion inevitably brings to the surface. While this dialogue becomes aware of its limitations, it is also conscious of the difficulties of entering into a world that is very different from our own. That strangeness is echoed in the strangeness of artefacts left behind in the material record by our human ancestors living many millennia ago. Overall, this volume will leave the reader with many intriguing questions unanswered, but it will also provide a spur to think creatively and imaginatively about the intellectual importance of working at the boundary between the disciplines. Unlike many other volumes that too easily relate theology and science while avoiding difficulties, we stress again that this book presses for a transdisciplinary engagement, where each discipline not only presents work at the leading edge of its field, but also allows the companion disciplines to raise new and interesting questions that arise at the boundaries between subject areas. Part 1, ‘Mapping the Terrain’, provides an overview of the evolution of the genus Homo across the Pleistocene. This is the frame, the ground on

Introduction 3 which to place the evolutionary and theological discussions in all of the subsequent chapters. Agustín Fuentes argues in his opening chapter, ‘Setting the Stage: Developing the Human Niche Across the Pleistocene’, that in assessing the evolution of human beings we need not only explain the development of bodies and human modifications to ecologies, we also must develop a robust description for an evolving system – a human niche. Over time the genus Homo engaged in the production of Oldowan stone tools at 2 million years ago, developed more complex stone tool technologies and showed widening geographic spread between 1.75 and 1 million years ago, used and gained control of fire and engaged in complex hunting and materiality by 400,000 years ago, developed art and increasingly complex multi-­community social networks by 120,000 years ago, demonstrated patterns of domestication by 15,000–10,000 years ago, and built early cities by 5,000 years ago, eventually leading up to the megacities, global religions, and world economies of today. Fuentes suggests that making, sharing, and navigating meaning is as central to our evolution as are bones, stones, and local ecologies. One can envision part of this explanation pivoting on the pattern (and ability) of successful complex decision-­making in navigating increasingly larger and more complex social networks in the developing niches of human communities. Philosophers and theologians are likely to understand this ability as a form of wisdom, including humility, and even a form of grace, and to view it as a key element in the human perceptual and behavioural toolkit. Anthropologists see this ability as reflecting the behavioural and perceptual (cognitive) processes inherent in the human niche. Regardless of what label we use, we suggest that such capacities/ processes for complex decision-­making must have an evolutionary history. But assessing evidence for their emergence in the palaeoanthropological record is extremely challenging. Is it possible to identify particular aspects of the material and fossil records that indicate the ways in which human beings, and other hominins in our lineage (Homo), expressed aspects of this interactive complexity in their organization and interactions with others? Rebecca Rogers Ackermann and Lauren Schroeder, in their chapter on ‘The Emergence of Complexity and Novelty in the Human Fossil Record’, believe that outside of possible evidence for more complex social practices (e.g. longevity post-­trauma, preserved infant remains) the fossil record of human evolution is limited in its ability to address the transition towards transcendental forms of wisdom. Indeed, they suggest that it is difficult to equate our modern intellectual condition with deep past biological indicators at all. At the same time, they propose that the best and most visible evidence for biological changes that might be precursors to these abilities is in the form of increasing complexity and/or novelty. These can appear suddenly or through more gradual, directional change. Such patterns appear in

4  Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes the hominin fossil record most strongly at the emergence and diversification of our genus, and in the Middle to Late Pleistocene record with the emergence of our species. Although no evolutionary biologist would frame these changes in the language of ‘progress’, Ackermann and Schroeder prefer to speak of adaptive change that moves in a progressive way towards our current state (e.g. better able to navigate changing environments, more capable of communication). However, they recognize that there are complexities in coming to such a conclusion. An adaption-­centric narrative is problematic once greater attention is paid to how evolution actually works. In particular, the emergence of complexity and novelty through chance and gene exchange make it difficult to point to either as indications of adaptive change in innate human capabilities. This argument might be extended to culture as well. Additionally, the narrative of reticulate (versus branching) evolution, particularly over the past million years, makes it very difficult to point to one place and time when ‘humanness’ appeared. The authors therefore press for the exercise of caution in applying explicit meaning to changes we see in the fossil past, including the emergence of traits we consider surrogates for the remarkable intellectual capabilities of our species. The second part of the book, entitled ‘Wisdom’, opens with recent work by John Hawks and Lee Berger on Homo naledi, a member of the genus Homo that challenges many previous assumptions about what it means to be human. This species was discovered in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa and identified by the authors and their collaborators between 2013 and 2014; its significance for evolutionary anthropology is substantive. More than 1,500 fossil remains were unearthed in the Dinaledi chamber, representing a minimum of 15 individuals that were remarkably intact, with further substantial deposits in the Lesedi chamber representing at least three individuals, providing the most substantial data set for an ancient human relative so far discovered in South Africa.  H. naledi is unusual in sharing some morphological features in common with the ancient Australopithecus lineage, including parts of the cranial vault, dentition, shoulder, manual phalanges, pelvis, and proximal femur. However, other parts of the hand, dentition, foot, and lower limb show morphologies similar to Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, or Homo erectus. Based on morphology alone, many anthropologists assumed that H. naledi would have existed more than 1.5 million years ago. Research which dates H. naledi in the later Pleistocene (more specifically the South African Middle Stone Age [MSA]), provides the first recorded evidence of small-­brained hominins in this period, and has highly significant implications for current understandings of human evolution. It seems likely that H. naledi was a branch from the earliest stages of evolution within the Homo lineage, rather than a later reversion to a previous morphology. The diversity of the Homo lineage in this Middle

Introduction 5 Pleistocene period is consistent with that found in other subequatorial species. Given the paucity of remains found near Archeulean or MSA tool industries, the possibility that Homo naledi was at least in part responsible for these tools cannot be ruled out. This species is not ‘us’, but they certainly share much of the human niche. The next chapter by Marc Kissel connects the dots in the processes of ‘becoming wise’ from an evolutionary anthropological approach to the emergence of meaning making in the archaeological record across the Pleistocene. He suggests that in order to understand how the human cultural niche evolved across the Pleistocene – to interrogate how wisdom evolved – we need a better understanding of the actual archaeological data that inform this question. To properly contextualize the data, address these conflicts, and begin to more effectively and systematically answer questions about the emergence of modern human behaviour, he and collaborators created an open-­access database resource, the Worldwide Instances of Symbolic Data Outlining Modernity (WISDOM). Using these data, he shows how the processes of hominins becoming human occurred significantly earlier than has previously been argued. In fact, many of the behaviours that have been seen as markers of humanity, and solely in the purview of Homo sapiens, can be found in Homo erectus and other ‘species’ or populations of Homo across the latter portion of the Pleistocene. This suggests that either these behaviours are not markers of human behaviour in the strict sense or that the genus Homo has been acting, or had the capacity to act, ‘modern’ for far longer than previously believed. The final chapter in this part of the book, ‘On the Origin of Symbols’, by theologian and medical scientist Andrew Robinson, probes philosophical arguments about this process of becoming modern humans and about the creation of symbols and their connection to possibilities of self-­transcendence. He sets out to explore what Charles Peirce’s semiotic theory can contribute to investigating the evolutionary origins of human distinctiveness (for which ‘wisdom’ and ‘self-­ transcendence’, he argues, are necessary, and closely related, prerequisites). He argues that although archaeology recognizes (at least sometimes) that it cannot manage without semiotics in some form, the strategy of looking for ‘symbols’ in the archaeological record is often a confused and unproductive one. He demonstrates how, in Peirce’s logic, diagrammatic reasoning gives rise to the possibility of sign-­based thought experiments and related mental manipulations, while hypostatic abstraction is the process of turning a thought into a thing (which likewise depends on the use of signs, especially symbols). Importantly, he suggests that diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction operate in a complementary way, and are jointly the basis of self-­transcendence. Rather than seeing transcendence as a kind of overflow, he suggests that self-­transcendence is the basis of, or even synonymous with, certain kinds of ‘wisdom’: namely,

6  Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes the wisdom of self-­knowledge, the wisdom of discernment, and the wisdom of traditions (folk-­wisdom, traditional wisdom, etc.). He proposes a fourfold scheme of grades of evidence for the identification of such wisdom or self-­transcendence in the archaeological record, illustrated with reference to archaeological discoveries in the Blombos Cave. His theological reading of this approach to archaeological semiotics draws on Reinhold Niebuhr’s theological ethics in pressing the case for a synthetic Christian Semiotic Realism. Part Three, ‘Humility’, opens with an overview of the archaeological evidence for particular patterns of social learning and complex sociality in the MSA of South Africa that may set the stage for the consideration of patterns and processes related to intimations of humility. In Jayne Wilkins’ contribution, ‘Archaeological Evidence for Human Social Learning and Sociality in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa’, she is prepared to suggest that humility and wisdom are qualities that help humans navigate complex social relationships. She argues that the MSA record of southern Africa provides evidence for the origins and evolution of these complex social relationships. She points out that while there are anatomical changes that mark the speciation of Homo sapiens, the first appearance of our species is not associated with major technological or behavioural changes. Instead, the archaeological evidence documents spatially and temporally discontinuous variation in social learning mechanisms and sociality. Her review of recent evidence for early human social learning and sociality in the MSA of southern Africa, between ~500,000 and ~50,000 years ago, derives from studies on how stone tools are manufactured, how far stone raw material is moved across the landscape, and the material evidence for symbolling, such as brightly coloured ochre and incised objects. Stone tool technologies during some periods in the MSA are consistent with an increased emphasis on imitative social learning, which could be associated with the need to communicate group membership by replicating the behaviours of others, and/or with increased self-­regulation. For other periods in the MSA, variation in stone tool manufacturing strategies suggest more emphasis on emulative, rather than imitative, social learning, which may be linked to behavioural plasticity and individualism. She points out that stone raw material is sometimes transported long distances, which could be indicative of inter-­group interaction. At many sites, however, evidence for the long-­distance transfer of stone raw materials is lacking. Ochre and incised objects are common in some MSA contexts, but rare in others. Wilkins suggests that the nature of human social learning and sociality changed through the MSA, often in a seemingly erratic manner. The archaeological record to date suggests that at least some human capacities for social learning and sociality may have been present at the onset of the MSA before the origins of Homo sapiens. Jan-­Olav Henriksen’s chapter, ‘An Animal in Need of Wisdom: Theological Anthropology and the Origins of Humility and Wisdom’, is a theological

Introduction 7 anthropology arguing for processes and patterns in the origins of humility and wisdom in our lineage. He acknowledges, like Wilkins, that humility emerges out of interaction with others. Thus, it presupposes the same abilities for cooperation and communication as other features that shape early human (and pre-­human) development. Social interaction also contributes to the development of a sense of self. Henrikson explores Heinz Kohut’s theory of the development of the self in order to infer (although speculatively) that relatively similar conditions were at work in the original development of the human self and its relation to the world and to others. As Kohut analyses the conditions for narcissism in failed interactions, Henrikson suggests that its opposite, humility, is the result of successful relationships with others. He also suggests that this understanding of the development of the self furthermore allows for identifying the development of two other features that are crucial for the role of early religion in deep time: the need for developing modes of subjectivity that require orientation and the need for contemplating necessary transformation. This perspective sheds light on ritual and other modes of cooperation, and allows for the conditions that humans need for living humbly with wisdom and grace. Accordingly, religions can be seen as the result of interactive processes shaped by humility and aimed at living wisely. In the next chapter, ‘The Loss of Innocence in the Deep Past: Wisdom, Humility, and Grace within a Developing Understanding of the Emergence of Human Moral Emotions’, Penny Spikins explores the human deep past, in materials and bodies, for clues of the emergence of compassion and morality, keystones for the capacity for humility. Like Wilkins and Henrikson, Spikins is concerned with the rise of social complexity. However, she resists common theoretical approaches which typically paint a picture of unemotional and selfish competition amongst ape-­like early humans. At some point in our deep past, our distant ancestors must have begun to develop the type of moral instincts and understanding which we would recognize as fundamentally like our own, including losing their innocence of another’s suffering. What does new evidence imply for the role of social and moral emotions in deep ancestry? How can we relate social behaviour to humility, wisdom, and grace? Moreover, how can we develop new perspectives which engage with the importance of moral emotions to human evolutionary success? Here she reviews evidence for emotional complexity in the furthest depths of the deep past, reconsiders the driving factors behind human social evolution, and asks how far back in the distant past we can recognize human morality. She argues that however intangible they might seem, complex moral characteristics including wisdom, humility, and grace played a key role in our evolutionary story. This section concludes with Celia Deane-­Drummond’s chapter, ‘Searching for the Soul of Homo: The Virtue of Humility in Deep Evolutionary Time’, which explores the different theological elements of the virtue of humility in order to probe more precisely what it means to speak about humility in

8  Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes archaic humans. In the early hominin community, she speculates, humility was likely to have been much more important than the mirror companion virtue of magnanimity, often celebrated in contemporary modern societies. Both involve the exercise of reason over the inner psychological world in a way that is distinctly human and not characteristic of other animals. She explores ancient theological concepts of humility proposed by medieval theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas as a way of probing the dawn of consciousness of self in relation to others and as a necessary step towards second-­person personal and collective social relationships. She also touches on the idea of self-­transcendence raised in Robinson’s chapter. In this case, theological discussion of the experience of infused humility could be understood as theological enhancement of that self-­awareness by imagining that humility as directly infused by God. This implies, further, that not all humility is necessarily tied into explicit reasoning capacities, but is more likely to be, as Spikins suggests, part of our developing emotional repertoire. What is rather more challenging is finding ways of mapping explicit traces that show humility or experiences of the transcendent. In this volume, our discussion of grace focuses on the sense of the sacred in the world and brings theological dimensions that are challenging in terms of their intersection with evolutionary anthropology. We intentionally bring such challenges to the surface in this volume because raising such questions is fruitful for the dialogue between anthropology and theology. This is a dialogue that shines light on the limitations of different perspectives on humans, and one that demonstrates that these difficulties might create fruitful new insights or at least avenues of inquiry into core aspects of being human that lie at the heart of all the disciplines involved. ‘Grace’ is the title of Part Four, with chapters examining grace in the theological anthropology of Karl Rahner, the intricate connectivity between evolutionary histories, neuroscience, and the concept of grace, and, finally, a careful assessment of the importance of continuities and discontinuities in thinking about human evolution. Karen Kilby and Matthew Ashley’s chapter, ‘What Difference Does Grace Make? An Exploration of the Concept of Grace in the Theological Anthropology of Karl Rahner’, begins by pointing out that it is typical of much theology in the Catholic tradition to frame an understanding of humanity, and of the human being’s relationship to both the world and God, with the help of categories of nature and grace. While in Protestant thought, grace is characteristically conceived as a response to sin, in Catholic thought it is more fundamentally understood as an ‘elevation’ of nature. How more precisely to understand the relationship of grace to nature, however, has itself been a point of contestation within Catholic theology, especially in the last century. The chapter offers a two-­fold argument. First, it endeavours to show that Rahner’s theology makes clear how difficult it is, though not necessarily impossible, to find in a specifically theological concept of grace something which might be fruitful when engaging with any kind of

Introduction 9 empirical work. Second, it will suggest a different way in which a concept of grace and evolutionary anthropology might come together, even though the authors acknowledge that Rahner’s analysis has a somewhat dated quality. Oliver Davies’ chapter, ‘Grace in Evolution’, offers a very different approach from the perspective of a philosophically informed theological stance. The theological term ‘grace’ identifies an opposition between ‘nature’ and ‘grace’, where ‘nature’ is understood to operate outside any theistic or revelatory framework. In this chapter, in contrast to Kilby and Ashley’s argument, he suggests that this stark separation has to be called into question philosophically by the ‘freedom’ of grace: its gratuitousness. If the actualization of grace is utterly free, then what does an opposition between graceless ‘nature’ and ‘grace’ actually mean? Where no rules contain, there can be no set boundary. The traditional semantic extensions of ‘grace’ (gratia, charis) into the ‘natural’ registers of harmony, beauty, and the arts link aesthetic grace with natural spontaneity and freedom and so already undermine any such sharp separation. And so the question of the nature of the distinction between ‘grace’ and ‘nature’ can seem central to theology’s self-­definition. The more we look to ‘grace’ as a divinely configured ‘free’ eventuality, the more difficult it is to explain why some people ‘receive grace’ and others do not. Davies asks: why would a free and loving God not want to give us all grace? Alternatively, positing grace within nature or, more precisely, within our human evolution, might seem to subordinate grace to causal dynamics which undermine the claim that grace is most fundamentally grounded in divine initiative. And so we seem to be confronted with an opposition between the truth of our evolved state, with its implied naturalistic determinism, and the truth of grace, with its non-­ negotiable status as divine freedom speaking to human freedom. The title of this chapter, ‘Grace in Evolution’, points to a fresh look at these questions in the light of contemporary scientific insights, both cosmological and anthropological. Here Davies uses different fields of science in order to cast light on how we are in the world, as self-­aware, embodied, and evolved beings. It is in this question of how we are part of the world as human beings that scientific advances can most productively intersect with issues concerning our own humanistic and theological self-­understanding, allowing us to explore a dynamic, contemporary account of the grace-­nature distinction for today. The final chapter by Jon Marks, entitled ‘Continuities and Discontinuities in Human Evolution’, begins to draw the different threads of this volume together by an exploration of the patterns of continuity and discontinuity that have resulted from human evolution. These patterns coexist, but are either overemphasized or underemphasized in different intellectual traditions, serving different rhetorical purposes. His chapter begins with culture and kinship, the two earliest concepts in anthropology, and discuss their different usages in ethology, which emphasizes continuity with the apes. solving capabiliHe then distinguishes intelligence (as rational problem-­ ties), which is continuous with the mentality of apes, from wisdom, which

10  Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes incorporates features like insight and profundity and whose adaptive value is more indirect. He also differentiates primate submissiveness from humility in social behaviour, and altruism from grace. Like kinship, he suggests that the emergence of behaviours or states of humility, grace, and wisdom involved forms and properties of knowledge that are not immediately utilitarian or adaptive. He ends with the provocative conclusion that their gradual emergence in human evolution was intellectual, emotional, social, and largely fictive. This book explores the evolution of distinctly human ways of being in the world, raising fascinating questions about what wisdom means, the origins of practices that encouraged humility, and age-­old debates about the relationship between nature and grace. It will fire the imagination, challenge those working at the intersection of theology and science, and leave the reader with new questions to explore and contemplate. This volume refuses to commit the errors of either too easy a synthesis or too facile a separation between science and religion, but takes up the debate in a new and innovative way through a specific focus on core characteristics relevant to the origins of a distinctly human nature via our lineage’s evolution extending over the course of the Pleistocene. This volume will leave the reader with many intriguing questions unanswered, but it will also inspire many to think creatively about the intellectual importance of working at, and across, the boundaries between disciplines.

Part I

Mapping the terrain

1 Setting the stage Developing the human niche across the Pleistocene Agustín Fuentes

When thinking about humanity from a biological perspective we can identify certain patterns. We give birth to live young with extended childhoods and are characterized by hyper-­complex learning systems. We have large, energetically expensive brains which are associated with the emergence of a dynamic and multifaceted cognitive system. We also have particularly vibrant and interconnected social lives and societies. However, none of these patterns are uniquely human. They are all also characteristic of many primates, cetaceans, elephants, and a range of other social mammals. These biological patterns and processes, while central to understanding aspects of humanity, are not our lineage defining patterns. Much of what we humans see as particularly ‘human’ aspects of our lives are in fact rooted in our shared heritage with the other primates. The centrality of social groups, the importance of social dynamics and relationships, a significant devotion to infants, and their concomitant slow maturation period with so much of their time spent learning, exploring, and socializing with others, is part of being a primate. We are primates and we belong to a particular lineage called hominoids, more commonly known as ‘apes’. The superfamily Hominoidea had their heyday about 16 to 10 million years ago when a diverse array of lineages spread across much of Africa and Eurasia. In most evolutionary approaches, we place humans, initially, in the context of the group of hominoids generally called ‘the great apes’, who currently exist in Southeast Asia and sub-­Saharan Africa. Of the great apes in the Asian group, which had substantive geographic spread and diversity into the early Pliocene, only one of the orangutan remains. Today, there are two species of orangutan with extremely limited ranges. African hominoids had a Plio-­Pleistocene (the last 6 million years or so) diversity restricted to three lineages – the gorillas, the chimpanzees, and the hominins – and all have representatives extant today. The chimpanzees and gorillas, however, are limited largely to the equatorial band across the African continent, whereas the third lineage, humans, is globally distributed.1 Now there are very few hominoids, and all but one lineage (us) are either threatened or endangered.2 The story of the hominoids over the past 6 million years is one of decline in diversity and range. Except for us. Our lineage, the ‘hominins’, undergoes

14  Agustín Fuentes its radiation in the Pliocene (~5–2.5 million years ago) and one branch, the genus Homo, expands during the Pleistocene (2.5 million to about 10,000 years ago).3 We are by far the most successful, and distinctive, hominoid. So, humans are primates, hominoids, and something else. Today we are the most successful of the entire primate radiation (numerically and geographically). There is something evolutionarily distinctive about a lineage that departs so dramatically from the pace and pattern of its entire sister lineages. This is one reason why the study of human evolution requires more than a traditional focus on biological changes over time. But this is not to say that what defines humans is what we term, in a general sense, ‘culture’. Humans are not the only organisms that are socially and ecologically complex, with very large brains relative to their body size that are also neurobiologically dynamic. Apes, cetaceans, and a few other animal lineages have multifaceted social relationships where social traditions (what many call ‘cultural processes’) seem to play substantive roles. If ‘culture’ is defined as behaviour transmitted via social facilitation and learning from others, which endures for long enough to generate customs and traditions, then many species have culture.4 In this context, culture and cultural evolution are significant phenomena in that they emerge from processes of biological evolution but can develop such that they supplement genetic transmission with social transmission and can play central roles in shaping the behaviour, ecology, and even biology, of populations5. However, for humans, our culture is much more than that. The patterns and processes that characterize human behaviour and society include many processes that are significantly different in scale and impact than in most other species that we can say have ‘culture’. For humans, cultural elements involve massive extrasomatic (beyond the body) material creation, manipulation, and use (tools, weapons, clothes, buildings, towns, etc.) and extensive ratcheting – expansion and augmentation of cultural processes based on accumulation and innovation – on scales and with a level of structural and material complexity greater than in any organism. The particulars of perception and action involved in creating, deploying, and navigating human culture are rooted in the linguistically mediated beliefs, institutions, histories, and practices of human groups. Chimpanzees and orcas have amazingly complex and dynamic cultures, but they do not have cash economies and political institutions. Neither do they arrest and deport people, change planet-­wide ecosystems, build cities and airplanes, or drive thousands of other species towards extinction. But we humans do. In humans, the development of the body and mind has evolved as a system where physiology and neurobiology are always in concert with, and mutually co-­constitutive of, the linguistic, socially mediated and constructed structures, institutions, and beliefs that make up key aspects of the human experience.6 This process is one characterized by a distinctively human

Setting the stage 15 culture and is reflective of a particular set of complex and dynamic processes that we see in the human umwelt, our ‘niche’, our way of being in the world.7 Because of the particular evolutionary histories and processes in the human niche, there has been distinctive development and expansion of human neurobiology and cognitive processes. This enables humans to develop extensive detached mental representations, hyper-­creativity, linguistic and symbolic communication, and a particularly powerful capacity for imagining. Due to these processes, the shape of, and boundaries to, the human niche (our experienced, perceived, and created ecology) are not always material or circumscribed by direct and cued representation. Humans are thus open to influence, with potentially evolutionarily relevant implications, from transcendent experiences in addition to specifically cued or materially experienced ones.8 This cognitive, social, perceptual, and experiential complexity and diversity in our social and ecological milieus enables humans to experience, create, and develop skills in perception and awareness that are highly diverse and not contingent on material reality. These may include transcendent experiences, such as religious sensations, beliefs, and practices, as a central process in the navigation, and construction, of the human niche.9 In such a case the human niche – and potentially evolutionarily relevant human experience – is not necessarily bounded by material borders. Thus, integration across multiple modes of inquiry, especially those that engage with some transcendental components as a core premise, may be particularly beneficial when asking questions about the human. Humans are animals, mammals, primates, and hominoids. But we are also hominins, specifically genus Homo, species sapiens. To understand our distinctive evolutionary history is not to understand that we have so much in common with our evolutionary cousins, but rather to grasp what happened over the last 6 million years, or more specifically, what happened the last 2 million years in our own genus.

The challenge of human evolution In assessing the evolution of human beings we need not only explain the development of bodies and our modifications to ecologies, we also must develop a robust description for an evolving system that facilitates the production of Oldowan stone tools at 2 million years ago; more complex stone tool technologies and widening geographic spread starting ~1.8 million years ago; substantive increases in overall cooperation and specifically the coordination of caretaking activities, the use and control of fire, and complex hunting and materiality by 400,000 years ago; art and increasingly complex multi-­community social networks by ~120,000 years ago; domestication by 15,000–10,000 years ago; early cities by 5,000 years ago; and the megacities, global religions, and world economies of today. See Figure 1.1 for a summary of this history.

Figure 1.1 Summary of key material processes evident in the fossil and archaeological record across the last 2 million years, and a suite of behavioural inferences made about them in the published literature.10 These patterns highlight the temporal appearance of many salient features of the human niche, and constitute a series of loci where we might be able to infer evidence of, or generate insight into, aspects of the human niche which indicate the development and deployment of wisdom.11

Setting the stage 17 In short, we need to develop a model that encompasses the critical interlacing systems of the human niche. Making, sharing, and navigating meaning is as central to our evolution as are bones, stones, and local ecologies. If the human experience – past, present, and future – is, as the anthropologist Maurice Bloch12 noted, characterized by being simultaneously transactional and transcendent, then scholarly discussion on the topic can benefit from discourse that integrates, engages, and interweaves diverse theoretical, philosophical, and theological perspectives. The perceptual and experiential play a core role in human becomings, evolutionary and otherwise. One can envision part of the explanation for the critical arcs in human evolution across the Pleistocene pivoting on the pattern (and ability) of successful complex decision-­making in navigating increasingly larger and more complex social networks in the developing niches of human communities. Philosophers and theologians might term this ability a form of wisdom (which may include humility, even forms of grace, as key elements13) and see it reflected in the human perceptual and behavioural toolkit.14 Anthropologists see such abilities as reflecting the behavioural and perceptual (cognitive) processes inherent in the dynamics of the human niche and generally remain rooted in evolutionary, or cultural and historical, explanations when invoking the causal structures for such processes. Regardless of how we label them, such capacities and processes have an evolutionary history and are not exclusively based in material contexts. Assessing evidence for the emergence of such dynamic facets of the human niche in the palaeoanthropological record is extremely challenging (to put it mildly). Is it possible to identify particular aspects of the material and fossil records that indicate the ways in which human beings, and other hominins in our lineage (Homo), expressed aspects of this complexity, patterns of wisdom, humility, even grace, in their social lives and interactions with ecologies? Possibly. Such indications may be embedded in material items and in the signs and meanings such items may contain, in aspects of changing bodies, and through particular patterns of landscape use and modification. The goal of this volume is to look to our evolutionary past from anthropological, philosophical, and theological perspectives in order to develop more sophisticated understandings of the complex and meaning-­laden emergence of human communities and human capacities. Here I set the stage for the chapters and discussions in this volume via a brief overview of the pace and pattern of Pleistocene human evolution: that is, the material ground, the evidentiary bases, and the contemporary evolutionary frame for what we will be discussing. I will highlight key processes and identify specific material indicators of structural and perceptual alterations in the human niche that may act as signposts, or other types of markers, for the emergence of the contemporary human experience.

18  Agustín Fuentes

Human evolutionary history in a nutshell Over the last 2 million years, the human lineage underwent clear morphological changes alongside less easily measurable, but significant, behavioural and cognitive shifts as it forged, and was shaped by, new niches – human niches. Our lineage developed from a group of small, bipedal hominoids to the makers of advanced stone tools, the controllers of fire, and the producers of cave art and on to become the constructors of towns, cities, and empires, builders of political institutions, academies, economies, world religions, and ultimately becoming a (or the) core causal force in the global ecosystem. In a nutshell, what we are seeing across the Pleistocene is the emergence of a human niche, one that is simultaneously material, ecological, perceptual, and eventually, metaphysical. In contemporary ecological theory the niche is the structural, temporal, and social context in which a species exists. In the most basic sense it includes space, structure, climate, nutrients, and other physical and social factors as they are experienced, and restructured, by organisms and via the presence of competitors, collaborators, and other agents in a shared environment.15 Today the human niche is the spatial, ecological, and social sphere that includes all social partners, perceptual contexts, and ecologies of human individuals, groups, and communities and the many other species that live with and alongside humans. In this niche, humans occupy multiple possible subgroupings across space and time and can share cognitive, social, and ecological bonds even in the absence of close spatial proximity. It is within the context of this niche that humans interface, interact with, modify, and are modified by, social and ecological pressures during the course of their development. But human niches also involve ideologies, institutions, and practices. Human niches are the context for the lived experience of humans and their communities, where they share ‘kinship’ and social and ecological histories, and where they create and participate in shared knowledge, social and structural security, and development across the lifespan.16 In humans, since at least the latter Pleistocene, the niches we occupy, structure, and interact with include the perceptual contexts of human individuals and communities – the ways in which the structural and social relationships are perceived, signified, and expressed via behavioural, symbolic, and material aspects of the human experience.17 Terry Deacon18 offers us an effective description for this key facet of the human niche, describing it as the ubiquitous semiotic ecosystem in which we develop: an encompassing and dynamic context for human lives which is simultaneously ecological, material, imagined, perceived, and constructed. In the human niche meaning matters, and it is evolutionally relevant. Following the insights of many authors19 we can argue that the human capacity for creative cooperation – i.e. the ability to think, communicate, and collaborate with increasing prowess – facilitated the development of a

Setting the stage 19 lineage capable of developing our contemporary human niche. This collaborative and imaginative capacity for creativity is also the suite of processes and capabilities that laid the path for the development of religious dogmas, judicial and ethical systems, and the production of masterful works of art. These same capacities also tragically fuelled and facilitated our ability to compete in more deadly ways – to wage war; to systematically dehumanize, colonize, and oppress other members of our species; and to manipulate the planet to the brink of ecological devastation. One can see that the capacity for wisdom (and possibly aspects of grace and humility, as defined earlier) could play a role in this broad frame I offer for Homo Pleistocene evolution. I suggest that such a perspective on these capacities, as they reflect the perceptual/cognitive capabilities, emerges from the dynamics of human evolutionary histories. For many, such an approach is neither a ubiquitous or necessary analytic tool in the anthropological toolkit. However, at least some philosophers and theologians might suggest it should be. I join in such suggestions and offer the possibility that anthropologists, thinking with these other disciplines, might gain insight that otherwise would elude us. Today humans hold wisdom, humility, and grace (in various forms) as entangled and divergent, often competing, potentialities in ourselves and societies, and we manage them with more and/or less success. How can ‘thinking with’ the thematic context of the human niche offer insight into how and why this came to be? Can the fossil and archaeological record offer us clues to the evolutionary processes underpinning these capacities? The development of the human niche is a process of the changing bodies, minds, and lives of the members of the genus Homo. In order to set the stage to think with such processes, and their relation to wisdom, grace, and humility, I briefly review the human evolutionary baseline and what cognitive, behavioural, and structural processes developed over the Pleistocene history of the genus Homo. The fossil and archaeological records reveal patterns of morphological, material, and behavioural changes across evolutionary time. This leads to a common concern for palaeoanthropologists: when, in the Pleistocene, to start calling the members of the genius Homo ‘human’. At the current moment there is substantive contention about how many species are represented in the lineage of Homo and how one species is related to another.20 There is no consistent species definition for Pleistocene Homo, especially members of the genus Homo, nor is there agreement across researchers as to how to develop one. Nearly all researchers agree that there is substantial morphological variation in populations of the genus Homo across the last million years. There is also disagreement on the major event that ‘identifies’ the emergence of contemporary humans. Two classic assertions of this ‘event’ are ‘behavioural modernity’ and ‘anatomical modernity’.21 Anatomical modernity is when fossils that appear more or less morphologically the same as

20  Agustín Fuentes contemporary humans became commonplace. Initially this was pegged to ~100,000 years ago, then it was pushed back to 180,000 years ago, and most recently has been pushed again to ~300,000 years ago due to new fossil finds.22 The behavioural modernity argument posits a ‘human revolution’, where specific adaptive cognitive changes enabled Homo sapiens (true humans) to outcompete other members of the genus Homo (Neanderthals and Homo heidelbergensis).23 Until recently this event was identified by the association of ‘symbolic’ artefacts exclusively with what was considered anatomically modern Homo sapiens. The timing of this event had been variously pegged to the appearance of cave art and carved figures (~60,000–50,000 years ago), then to specific types of stone tool technologies (~75,000 years ago), then, more recently, to the use of ochre for engravings and pigments (~80,000–180,000 years ago). And now it is clear that non-­Homo sapiens produced and used such items. The quest to place ‘humanity’ alongside the emergence of anatomical or behavioural modernity is misguided.24 The package of morphological traits traditionally labelled ‘anatomically modern’ appears in varying forms, in varying places, in different populations of Homo across Africa and Eurasia over the last 300,000–400,000 years. Almost every type of material evidence of meaning-­making – of ‘symbol’ – shows up associated with populations that do not have modern human morphology or show up before any populations with modern human anatomy exist.25 Becoming human was and is an evolutionary process. There is no clear line in the last half-­million years or so where we can state with absolute certainty that hominins become humans. Current evidence supports that many populations in the genus Homo contributed to contemporary humans (us).26 However, we can state that the last half-­million years or so is a core time of major transitions in the biology and behaviour of the genus Homo. Rather than seeing these changes as radical shifts in material cultures that indicate new and distinctive cognitive capacity, and a new species, we can see this more as a process. Contemporary Homo sapiens’ success relative to other members of the genus Homo was not due to a set of specific morphological and/or material adaptations, but rather a suite of changes in how they perceived, and interacted with, the world and each other: a change in the human niche. And the underlying question is why these changes happened when they did. The baseline for the human niche is that which is not distinctively human, but rather hominoid and hominin. Morphologically this includes the primate characteristics of grasping hands, forward-­facing, overlapping eyes, and colour vision. For the hominoid, this includes a 360-­degree-­rotating arm-­ shoulder joint as well as a hominin morphology enabling bipedal locomotion, a very large brain-­to-­body size ratio, high-­intensity hand-­eye coordination, and manual dexterity. With the genus Homo (at least the last 1.5 million years or so), we also gain a significantly extended developmental

Setting the stage 21 period (relative to other hominoids and to earlier hominins) with very early birth (developmentally speaking) and long periods of brain development postpartum. We also develop the physiology to produce highly modulated (aspirated) and cognitively controlled vocalizations. Our behavioural baseline is what we can comfortably assume the LCA (last common ancestor between Hominins and other Hominines [African apes]) exhibited some 7–10 million years ago. This baseline includes the following: some form of community (fission-­fussion, multi-­male, or multi-­ female) social organization; highly social groups with complex social relationships and networks that cut across biological kinship with relatively high levels of cooperation; increased social cognition relative to other primates; frequent social reciprocity; local social tradition and innovation (‘culture’); and simple tool use. We might also assume, given the patterns observed in the remaining great apes and modern humans, a strong role for social niche construction.27 It is over the course of Homo’s Pleistocene evolution that a range of distinctive cognitive and behavioural capacities develops. These are the keys to the hypotheses and models that seek to answer the question, ‘what is distinctively human?’ – and are also key in our discussions here. These include:28 • • • •

• • •

A substantial expansion in brain size, pace of development, and neurological plasticity/malleability; Substantially expanded cultural innovation via manipulation of extrasomatic materials (tools and others); Accumulation of cultural complexity (including material technology) via an autocatalytic process involving feedback between creativity and transmission (intensive ratcheting); Hyper-­cooperation and multi-­modal collaboration as core social and ecological processes that produce a distinctive coevolutionary interdependence between the ecological, cognitive, and neural systems (skill transmission moves from observational learning and social facilitation to an apprentice model by the middle Pleistocene and eventually to direct instruction shortly after); The development of a ‘language ready brain’ and the eventual emergence of language; A distinctive human socio-­ cognitive niche and ubiquitous semiotic ecosystem; The Holocene and post-­ Holocene (Anthropocene) explosions in demography, cultural diversity, material complexity, massive manipulation of other organisms (domestication), and the creation of diverse modes of extrasomatic information transfer/technology (modernity and post-­modernity).

In short, across the Pleistocene the human lineage29 acquired a distinctive set of neurological, physiological, and social skills that enabled us to work

22  Agustín Fuentes together and think together in order to create and collaborate at increasing levels of complexity. This interfaced with our expanding ecologies, developing a system that continues to shape, and be shaped by, the human niche.30 This collaboration intrinsically involves a capacity for imagination, the intensification of the use of signs, and the creation and use of symbol. As Terry Deacon31 notes, humans are a ‘symbolic species’, analogous to the way one might characterize birds as ‘aerial species’ and ‘dolphins as aquatic species’. But, he argues, unlike these ecologically specialized lineages, the symbolic ‘ecology’ that humans evolved is not external32 to the human lineage; it is inextricably part of it. It is our niche and its development, and the feedback processes within it, that are central to an explanation for how humans came to be the way we are that is not tied to a specific ‘modern’ human anatomy as previously assumed.33

Looking forward Given this brief overview of Pleistocene Homo and the human niche, what are some potentially fruitful areas for a transdisciplinary focus on the subjects of wisdom, grace, and humility in deep time? A key place to focus is on the behavioural and ecological changes suggested by the transitions and developments of increasingly complex tool types in the archaeological record (e.g. from Oldowan to Acheulean tools, from Acheulean phase 1 to phase 2, the emergence of bone tools, composite tools, microliths, etc.).34 The changes in tool complexity are necessarily connected to changes in cognitive and communicative processes likely connected to increasingly complex patterns of information transfer, teaching, and learning.35 Such patterns could be seen as central to any arguments about the emergence of a human ‘wisdom’. A second arena would be the emergence of increasingly complex cooperative and collaborative social investment processes as basal in the genus Homo. The support for this includes the increased evidence of caretaking of impaired individuals, life history expansions, evidence for extended childhoods and developmental periods, and the concomitant ratcheting up of complexity of parenting behaviour by individuals in addition to the mother.36 These processes in the genus Homo, characterized by the augmentation of care and investment in others, may be directly relevant to discourse on the origins and emergence of facets of what we might term grace and humility. These patterns might also be related to a deepening of social relations that call for augmented social cognition and social navigational skills, potentially key factors in what many would define as human wisdom.37 One can also see the emergence of the regular use of fire, as evidenced via archaeological and fossil remains, as another arena where critical cognitive, behavioural, and perceptual shifts may have been facilitated.38 Finally, the flickerings39 of sign creation and use, and the development and increased frequency of meaning-­making in the terminal Pleistocene (the last

Setting the stage 23 ~300,000–400,000 years), as evidenced by material remains, offers a robust locale for inquiries about processes and patterns related to the move from beings who exist in transactional realities to those who exist both in transactional and transcendent ones.40 Clearly these processes might offer substantive fodder for discourses on wisdom, and potentially grace and humility. The chapters in this volume offer us insight and possible novel pathways in order to elucidate just how these processes might be illuminated by interweaving scientific, philosophical, and theological investigations.

Notes 1 R. Stumpf, ‘Chimpanzees and Bonobos: Diversity within and between Species’, in Primates in Perspective, 2nd ed., edited by C. Campbell, A. Fuentes, K.C. MacKinnon, S. Bearder, and R. Stumpf (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 340–357. 2 A. Estrada et al., ‘Impending Extinction Crisis of the World’s Primates: Why Primates Matter’, Science Advances 3, no. 1 (2017): e1600946, doi:10.1126/ sciadv.1600946. 3 B. Wood and E. Boyle, ‘Hominin Taxic Diversity: Fact or Fantasy?’ Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 159 (2016): S37–S78. 4 G. Ramsey, ‘Culture in Humans and Other Animals’, Biology & Philosophy 28, no. 3 (2013): 457–479, doi:10.1007/s10539-­012-­9347-­x. 5 Andrew Whiten and David Erdal, ‘The Human Socio-­Cognitive Niche and Its Evolutionary Origins’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367 (2012): 2119–2129. 6 A. Fuentes, ‘Human Niche, Human Behaviour, Human Nature’, Interface Focus 7, no. 5 (2017): 20160136, doi:10.1098/rsfs.2016.0136; and A. Fuentes, Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being (New Haven: Yale University Press/Templeton Press, 2019). 7 A. Fuentes, ‘The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology’, Current Anthropology 57, S13 (2016): 13–26, doi:10.1086/685684; Fuentes, ‘Human Niche’; and A. Fuentes, The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Distinctive (New York: Dutton, 2017). 8 This perspective is a crucial one for theologians and philosophers thinking with the evolutionary record and palaeoanthropological approaches. In my opinion, it offers a nexus of shared focus wherein contributions from the perspective of theologians and philosophers can substantially assist in developing deeper understandings of how humans can, do, and have engaged with perceptual realities that are permeated with salient features that are not necessarily rooted in material experience or contexts. 9 Fuentes, Why We Believe. 10 Figure taken from A. Fuentes, ‘How Humans and Apes are Different and Why it Matters’, Journal of Anthropological Research 74, no. 2 (2018): 151–167, doi:10.1086/697150. The dates are represented as generalized indicators (based on the published reports for these elements). However, as with much of the archaeological record, there remains some debate about specific timing/dating for many of these elements. Also, the specific taxa associated with the various processes are left out due to the substantial disagreement over nomenclature and taxa assignation. This reflects the patterns of many groups of the genus Homo across the Pleistocene with full acknowledgement that for the last 20,000– 30,000 years only one member remains – us.

24  Agustín Fuentes 11 Here I am leaving grace and humility aside, as I am sceptical about my ability to place them in dialogue with the material record. The more theologically oriented chapters in this volume offer substantive insight into the options for such engagement. It may well be that reflecting on humility pushes us to think about the limits of human cooperation and grace pushes to the limit of what it might mean to have transcendent experiences; nevertheless, tracking their presence materially can only be indirectly inferred due to their entanglement with other processes which can be tracked. 12 M. Bloch, ‘Why Religion is Nothing Special but is Central’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363, no. 1499 (2008): 2055–2061. 13 Here I am relying on general uses of these terms. I see wisdom, in an evolutionary perspective, as the pattern (and ability) of successful complex decision-­ making in navigating social networks and dynamic niches in human communities. Humility, in this context, is the awareness of the larger dynamic processes involved in navigating the human niche and the ability to effectively see oneself as a participant in the cooperative networks of belonging and compassion that are core to the human niche. Finally, I use grace, which is often seen by theologians as the ability to receive the divine, as the possible openness to, or capacity to engage with, the transcended aspects of the human niche. 14 C. Deane-­Drummond and A. Fuentes, The Evolution of Human Wisdom (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield, 2007); A. Fuentes and C. Deane-­Drummond, eds., Evolution of Wisdom: Major and Minor Keys (Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing, University of Notre Dame, 2018), https://curate.nd.edu/show/mk61rf59283. 15 David B. Wake, Elizabeth A. Hadley, and David D. Ackerly, ‘Biogeography, Changing Climates, and Niche Evolution’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 106, no. 2 (2009): 19631–19636. 16 A. Fuentes, ‘Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution’, American Anthropologist 117, no. 2 (2015): 302–315, doi:10.1111/aman.12248; Fuentes, ‘The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis’; and Fuentes, ‘Human Niche’. 17 S. Anton, R. Potts and L. Aiello, ‘Evolution of Early Homo: An Integrated Biological Perspective’, Science 345, no. 6192 (2014): 1236828, doi:10.1126/ science.1236828; Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species (London: Penguin Press, 1997); A. Fuentes, ‘How Humans and Apes are Different’. Matt Grove and Fiona Coward, ‘From Individual Neurons to Social Brains’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18 (2008): 387–400, doi:10.1017/ S0959774308000437. 18 Terrence Deacon, ‘On Human (Symbolic) Nature: How the Word Became Flesh’, in Embodiment in Evolution and Culture, edited by G. Etzelmüller and C. Tewes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 129–149. 19 Deacon, Symbolic Species; R.A. Foley, ‘Mosaic Evolution and the Pattern of Transitions in the Hominin Lineage’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 371 (2016): 20150244, doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0244; Grove and Coward, ‘From Individual Neurons’; S.B. Hrdy, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009); Penny Spikins, Holly Rutherford, and Andy Needham, ‘From Homininity to Humanity: Compassion from the Earliest Archaics to Modern Humans’, Time and Mind 3, no. 2 (2010): 303–326; Kim Sterelny, The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution made Humans Unique (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012); and Michael Tomasello, The Natural History of Human Thinking (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).

Setting the stage 25 20 Ackerman and Schroeder, ‘The Emergence of Complexity and Novelty in the Human Fossil Record’, current volume; Anton et al., ‘Evolution of Early Homo’; Wood and Boyle, ‘Hominin Taxic Diversity’. 21 M. Kissel and A. Fuentes, ‘ “Behavioral Modernity” as a Process, not an Event, in the Human Niche’, Time and Mind 11, no. 2 (2018): 163–183, doi:10.1080/ 1751696X.2018.1469230; Curtis W. Marean, ‘An Evolutionary Anthropological Perspective on Modern Human Origins’, Annual Review of Anthropology 44 (2015): 533–556; Sally McBrearty and Alison Brooks, ‘The Revolution That Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior’, Journal of Human Evolution 39 (2000): 453–563; John J. Shea, ‘Homo Sapiens Is as Homo Sapiens Was’, Current Anthropology 52, no. 1 (2011): 1–35. 22 Jean-­Jacques Hublin, Abdelouahed Ben-­Ncer, Shara E. Bailey, Sarah E. Freidline, Simon Neubauer, Matthew M. Skinner, Inga Bergmann et al., ‘New Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the Pan-­African Origin of Homo Sapiens’, Nature 546, no. 7657 (2017): 289–292. 23 Shea, ‘Homo Sapiens’. 24 M. Kissel and A. Fuentes, ‘From Hominid to Human: The Role of Human Wisdom and Distinctiveness in the Evolution of Modern Humans’, Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3, no. 2 (2016): 217–244; and M. Kissel and A. Fuentes, ‘Semiosis in the Pleistocene’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27, no. 3 (2017): 1–16 doi:10.1017/S0959774317000014. 25 Kissel and Fuentes, ‘ “Behavioral Modernity” ’. 26 R.R. Ackermann, A. Mackay, and M.L. Arnold, ‘The Hybrid Origin of “Modern” Humans’, Evolutionary Biology 43 (2015): 1–11, doi:10.1007/s11692-­ 015-­ 9348-­ 1; Ackermann and Schroder, ‘The Emergence’ of Complexity; E. Scerri et al., ‘Did Our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations Across Africa, and Why Does It Matter?’ Trends in Ecology & Evolution 33, no. 8 (2018): 582–594, doi:10.1016/j.tree.2018.05.005. 27 Foley, ‘Mosaic Evolution’; N.M. Malone, A. Fuentes, and F.J. White, ‘Variation in the Social Systems of Extant Hominoids: Comparative Insight into the Social Behaviour of Early Hominins’, International Journal of Primatology 33, no. 6 (2012): 1251–1277, doi:10.10007/s10764-­012-­9617-­0. 28 Fuentes, ‘Human Niche’; Fuentes, ‘How Humans and Apes are Different’; see also M.A. Arbib, ‘From Mirror Neurons to Complex Imitation in the Evolution of Language and Tool Use’, Annual Review of Anthropology 40 (2011): 257–273; Deacon, ‘On Human (Symbolic) Nature’; M. Enquist, S. Ghirlanda, A. Jarrick, and C.A. Wachtmeister, ‘Why Does Human Culture Increase Exponentially?’, Theoretical Population Biology 74 (2008): 46–55; Foley, ‘Mosaic Evolution’; Hrdy, Mothers and Others; T.C. Scott-­Phillips, ‘Nonhuman Primate Communication, Pragmatics, and the Origins of Language’, Current Anthropology 56, no. 1 (2015): 56–80; Kim Sterelny, ‘From Hominins to Humans: How Sapiens Became Behaviourally Modern’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences 366 (2011): 809–822; Sterelny, Evolved Apprentice; Tomasello, Natural History; Whiten and Erdal, ‘The Human Socio-­ Cognitive Niche’; M.A. Zeder, ‘Why Evolutionary Biology Needs Anthropology: Evaluating Core Assumptions of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis’, Evolutionary Anthropology 27, no. 6 (2018): 267–284, doi:10.1002/evan.21747. 29 Note that I am purposefully not engaging the taxonomic debates about the various members of the lineage Homo. We know that extant Homo sapiens have biological inheritance from diverse Homo populations and it is likely that behavioural, and potentially symbolic, inheritances from a range of Pleistocene Homo populations have also played a role in our evolution. 30 Fuentes, ‘Human Niche’. 31 Deacon, ‘On Human (Symbolic) Nature’.

26  Agustín Fuentes 2 We did not adapt to it. 3 33 Fuentes, Creative Spark; Fuentes, ‘How Humans and Apes are Different’; and Kissel and Fuentes, ‘ “Behavioral Modernity” ’. 34 Foley, ‘Mosaic Evolution’; Fuentes, Creative Spark. 35 Sterelny, Evolved Apprentice; and Fuentes, ‘Integrative Anthropology’. 36 For example: Hrdy, Mothers and Others; Spikins et al., ‘From Homininity to Humanity’; Penny Spikins, ‘The Loss of Innocence in the Deep Past: Wisdom, Humility and Grace within a Developing Understanding of the Emergence of Human Moral Emotions’, current volume. 37 Deane-­Drummond and Fuentes, The Evolution of Human Wisdom; and Fuentes and Deane-­Drummond, eds., The Evolution of Wisdom. 38 P.W. Wiessner, ‘Embers of Society: Firelight Talk Among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 39 (2014): 14027–14035. 39 Kissel and Fuentes, ‘From Hominid to Human’; Kissel and Fuentes, ‘Semiosis in the Pleistocene’. 40 For example, Bloch, ‘Why Religion’.

Glossary grace:  the possible openness to, or capacity to engage with, the transcended aspects of the human niche. hominin:  the lineage of hominoidea to which humans belong. hominoidea:  the evolutionary super-­family of apes and humans. Homo:  the distinctly human lineage (separate from other hominins). human niche:  our experienced, perceived, and created ecology. humility: the awareness of the larger dynamic processes involved in navigating the human niche and the ability to effectively see oneself as a participant in the cooperative networks of belonging and compassion that are core to the human niche. wisdom:  in an evolutionary perspective, the pattern (and ability) of successful complex decision-­ making in navigating social networks and dynamic niches in human communities.

Bibliography Ackermann, R.R., A. Mackay, and M.L. Arnold. ‘The Hybrid Origin of “Modrn” Humans’. Evolutionary Biology 43 (2015): 1–11, doi:10.1007/s11692-­015-­9348-­1. Anton, S., R. Potts, and L. Aiello. ‘Evolution of Early Homo: An Integrated Biological Perspective’. Science 345, no. 6192 (2014): 1236828, doi:10.1126/science. 1236828. Arbib, M.A. ‘From Mirror Neurons to Complex Imitation in the Evolution of Language and Tool Use’. Annual Review of Anthropology 40 (2011): 257–273. Bloch, M. ‘Why Religion Is Nothing Special But is Central’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363, no. 1499 (2008): 2055–2061. Deacon, Terrence. ‘On Human (Symbolic) Nature: How the Word Became Flesh’. In Embodiment in Evolution and Culture, edited by G. Etzelmüller and C. Tewes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 129–149. Deacon, Terrence. The Symbolic Species (London: Penguin Press, 1997).

Setting the stage 27 Deane-­Drummond, C., and A. Fuentes. The Evolution of Human Wisdom (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield, 2017). Enquist, M., S. Ghirlanda, A. Jarrick, and C.A. Wachtmeister. ‘Why Does Human Culture Increase Exponentially?’ Theoretical Population Biology 74 (2008): 46–55. Estrada, A. et al. ‘Impending Extinction Crisis of the World’s Primates: Why Primates Matter’. Science Advances 3, no. 1 (2017): e1600946, doi:10.1126/ sciadv.1600946. Foley, R.A. ‘Mosaic Evolution and the Pattern of Transitions in the Hominin Lineage’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 371 (2016): 20150244, doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0244. Fuentes, A. The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Distinctive (New York: Dutton, 2017). Fuentes, A. ‘The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology’. Current Anthropology 57, no. S13 (2016): 13–26, doi:10.1086/685684. Fuentes, A. ‘How Humans and Apes are Different, and Why It Matters’. Journal of Anthropological Research 74, no. 2 (2018): 151–167, doi:10.1086/697150. Fuentes, A. ‘Human Niche, Human Behaviour, Human Nature’. Interface Focus 7, no. 5 (2017): 20160136, doi:10.1098/rsfs.2016.0136. Fuentes, A. ‘Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution’. American Anthropologist 117, no. 2 (2015): 302–315, doi:10.1111/aman.12248. Fuentes, A. Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being (New Haven: Yale University Press/Templeton Press, 2019). Fuentes, A., and C. Deane-­Drummond, eds. Evolution of Wisdom: Major and Minor Keys (Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing, University of Notre Dame, 2018), https://ctshf.pressbooks.com/. Grove, Matt, and Fiona Coward. ‘From Individual Neurons to Social Brains’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18 (2008): 387–400, doi:10.1017/S0959774 308000437. Hrdy, S.B. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Hublin, Jean-­Jacques, Abdelouahed Ben-­Ncer, Shara E. Bailey, Sarah E. Freidline, Simon Neubauer, Matthew M. Skinner, Inga Bergmann et al. ‘New Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the Pan-­African Origin of Homo Sapiens’. Nature 546, no. 7657 (2017): 289–292. Kissel, M., and A. Fuentes. ‘ “Behavioral Modernity” as a Process, Not an Event, in the Human Niche’. Time and Mind 11, no. 2 (2018): 163–183, doi:10.1080/175 1696X.2018.1469230. Kissel, M., and A. Fuentes. ‘From Hominid to Human: The Role of Human Wisdom and Distinctiveness in the Evolution of Modern Humans’. Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3, no. 2 (2016): 217–244. Kissel, M., and A. Fuentes. ‘Semiosis in the Pleistocene’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27, no. 3 (2017): 1–16, doi:10.1017/S0959774317000014. Malone, N.M., A. Fuentes, and F.J. White. ‘Variation in the Social Systems of Extant Hominoids: Comparative Insight into the Social Behaviour of Early Hominins’. International Journal of Primatology 33, no. 6 (2012): 1251–1277, doi:10.10007/ s10764-­012-­9617-­0.

28  Agustín Fuentes Marean, Curtis W. ‘An Evolutionary Anthropological Perspective on Modern Human Origins’. Annual Review of Anthropology 44 (2015): 533–556. McBrearty, Sally, and Alison Brooks. ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior’. Journal of Human Evolution 39 (2000): 453–563. Ramsey, G. ‘Culture in Humans and Other Animals’. Biology & Philosophy 28, no. 3 (2013): 457–479, doi:10.1007/s10539-­012-­9347-­x. Scerri, E. et al. ‘Did Our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations Across Africa, and Why Does It Matter?’ Trends in Ecology & Evolution 33, no. 8 (2018): 582– 594, doi:10.1016/j.tree.2018.05.005. Scott-­Phillips, T.C. ‘Nonhuman Primate Communication, Pragmatics, and the Origins of Language’. Current Anthropology 56, no. 1 (2015): 56–80. Shea, John J. ‘Homo Sapiens Is as Homo Sapiens Was’. Current Anthropology 52, no. 1 (2011): 1–35. Spikins, Penny, Holly Rutherford, and Andy Needham. ‘From Homininity to Humanity: Compassion from the Earliest Archaics to Modern Humans’. Time and Mind 3, no. 2 (2010): 303–326. Sterelny, Kim. The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution made Humans Unique (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012). Sterelny, Kim. ‘From Hominins to Humans: How Sapiens Became Behaviourally Modern’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences 366 (2011): 809–822. Stumpf, R. ‘Chimpanzees and Bonobos: Diversity within and between Species’. In Primates in Perspective, 2nd ed., edited by C. Campbell, A. Fuentes, K.C. MacKinnon, S. Bearder, and R. Stumpf (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 321–344. Tomasello, Michael. The Natural History of Human Thinking (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). Wake, David B., Elizabeth A. Hadley, and David D. Ackerly. ‘Biogeography, Changing Climates, and Niche Evolution’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 106, no. 2 (2009): 19631–19636. Whiten, Andrew, and David Erdal. ‘The Human Socio-­Cognitive Niche and Its Evolutionary Origins’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367 (2012): 2119–2129. Wiessner, P.W. ‘Embers of Society: Firelight Talk Among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 39 (2014): 14027–14035. Wood, B., and E. Boyle. ‘Hominin Taxic Diversity: Fact or Fantasy?’ Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 159 (2016): S37–S78. Zeder, M.A. ‘Why Evolutionary Biology Needs Anthropology: Evaluating Core Assumptions of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis’. Evolutionary Anthropology 27, no. 6 (2018): 267–284, doi:10.1002/evan.21747.

2 The emergence of complexity and novelty in the human fossil record Rebecca Rogers Ackermann and Lauren Schroeder The hominin fossil record: in brief Hominin evolution has occurred over the course of the last 6 million years or so (see Figure 2.1).1 The earliest fossil hominins – including australopiths and other early taxa, restricted entirely to Africa – are diverse in terms of their morphology, but have in common (non-­human) ape-­sized bodies and brains. Presumably, their behavioural repertoire was also ape-­like in most respects, with the possible exception of the role that an increasingly bipedal locomotive repertoire played in their ability to navigate their environments and access resources. The emergence of our genus, Homo, marks the beginning of fairly substantial changes in both cranial and postcranial morphology, along with an abundant record of formalized tool manufacture and other cultural developments. The genus Homo is also characterized by a significant amount of morphological diversity, a phenomenon central to the longstanding debate around the origin and evolution of Homo.2 The earliest fossil that has been attributed to Homo comes from Ledi-­Geraru, Ethiopia, dated to approximately 2.8 million years ago (Ma).3 Between 2.8 and 2.0 Ma, the fossil record of Homo is sparse, represented by a handful of gnathic (maxilla, mandible, teeth) remains, and only increases in bone representivity, sample size, and species diversity after 2.0 Ma. We currently have at least three taxa of early Homo – H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, and H. erectus – that overlap temporally and in some cases geographically. There also appears to be considerable variation within at least some taxa, as highlighted in the large and highly variable sample of H. erectus from Dmanisi, Georgia.4 At ~1.8 Ma, this Georgian H. erectus sample marks the first appearance of our lineage outside of Africa and the beginning of its spread into other parts of the world.5 Once H. erectus left Africa they moved fairly quickly, arriving in Southeast Asia not long after their initial emergence. In this taxon we see a general trend of smaller teeth and increasing (though variable) brain size, with many individuals having brain sizes in the range of living humans. In general, they are characterized by modern body proportions, a more sophisticated tool kit and increased hunting, and the ability to live in many and more diverse environments. There is, however, quite a lot of morphological variability across individuals and regions, and indeed there is some disagreement about

30  Ackermann and Schroeder whether this taxon represents two (or more) taxa. H. erectus persists for more than 1.5 million years, until just less than 200,000 years ago in some regions, occupying sites across Africa and the more southerly portions of Asia (e.g. Georgia, China, Java). It is well accepted that H. erectus – and/or its descendants – is broadly ancestral to us, though that does not necessarily mean that all H. erectus populations contributed to our ancestry. Indeed, the period from around 1 million years onwards becomes increasingly complex in terms of potential taxon diversity, as well as our understanding of human origins. What is clear is that we see multiple lineages – verified by genetic studies – that indicate branching during this time period. This branching results in regional variants of human ancestors in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Out of this diversity, the human species ultimately arises, with people who begin to look essentially like us clearly present in the fossil record by the time we get to the end of the Pleistocene.

Morphological novelty and its complex origins We now want to turn to this question of the evolution of new forms that have novel attributes or appear to be more complex than previous forms. This is particularly relevant to the topic of this book because there has been a tendency to interpret new things, especially when they appear to be more complex than previous things, as the product of natural selection acting to create such complexity and novelty. (A good example of this is the production of bigger and more complex brains; large brains are generally interpreted as resulting from selection for increased intelligence or other cognitive abilities.) Although no evolutionary biologist would frame these changes in the language of ‘progress’, we nonetheless tend to attribute them to adaptive change that moves in a progressive way towards our current state (e.g. better able to navigate changing environments, more capable of communication, ‘ultimate invader’). As an example of the latter, a dominant narrative regarding the emergence of modern people frames the entire conversation as one of increasing abilities progressing towards the modern condition; e.g. more complex cognition leading to more advanced behaviours, better weapons, and ultimately the conquering of the world.6 In the context of palaeoanthropology more broadly, this adaptationist approach (the tendency to assume adaptive explanations for describing organismal traits, without any consideration of alternative evolutionary explanations7) manifests itself in the causal explanations given to describe major transitions and morphological diversity present in the human fossil record. Such an approach overlooks, and to some extent disregards, the potential contributions made by other evolutionary processes such as genetic drift and gene flow. However, while there is no doubt that the emergence of our genus is characterized broadly by novelty and innovation and what might be interpreted as increasing complexity, many of these key elements that have traditionally served as signatures of precisely this – things such as increased brain size, formalized tool use, and an essentially human-­like mode of locomotion – do

The emergence of complexity and novelty 31 not appear as a package, but instead emerge at different points in time and are associated with different taxa. The earliest stone tools actually pre-­date the evolution of Homo by half a million years;8 their manufacturers are still unknown, though the best candidate is likely Australopithecus afarensis, given its geographic and temporal proximity. Similarly, although there may be signatures of changing brain morphology in very late australopiths, early Homo cranial material shows little change from the australopiths, with brain size making its first significant leap with H. erectus. It is with H. erectus that we also see a largely modern postcranial skeleton (though it is important to note that the postcranial fossil record of other early Homo is poor). Adding additional complexity to this picture, the coexistence of multiple taxa at different points in time, and the re-­evolution of small brains in multiple contexts,9 challenge a linear notion of the emergence of Homo-­ like morphology. For example, in 2003 and 2004, several hominin fossil specimens were recovered from the Liang Bau cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia.10 Most (but not all) researchers agree that these specimens are representative of a new hominin species named Homo floresiensis.11 Despite their recent age of ~100,000–60,000 years ago, these individuals are small-­ brained (417 cm3) and small-­bodied. They also overlap temporally with the appearance of modern Homo sapiens in the broader region, while at the same time displaying a number of ancestral traits indicative of early Homo.12 Similarly, in late 2013, a new species of fossil hominin, Homo naledi, was recovered from the Dinaledi Chamber in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa.13 With a cranial capacity ranging between 465 and 560 cm3, Homo naledi lends further support to the idea that a large brain size cannot be regarded as a defining character of Homo. Its recent date of between 335,000 and 236,000 years ago14 parallels the situation in Flores,15 indicating that small brains, in conjunction with ‘early Homo-­like’ cranial morphology, persisted into recent time periods. The numerous possible phylogenetic scenarios and evolutionary relationships between these two species and both early and later Homo pose an interesting alternative to the traditional linear view of the evolution of Homo. Furthermore, these findings have provided us with evidence that small brains and ‘early Homo-­ like’ cranial morphology evolved at multiple times in multiple contexts, even persisting into recent time periods. Collectively, these data support the idea that the emergence of Homo was not straightforward, and may have been characterized by multiple lineages, and defined by evolutionary innovation and experimentation.16 In such a scenario, what we identify as Homo-­like morphology could have evolved repeatedly, in different contexts or at different times. But the question is not so much when novelty, innovation, and complexity appear, but rather why and how. Does it say anything about adaptive (directional) change – i.e. can we apply meaning to why these morphologies evolved? Are they changes that cause an organism to be better suited to its environment? The answer to these questions is sometimes, but not always. This is because the emergence of complexity and novelty also occurs through

32  Ackermann and Schroeder chance (i.e. genetic drift) and gene exchange, making it difficult to point to either as indications of adaptive change in innate human capabilities.

Genetic drift as a producer of morphological diversity Sewall Wright, the cofounder of population genetics, hypothesized that genetic drift, acting in small populations, may be an important force driving evolutionary change.17 Since then, many researchers, especially in the palaeontological community, have debated the significance of this process for the diversification of populations over a long timeframe, most preferring to attribute phenotypic change to the process of natural selection. However, in 1953, George G. Simpson considered the possible effect that genetic drift may have had on morphological evolution in the fossil record by introducing the theoretical model of adaptive zones for driving rapid evolution. He hypothesized that these zones were dominated by stabilizing selection, but that genetic drift may have played an important role when these adaptive zones were traversed.18 In addition, Eldredge and Gould, applying Mayr’s model of geographic speciation to the fossil record, considered the role of random genetic drift in species formation. They theorized that species diversification occurred almost exclusively in isolated populations of small sample size undergoing habitat fragmentation.19 In 1976, Russell Lande highlighted the limitations of these conceptual models for objectively evaluating the relative roles of drift and selection in macroevolution. He attributed this to the lack of a testable, phenotype applicable, mathematical model for assessing the evolutionary processes underlying the diversification of phenotypic characters.20 As a result, from 1976–1979, Lande published a series of statistical models to evaluate the null hypothesis of evolution by genetic drift.21 These models, rooted in predictions about evolutionary rates and constant heritability, are functions of population variation, effective population size, and time since divergence. Importantly, the overarching model asserts that in the evaluation of phenotypic change in populations within an evolutionary context, patterns of within-­population variability are central players, as they provide the material on which evolution works to diversify populations. Since then, a number of theoretical advancements in the field of evolutionary quantitative genetics have provided the basis for the development of a suite of novel approaches for understanding evolutionary process in phenotypic evolution and diversification. These approaches have been successfully applied in a number of studies of both extant and extinct animals for evaluating the evolutionary processes underlying population divergence. For example, in 1988, Lofsvold tested the null hypothesis of genetic drift in differentiating three populations of deer mice (Peromyscus). His analyses produced an overall rejection of drift, indicating the possibility of selection acting to differentiate these taxa.22 Ackermann and Cheverud investigated the

The emergence of complexity and novelty 33 evolutionary processes underlying craniofacial diversity among 12 species of tamarin (Saguinus), detecting a deviation from the neutral model. In contrast, the majority of the variation within each of these groups was shown to be consistent with genetic drift.23 Similarly, Marriog and Cheverud assessed the relative roles of genetic drift and selection for producing the cranial diversity among all living New World monkeys. The majority of their analyses produced rejections of drift, indicating that most of these groups underwent adaptive diversification.24 However, some of their comparisons of species within genera were indeed consistent with the neutral model. They postulate that the mixture of drift and selection detected in this lineage is consistent with Simpson’s adaptive zone hypothesis. A more recent study of hominoid (ape) cranial evolution using the Lande approach detected strong stabilizing selection acting on cranial diversity within the ape lineage, with only a few instances of neutral diversification and directional selection identified.25 As for living humans, a number of studies have tested whether the patterns we see in cranial diversity across different human populations is due to natural selection or neutral evolution, and have shown, overwhelmingly, that the majority of global cranial diversity can be accounted for by non-­adaptive processes.26 This pattern is also evident in pelvis shape.27 However, a study of the postcranial skeleton in a global human sample (specifically long bones) detects a signal of natural selection acting on a number of traits related to body form.28 In terms of human evolution, Ackermann and Cheverud published the first direct application of the Lande model to the human fossil record. Their results showed that, while genetic drift may account for facial diversity during the evolution of the genus Homo, selection may have played an important role in diversifying hominin facial morphology between the australopiths and Homo.29 Since then, there have been a series of studies of the crania and mandibles of all fossil Homo – from the earliest H. habilis material until the recent (pre-­modern) past – investigating the relative role of genetic drift versus selection in shaping cranial morphology.30 These studies collectively suggest that a large amount of the variation we see across these taxa – including variation in neurocranial (brain) size and shape – is consistent with genetic drift acting to diversify taxa, suggesting random chance had a strong role in causing the emergence of new forms, likely acting in small populations. This is true even when very small-­brained H. erectus and H. naledi individuals are included in the analyses.31 Because molecular change over evolutionary timeframes occurs predominantly through neutral processes,32 it should not be surprising that morphological change in human evolution is consistent with drift. When we do see evidence for selection, it is not associated with our big brains, but rather with our mouths, especially in the Dmanisi hominins, the oldest known fossil Homo specimens outside of Africa, suggesting that dietary adaptations are an important driver of change as these hominins adapted to different environments. In this light, recent suggestions that brain size and shape differences may poorly define Homo are intriguing.33 This

34  Ackermann and Schroeder does not mean that having a larger brain did not ultimately provide benefits, but that it did not necessarily evolve initially for that purpose. Because these models test for deviations in patterns of cranial variation (covariance), what this result is also saying is that it is fairly easy to evolve bigger (or smaller) brains through chance effects because the patterns of variation (covariance) need not be altered. It might be interesting to consider this in light of the association – or lack thereof – between brain size and technology in the hominin record. Another significant finding by Schroeder and Ackermann is the lack of any major selective pressures detected between the crania of Homo sapiens from Middle Pleistocene Homo, indicating that selection does not need to be invoked to explain the cranial differentiation of Homo sapiens from Middle Pleistocene Homo.34 This result is similar to the findings of Weaver et al. who show that stochastic evolutionary processes can explain the cranial differences between Neanderthals and modern humans. Taken together, these results may also provide further evidence for a ‘lengthy process model’ of modern human origins,35 which hypothesizes that no discrete evolutionary event occurred between ~100,000 to 200,000 years ago, suggesting morphological continuity from the later Middle Pleistocene to the emergence of early anatomically modern Homo sapiens.

Gene flow as a producer of novelty Interpretations of the emergence of new traits, whether complex or innovative, are also complicated by hybridization and the resultant gene exchange between divergent lineages. The consequences of gene exchange vary widely, but can include the evolution of novel phenotypes – both true novelty and new combinations of traits – and the evolution of new species.36 Recent studies of baboons, gorillas, marmosets, wildebeest, and mice have begun to lay the foundation for understanding hybrid morphology.37 In particular, Ackermann and colleagues identify a package of anomalous morphological traits (dental and sutural) found at high frequency in a hybrid population of olive and yellow baboons of known pedigree.38 This hybrid package is also present in recent and Pleistocene ground squirrel hybrids,39 wildebeest hybrids,40 gorillas,41 and in a purported beluga-­narwhal hybrid,42 suggesting that this skeletal signature may characterize mammalian hybridization more generally. In addition, hybrids often display transgressive morphologies and high intra-­ group morphological variability or heterosis (e.g. baboons,43 wildebeest,44 marmosets,45 mice46). Even though some of these traits have been identified in hominin fossil specimens, more controlled research from additional extant model organisms is required for statistical and empirical application of the hybrid model to the fossil record.47 In this manner, hybridization stands as an important producer of evolutionary innovation; in certain circumstances such innovation/novelty can result in increased adaptive fitness and evolutionary success.48

The emergence of complexity and novelty 35 In the case of human evolution, gene exchange has occurred repeatedly in our past, and the previously mentioned research on the phenotype suggests that the role and frequency of gene flow has been underestimated in the hominin fossil record. To date, gene flow in our lineage has been demonstrated using both morphological approaches (as previously stated49) and also ancient DNA studies.50 This DNA evidence indicates that the lineages (e.g. Neanderthal, Denisovan, African) known to play a role in modern human ancestry diverged relatively recently, during the past 1 million years or so,51 and that hybridization between these lineages has occurred repeatedly.52 The resultant gene exchange is reflected in some living people today, who have ancestry derived from multiple lineages. This portrayal is consistent with scenarios – argued for decades – that present a complex picture of our origins on the basis of fossil morphology53 and earlier genetic studies.54 Again, we find ourselves in a situation where novelty – including morphological traits such as large overall size and changes in tooth morphology55 – can emerge through non-­adaptive means. And again, this does not mean that many of the acquired and retained traits are not ultimately adaptive (e.g. skin pigmentation diversity as a product of natural selection affecting the levels of pigment [melanin] in the skin relative to levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun56), but that they did not arise as an adaptation as one group diverged from an ancestral condition.

Summary: adaptation is not a prerequisite for morphological complexity To sum, human evolution is increasingly being shown to have occurred through a complicated interplay of evolutionary forces, working together to produce change over time. Whereas in the past researchers have tended to frame such change, and especially the evolution of new and more complex forms, in an adaptive context, we now know that neutral (chance) processes and gene exchange have played substantial roles in the production of hominin diversity (Table  2.1). It is plausible that some of our capabilities as a species that we associate with the modern condition, including many of the things discussed in this volume, and potentially including cultural capabilities, emerged through chance or reticulate processes of gene exchange (e.g. rather than by a scenario where one group in one region evolved adaptively superior abilities and replaced another). Moreover, the repeat history of reticulate (versus branching) evolution (Figure 2.1), particularly over the past million years, but possibly further in the past, makes it very difficult to point to one place and time for ‘humanness’. We therefore must be cautious in our interpretation of changes we see in the fossil past, including the emergence of traits we consider surrogates for the remarkable intellectual capabilities of our species.57

Table 2.1 Current evidence for evolutionary processes acting during human evolution between pairs of taxa*  

Natural selection

Genetic drift

Gene flow References

Homo neanderthalensis – Homo sapiens

Brain volume

Cranium

Genetic data

Homo neanderthalensis – Denisovans Denisovans – Homo sapiens

Unknown

Unknown

Genetic data

Unknown

Unknown

Genetic data

Early Homo – Dmanisi hominins Homo erectus – Homo naledi

Maxilla Mandible

Midface Unknown Neurocranium

Unknown

Cranium Mandible

Early Homo – Homo erectus

Mandible Maxilla Brain volume

Midface Unknown Neurocranium Teeth

Australopithecus sediba – early Homo Australopithecus africanus – Australopithecus sediba Australopithecus africanus – early Homo

Mandible Face Neurocranium

Australopithecus africanus – Paranthropus robustus

Unknown

Unknown

Fu et al. 2014; Fu et al. 2015; Green et al. 2010; Kuhlwilm et al. 2016; Weaver et al. 2007 Prüfer et al. 2017 Huerta-­Sánchez et al. 2014; Krause et al. 2010; Prüfer et al. 2017; Reich et al. 2010 Schroeder and Ackermann 2017 Schroeder and Ackermann 2017 Gómez-­Robles et al. 2017; Schroeder and Ackermann 2017 Schroeder et al. 2014

Maxilla Temporal

Upper face Unknown Mandible Neurocranium

Schroeder et al. 2014

Upper orbit Zygomatics Brain volume

Mandible Unknown Midface Neurocranium Teeth Midface Unknown Neurocranial shape Teeth

Gómez-­Robles et al. 2017; Schroeder et al. 2014 Ackermann and Cheverud 2004; Gómez-­ Robles et al. 2017; Hlazo et al. 2018

Zygomatics Brain volume

 

Natural selection

Genetic drift

Gene flow References

Paranthropus aethiopithecus – Paranthropus boisei

Brain volume

Midface Unknown Frontal Neurocranium Teeth

Paranthropus aethiopithecus – Paranthropus robustus

Temporal Brain volume

Midface Unknown Frontal Neurocranium Teeth

Paranthropus boisei – Paranthropus robustus

Mandible Palate Brain volume

Midface Unknown Neurocranium Teeth

Australopithecus afarensis – early Homo

Os coxa Brain volume

Neurocranial shape Teeth

Unknown

Ackermann and Cheverud 2004; Gómez-­ Robles et al. 2017; Hlazo et al. 2018 Ackermann and Cheverud 2004; Gómez-­ Robles et al. 2017; Hlazo et al. 2018 Ackermann and Cheverud 2004; Gómez-­ Robles et al. 2017; Hlazo et al. 2018 Gómez-­Robles et al. 2017; Grabowski and Roseman 2015

* Evidence of genetic drift or natural selection indicates diversification between taxa; evidence of gene flow indicates gene exchange and hybridization.

~6Ma

Present

Figure 2.1  A braided stream metaphor depicting the evolution of our lineage. Repeat divergence and remerger, via adaptive and non-­adaptive evolutionary processes, produce both novelty and complexity.

38  Ackermann and Schroeder

Notes 1 We wish to thank Agustín Fuentes and Celia Deane-­Drummond for the invitation to participate in the symposium that preceded this publication. Research for this chapter was funded by the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE-­Pal) and the National Research Foundation of South Africa. 2 See Susan Antón et al., ‘Evolution of Early Homo: An Integrated Biological Perspective’, Science 345, no. 6192 (2014): 1236828; Bernard Wood, ‘Origin and Evolution of the Genus Homo’, Nature 355, no. 6363 (1992): 783–790; and Bernard Wood and Jennifer Baker, ‘Evolution in the Genus Homo’, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 42 (2011): 47–69. 3 Brian Villmoare et al., ‘Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-­Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia’, Science 347, no. 6228 (2015): 1352–1355. 4 David Lordkipanidze et al., ‘A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo’, Science 342, no. 6156 (2013): 326–331; and Fred Spoor et al., ‘Reconstructed Homo habilis Type OH 7 Suggests Deep-­ Rooted Species Diversity in Early Homo’, Nature 519, no. 7541 (2015): 83–86. 5 Lordkipanidze et al., ‘A Complete Skull’. 6 Curtis W. Marean, ‘The Most Invasive Species of All’, Scientific American 313, no. 2 (2015): 33–39. 7 See discussion in Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin, ‘The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 205, no. 1161 (1979): 581–598. 8 Sonia Harmand et al., ‘3.3-­Million-­Year-­Old Stone Tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya’, Nature 521, 7552 (2015): 310–315. 9 Lee Berger et al., ‘Homo naledi, A New Species of the Genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa’, eLife 4 (2015): e09560; and Peter Brown et al., ‘A New Small-­Bodied Hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia’, Nature 431 (2004): 1055–1061. 10 Brown et al., ‘A New Small-­Bodied Hominin’; Michael Morwood et al., ‘Further Evidence for Small-­Bodied Hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia’, Nature 437, no. 7061 (2005): 1012–1017. 11 For example, Debbie Argue et al., ‘Homo floresiensis: A Cladistic Analysis’, Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 623–639; Brown et al., ‘A New Small-­Bodied Hominin’; Peter Brown and Tomoko Maeda, ‘Liang Bua Homo floresiensis Mandibles and Mandibular Teeth: A Contribution to the Comparative Morphology of a New Hominin Species’, Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 571–596; Dean Falk et al., ‘The Brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis’, Science 308, no. 5719 (2005): 242–245; Adam Gordon et al., ‘The Homo floresiensis Cranium (LB1): Size, Scaling, and Early Homo Affinities’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 12 (2008): 4650–4655; William Jungers et al., ‘Descriptions of the Lower Limb Skeleton of Homo floresiensis’, Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 538–554; William Jungers et al., ‘The Foot of Homo floresiensis’, Nature 459, no. 7243 (2009): 81–84; Michael Morwood and William Jungers, ‘Conclusions: Implications of the Liang Bua Excavations for Hominin Evolution and Biogeography’, Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 640–648; and Matthew Tocheri et al., ‘The Primitive Wrist of Homo floresiensis and its Implications for Hominin Evolution’, Science 317, no. 5845 (2007): 1743–1745. 12 Brown et al., ‘A New Small-­Bodied Hominin’; Gordon et al., ‘The Homo floresiensis Cranium (LB1)’; Morwood et al., ‘Further Evidence’; Morwood and Jungers, ‘Conclusions’; Richard Roberts et al., ‘Geochronology of Cave Deposits at Liang Bua and of Adjacent River Terraces in the Wae Racang Valley, Western

The emergence of complexity and novelty 39 Flores, Indonesia: A Synthesis of Age Estimates for the Type Locality of Homo floresiensis’, Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 484–502; and Thomas Sutikna et al., ‘Revised Stratigraphy and Chronology for Homo floresiensis at Liang Bua in Indonesia’, Nature 532, no. 7599 (2016): 366–369. 13 Lee R. Berger et al., ‘Homo naledi’; John Hawks and Lee R. Berger, ‘On Homo naledi and its Significance in Evolutionary Anthropology’, current volume. 14 Paul Dirks et al., ‘The Age of Homo naledi and Associated Sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa’, eLife 6 (2017): e24231. 15 For example, Brown et al., ‘A New Small-­Bodied Hominin’. 16 Susan Antón et al., ‘Evolution of Early Homo’. 17 Sewall Wright, ‘Evolution in Mendelian Populations’, Genetics 16, no. 2 (1931): 97–159; Sewall Wright, ‘The Roles of Mutation, Inbreeding, Crossbreeding, and Selection in Evolution’, Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress Genetics 1, no. 8 (1932): 356–366. 18 George Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953). 19 Niles Eldredge and Stephan Gould, ‘Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism’, in Models in Paleobiology, edited by T. Schopf (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Co., 1972), 82–115; Ernst Mayr, Animal Species and Evolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963). 20 Russell Lande, ‘Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift in Phenotypic Evolution’, Evolution 30, no. 2 (1976): 314–334. 21 Lande, ‘Natural Selection’; Russell Lande, ‘Statistical Tests for Natural Selection on Quantitative Characters’, Evolution 31, no. 2 (1977): 442–444; and Russell Lande, ‘Quantitative Genetic Analysis of Multivariate Evolution, Applied to Brain: Body Size Allometry’, Evolution 33, no. 1 (1979): 402–416. 22 David Lofsvold, ‘Quantitative Genetics of Morphological Differentiation in Peromyscus. II. Analysis of Selection and Drift’, Evolution 42, no. 1 (1988): 54–67. 23 Rebecca Rogers Ackermann and James M. Cheverud, ‘Discerning Evolutionary Processes in Patterns of Tamarin (Genus Saguinus) Craniofacial Variation’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 117, no. 3 (2002): 260–271. 24 Gabriel Marriog and James M. Cheverud, ‘Did Natural Selection or Genetic Drift Produce the Cranial Diversification of Neotropical Monkeys?’ The American Naturalist 163, no. 3 (2004): 417–428. 25 Lauren Schroeder and Noreen von Cramon-­Taubadel, ‘The Evolution of Hominoid Cranial Diversity: A Quantitative Genetic Approach’, Evolution 71, no. 11 (2017): 2634–2649. 26 Marcia Ponce de León et al., ‘Human Bony Labyrinth is an Indicator of Population History and Dispersal from Africa’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 16 (2018): 4128–4133; Charles Roseman, ‘Detecting Interregionally Diversifying Natural Selection on Modern Human Cranial Form by Using Matched Molecular and Morphometric Data’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101, no. 35 (2004): 12824–12829; Charles Roseman, ‘Molecules Versus Morphology? Not for the Human Cranium’, Bioessays 29, no. 12 (2007): 1185–1188; Noreen von Cramon-­Taubadel, ‘Evolutionary Insights into Global Patterns of Human Cranial Diversity: Population History, Climatic and Dietary Effects’, Journal of Anthropological Science 92, no. 4 (2014): 43–77. 27 Lia Betti et al., ‘Global Geometric Morphometric Analyses of the Human Pelvis Reveal Substantial Neutral Population History Effects, Even Across Sexes’, PLoS One 8, no. 2 (2013): e55909. 28 Kristen Savall et al., ‘Constraint, Natural Selection, and the Evolution of Human Body Form’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 34 (2016): 9492–9497.

40  Ackermann and Schroeder 29 Rebecca Rogers Ackermann and James Cheverud, ‘Detecting Genetic Drift Versus Selection in Human Evolution’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101, no. 52 (2004): 17946–17951. 30 Ibid.; Lauren Schroeder et al., ‘Characterizing the Evolutionary Path (s) to Early Homo’, PLoS One 9, no. 12 (2014): e114307; Lauren Schroeder and Rebecca Ackermann, ‘Evolutionary Processes Shaping Diversity Across the Homo Lineage’, Journal of Human Evolution 111 (2017): 1–17; and Timothy Weaver et al., ‘Were Neandertal and Modern Human Cranial Differences Produced by Natural Selection or Genetic Drift?’ Journal of Human Evolution 53, no. 2 (2007): 135–145. 31 Schroeder and Ackermann, ‘Evolutionary Processes’. 32 Motoo Kimura, ‘Evolutionary Rate at the Molecular Level’, Nature 217, no. 5129 (1968): 624–626; Motoo Kimura, ‘The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution: A Review of Recent Evidence’, The Japanese Journal of Genetics 66, no. 4 (1991): 367–386. 33 Spoor et al., ‘Reconstructed Homo habilis’. 34 Schroeder and Ackermann, ‘Evolutionary Processes’. 35 Timothy D. Weaver, ‘Did a Discrete Event 200,000–100,000 Years Ago Produce Modern Humans?’ Journal of Human Evolution 63, no. 1 (2012): 121–126. 36 Michael L. Arnold, ‘Natural Hybridization as an Evolutionary Process’, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 23, no. 1 (1992): 237–261. 37 Rebecca Ackermann et al., ‘Identifying the Morphological Signatures of Hybridization in Primate and Human Evolution’, Journal of Human Evolution 51, no. 6 (2006): 632–645; Rebecca Ackermann et al., ‘Further Evidence for Phenotypic Signatures of Hybridization in Descendant Baboon Populations’, Journal of Human Evolution 76 (2014): 54–62; Rebecca Ackermann and Jacqueline Bishop, ‘Morphological and Molecular Evidence Reveals Recent Hybridization Between Gorilla Taxa’, Evolution 64, no. 1 (2010): 271–290; Lisieux Fuzessy et al., ‘Morphological Variation in Wild Marmosets (Callithrix penicillata and C. geoffroyi) and Their Hybrids’, Evolutionary Biology 41, no. 3 (2014): 480– 493; Kerryn Warren et al., ‘Craniomandibular Form and Body Size Variation of First Generation Mouse Hybrids: A Model for Hominin Hybridization’, Journal of Human Evolution 116 (2018): 57–74. 38 Ackermann et al., ‘Identifying the Morphological Signatures’; Ackermann et al., ‘Further Evidence’. 39 Thomas Goodwin, ‘Supernumerary Teeth in Pleistocene, Recent, and Hybrid Individuals of the Spermophilus richardsonii complex (Sciuridae)’, Journal of Mammalogy 79, no. 4 (1998): 1161–1169. 40 Rebecca Ackermann, ‘Phenotypic Traits of Primate Hybrids: Recognizing Admixture in the Fossil Record’, Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 19, no. 6 (2010): 258–270. 41 Ackermann and Bishop, ‘Morphological and Molecular Evidence’. 42 Mads Heide-Jørgensen and Randall Reeves, ‘Description of an Anomalous Monodontid Skull from West Greenland: A Possible Hybrid?’ Marine Mammal Science 9, no. 3 (1993): 258–268. 43 Ackermann et al., ‘Identifying the Morphological Signatures’; Ackermann et al., ‘Further Evidence’. 44 Ackermann, ‘Phenotypic Traits’. 45 Fuzessy et al., ‘Morphological Variation in Wild Marmosets’. 46 Warren et al., ‘Craniomandibular Form’. 47 Ackermann et al., ‘Identifying the Morphological Signatures’; and Ackermann et al., ‘Further Evidence’.

The emergence of complexity and novelty 41 48 Michael Arnold and Axel Meyer, ‘Natural Hybridization in Primates: One Evolutionary Mechanism’, Zoology 109, no. 4 (2006): 261–276; and Ole Seehausen et al., ‘Genomics and the Origin of Species’, Nature Reviews Genetics 15, no. 3 (2014): 176–192. 49 For example: Ackermann, ‘Phenotypic Traits’; Rebecca Ackermann et al., ‘The Hybrid Origin of “Modern” Humans’, Evolutionary Biology 43, no. 1 (2016): 1–11; Warren et al., ‘Craniomandibular Form’. 50 For example: Richard Green et al., ‘A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome’, Science 328, no. 5979 (2010): 710–722. 51 Johannes Krause et al., ‘The Complete Mitochondrial DNA Genome of an Unknown Hominin from Southern Siberia’, Nature 464, no. 7290 (2010): 894– 897; Kay Prüfer et al., ‘The Complete Genome Sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains’, Nature 505, no. 7481 (2014): 43–49. 52 Green et al., ‘A Draft Sequence’; Qiaomei Fu et al., ‘Genome Sequence of a 45,000-­Year-­Old Modern Human from Western Siberia’, Nature 514, no. 7523 (2014): 445–449; Prüfer et al., ‘The Complete Genome’; Qiaomei Fu et al., ‘An Early Modern Human from Romania with a Recent Neanderthal Ancestor’, Nature 524, no. 7564 (2015): 216–219. 53 For example: Rachel Caspari and Milford Wolpoff, ‘The Process of Modern Human Origins’, in The Origins of Modern Humans: Biology Reconsidered, edited by Fred H. Smith and James C.M. Ahern (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2013), 355–391; Erik Trinkaus, ‘Early Modern Humans’, Annual Review of Anthropology 34 (2005): 207–230; Xinzhi Wu, ‘On the Origin of Modern Humans in China’, Quaternary International 117, no. 1 (2004): 131–140. 54 For example, Alan Templeton, ‘Out of Africa Again and Again’, Nature 416, no. 6876 (2002): 45–51. 55 See for example, Ackermann, ‘Phenotypic Traits’. 56 Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, ‘The Evolution of Human Skin Coloration’, Journal of Human Evolution 39, no. 1 (2000): 57–106. 57 Marc Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise: What Can Anthropologists Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom?’, current volume.

Glossary covariance:  the statistical term referring to the measure of the correlative relationship between two or more traits/variables; more specifically, it measures the extent that two variables vary together. evolutionary rate:  a measurement of the rate of change in traits across an evolutionary lineage over time. fitness:  a measure of reproductive success. gene flow:  non-­adaptive evolutionary process; the transfer and/or migration of genetic information from one population/lineage to another. genetic drift:  non-­adaptive evolutionary process; the change in relative frequencies of different genotypes (alleles) in a population/lineage over time due to chance or sampling error. heritability:  the proportion of a phenotypic trait that is due to genetic factors (as opposed to environmental factors); the extent to which a trait can be passed down from generation to generation.

42  Ackermann and Schroeder Heterosis:  hybrid vigour; the improved fitness of a biological trait in a hybrid offspring. hybridization:  reproduction between genetically distinct populations/ lineages. natural selection :  adaptive evolutionary process; the differential survival and reproduction of heritable traits in a population/lineage due to differences in phenotype. phenotype:  an organism’s observable physical traits, such as morphology and behaviour. phylogeny:  an evolutionary tree depicting the evolutionary relationships and history of a group of organisms. Pleistocene:  the geological epoch referring to the time period between 2,588,000 and 11,700 years ago. reticulate evolution:  the process that describes the origin of a lineage via the combination of two ancestral lineages (hybridization), leading to relationships among lineages being better described by a phylogenetic network than a simple bifurcating tree. stabilizing selection:  a form of natural selection where the population average of a trait is selected for, and trait extremes are selected against. transgressive (morphology):  an extreme phenotype resulting from hybridization, beyond the range of the parental hybridising taxa.

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The emergence of complexity and novelty 43 Antón, Susan C., Richard Potts, and Leslie C. Aiello. ‘Evolution of Early Homo: An Integrated Biological Perspective’. Science 345, no. 6192 (2014): 1236828. Argue, Debbie, Michael John Morwood, Thomas Sutikna, and E. Wahyu Saptomo. ‘Homo floresiensis: A Cladistic Analysis’. Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 623–639. Arnold, Michael L. ‘Natural Hybridization as an Evolutionary Process’. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 23, no. 1 (1992): 237–261. Arnold, Michael L., and Axel Meyer. ‘Natural Hybridization in Primates: One Evolutionary Mechanism’. Zoology 109, no. 4 (2006): 261–276. Berger, Lee R. et al. ‘Homo naledi, A New Species of the Genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa’. eLife 4 (2015): e09560. Betti, Lia, Noreen von Cramon-­Taubadel, Andrea Manica, and Stephen J. Lycett. ‘Global Geometric Morphometric Analyses of the Human Pelvis Reveal Substantial Neutral Population History Effects, Even Across Sexes’. PLoS One 8, no. 2 (2013): e55909. Brown, Peter, and Tomoko Maeda. ‘Liang Bua Homo floresiensis Mandibles and Mandibular Teeth: A Contribution to the Comparative Morphology of a New Hominin Species’. Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 571–596. Brown, Peter et al. ‘A New Small-­Bodied Hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia’. Nature 431, no. 7012 (2004): 1055–1061. Caspari, Rachel, and Milford H. Wolpoff. ‘The Process of Modern Human Origins’. In The Origins of Modern Humans: Biology Reconsidered, edited by Fred H. Smith and James C.M. Ahern (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2013), 355–391. Dirks, Paul H.G.M. et al. ‘The Age of Homo naledi and Associated Sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa’. eLife 6 (2017): e24231. Eldredge, Niles, and Stephan J. Gould. ‘Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism’. In Models in Paleobiology, edited by T. Schopf (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Co., 1972), 82–115. Falk, Dean et al. ‘The Brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis’. Science 308, no. 5719 (2005): 242–245. Fu, Qiaomei et al. ‘An Early Modern Human from Romania with a Recent Neanderthal Ancestor’. Nature 524, no. 7564 (2015): 216–219. Fu, Qiaomei et al. ‘Genome Sequence of a 45,000-­year-­old Modern Human from Western Siberia’. Nature 514, no. 7523 (2014): 445–449. Fuzessy, Lisieux Franco et al. ‘Morphological Variation in Wild Marmosets (Callithrix Penicillata and C. Geoffroyi) and Their Hybrids’. Evolutionary Biology 41, no. 3 (2014): 480–493. Gómez-­Robles, Aida et al. ‘Brain Enlargement and Dental Reduction Were not Linked in Hominin Evolution’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 3 (2017): 468–473. Goodwin, H. Thomas. ‘Supernumerary Teeth in Pleistocene, Recent, and Hybrid Individuals of the Spermophilus richardsonii complex (Sciuridae)’. Journal of Mammalogy 79, no. 4 (1998): 1161–1169. Gordon, Adam D., Lisa Nevell, and Bernard Wood. ‘The Homo floresiensis Cranium (LB1): Size, Scaling, and Early Homo Affinities’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 12 (2008): 4650–4655.

44  Ackermann and Schroeder Gould, Stephen Jay, and Richard C. Lewontin. ‘The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme’. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 205, no. 1161 (1979): 581–598. Grabowski, Mark, and Charles C. Roseman. ‘Complex and Changing Patterns of Natural Selection Explain the Evolution of the Human Hip’. Journal of Human Evolution 85 (2015): 94–110. Green, Richard E. et al. ‘A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome’. Science 328, no. 5979 (2010): 710–722. Harmand, Sonia et al. ‘3.3-­Million-­Year-­Old Stone Tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya’. Nature 521, no. 7552 (2015): 310–315. Heide-Jørgensen, Mads P., and Randall R. Reeves. ‘Description of an Anomalous Monodontid Skull from West Greenland: A Possible Hybrid?’ Marine Mammal Science 9, no. 3 (1993): 258–268. Hlazo, Nomawethu, Terrence R. Ritzman, Lauren Schroeder, and Rebecca R. Ackermann. ‘The Role of Selection in Shaping the Cranio-­mandibular Morphology of Paranthropus’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 165, no. S66 (2018): 121. Jablonski, Nina G., and George Chaplin. ‘The Evolution of Human Skin Coloration’. Journal of Human Evolution 39, no. 1 (2000): 57–106. Jungers, William L. et al. ‘Descriptions of the Lower Limb Skeleton of Homo floresiensis’. Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 538–554. Jungers, William L. et al. ‘The Foot of Homo floresiensis’. Nature 459, no. 7243 (2009): 81–84. Kimura, Motoo. ‘Evolutionary Rate at the Molecular Level’. Nature 217, no. 5129 (1968): 624–626. Kimura, Motoo. ‘The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution: A Review of Recent Evidence’. The Japanese Journal of Genetics 66, no. 4 (1991): 367–386. Krause, Johannes et al. ‘The Complete Mitochondrial DNA Genome of an Unknown Hominin from Southern Siberia’. Nature 464, no. 7290 (2010): 894–897. Kuhlwilm, Martin et al. ‘Ancient Gene Flow from Early Modern Humans into Eastern Neanderthals’. Nature 530, no. 7591 (2016): 429–433. Lande, Russell. ‘Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift in Phenotypic Evolution’. Evolution 30, no. 2 (1976): 314–334. Lande, Russell. ‘Quantitative Genetic Analysis of Multivariate Evolution, Applied to Brain: Body Size Allometry’. Evolution 33, no. 1 (1979): 402–416. Lande, Russell. ‘Statistical Tests for Natural Selection on Quantitative Characters’. Evolution 31, no. 2 (1977): 442–444. Lofsvold, David. ‘Quantitative Genetics of Morphological Differentiation in Peromyscus. II. Analysis of Selection and Drift’. Evolution 42, no. 1 (1988): 54–67. Lordkipanidze, David et al. ‘A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo’. Science 342, no. 6156 (2013): 326–331. Marean, Curtis W. ‘The Most Invasive Species of All’. Scientific American 313, no. 2 (2015): 33–39. Marroig, Gabriel, and James M. Cheverud. ‘Did Natural Selection or Genetic Drift Produce the Cranial Diversification of Neotropical Monkeys?’ The American Naturalist 163, no. 3 (2004): 417–428. Mayr, Ernst. Animal Species and Evolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963).

The emergence of complexity and novelty 45 Morwood, Michael J., and William L. Jungers. ‘Conclusions: Implications of the Liang Bua Excavations for Hominin Evolution and Biogeography’. Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 640–648. Morwood, Michael J. et al. ‘Further Evidence for Small-­bodied Hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia’. Nature 437, no. 7061 (2005): 1012–1017. Ponce de León, Marcia S. et al. ‘Human Bony Labyrinth is an Indicator of Population History and Dispersal from Africa’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 16 (2018): 4128–4133. Prüfer, Kay et al. ‘The Complete Genome Sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains’. Nature 505, no. 7481 (2014): 43–49. Prüfer, Kay et al. ‘A High-­coverage Neandertal Genome from Vindija Cave in Croatia’. Science 358, no. 6363 (2017): 655–658. Reich, David et al. ‘Genetic History of an Archaic Hominin Group from Denisova Cave in Siberia’. Nature 468, no. 7327 (2010): 1053–1060. Roberts, Richard G. et al. ‘Geochronology of Cave Deposits at Liang Bua and of Adjacent River Terraces in the Wae Racang Valley, Western Flores, Indonesia: A Synthesis of Age Estimates for the Type Locality of Homo floresiensis’. Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 5 (2009): 484–502. Roseman, Charles C. ‘Detecting Interregionally Diversifying Natural Selection on Modern Human Cranial Form by using Matched Molecular and Morphometric Data’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101, no. 35 (2004): 12824–12829. Roseman, Charles C., and Timothy D. Weaver. ‘Molecules Versus Morphology? Not for the Human Cranium’. Bioessays 29, no. 12 (2007): 1185–1188. Savell, Kristen R.R., Benjamin M. Auerbach, and Charles C. Roseman. ‘Constraint, Natural Selection, and the Evolution of Human Body Form’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 34 (2016): 9492–9497. Schroeder, Lauren, and Rebecca Rogers Ackermann. ‘Evolutionary Processes Shaping Diversity Across the Homo Lineage’. Journal of Human Evolution 111 (2017): 1–17. Schroeder, Lauren, and Noreen Cramon-Taubadel. ‘The Evolution of Hominoid Cranial Diversity: A Quantitative Genetic Approach’. Evolution 71, no. 11 (2017): 2634–2649. Schroeder, Lauren, Charles C. Roseman, James M. Cheverud, and Rebecca R. Ackermann. ‘Characterizing the Evolutionary Path (s) to Early Homo’. PLoS One 9, no. 12 (2014): e114307. Seehausen, Ole. ‘Hybridization and Adaptive Radiation’. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 19, no. 4 (2004): 198–207. Seehausen, Ole et al. ‘Genomics and the Origin of Species’. Nature Reviews Genetics 15, no. 3 (2014): 176–192. Simpson, George G. The Major Features of Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953). Spoor, Fred et al. ‘Reconstructed Homo habilis Type OH 7 Suggests Deep-­rooted Species Diversity in Early Homo’. Nature 519, no. 7541 (2015): 83–86. Sutikna, Thomas et al. ‘Revised Stratigraphy and Chronology for Homo floresiensis at Liang Bua in Indonesia’. Nature 532, no. 7599 (2016): 366–369. Templeton, Alan. ‘Out of Africa Again and Again’. Nature 416, no. 6876 (2002): 45–51. Tocheri, Matthew W. et al. ‘The Primitive Wrist of Homo floresiensis and its Implications for Hominin Evolution’. Science 317, no. 5845 (2007): 1743–1745.

46  Ackermann and Schroeder Trinkaus, Erik. ‘Early Modern Humans’. Annual Review of Anthropology 34 (2005): 207–230. Villmoare, Brian et al. ‘Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-­Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia’. Science 347, no. 6228 (2015): 1352–1355. Von Cramon-­ Taubadel, Noreen. ‘Evolutionary Insights into Global Patterns of Human Cranial Diversity: Population History, Climatic and Dietary Effects’. Journal of Anthropological Science 92, no. 4 (2014): 43–77. Warren, Kerryn A. et al. ‘Craniomandibular Form and Body Size Variation of First Generation Mouse Hybrids: A Model for Hominin Hybridization’. Journal of Human Evolution 116 (2018): 57–74. Weaver, Timothy D., Charles C. Roseman, and Chris B. Stringer. ‘Were Neandertal and Modern Human Cranial Differences Produced by Natural Selection or Genetic Drift?’ Journal of Human Evolution 53, no. 2 (2007): 135–145. Weaver, Timothy D. ‘Did a Discrete Event 200,000–100,000 Years Ago Produce Modern Humans?’ Journal of Human Evolution 63, no. 1 (2012): 121–126. Wood, Bernard. ‘Origin and Evolution of the Genus Homo’. Nature 355, no. 6363 (1992): 783–790. Wood, Bernard, and Jennifer Baker. ‘Evolution in the Genus Homo’. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 42 (2011): 47–69. Wright, Sewall. ‘Evolution in Mendelian Populations’. Genetics 16, no. 2 (1931): 97–159. Wright, Sewall. ‘The Roles of Mutation, Inbreeding, Crossbreeding, and Selection in Evolution’. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress Genetics 1, no. 8 (1932): 356–366. Wu, Xinzhi. ‘On the Origin of Modern Humans in China’. Quaternary International 117, no. 1 (2004): 131–140.

Part II

Wisdom Introductory commentary Celia Deane-­Drummond with Wentzel van Huyssteen This first main part of the volume brings to the surface crucial issues in the dialogue between palaeoanthropologists and theologians on what it means to be human. The part focuses explicitly on the origins of humanity and the roots of the capacity for wisdom. We open with a fascinating summary report by John Hawks and Lee Berger in Chapter 3 on some remarkable hominin discoveries found in the Rising Star cave complex in South Africa. The hominin remains, named naledi or ‘star’ in the Sesotho language, shed light on more than just the cave complex of their origin. Rather, in a fascinating way, they begin to puzzle our previous narratives about how humans may have emerged in ways that upset previously established paradigms on human evolution. Why, for example, would a hominin living co-­temporally with Homo sapiens have human-­like hands, teeth, legs, and feet, but a relatively tiny brain size, closer to long-­extant Australopithecus ancestors? The common story that humans gradually evolved bigger and bigger brains and thereby became more and more sophisticated in a logical linear progression now seems open to doubt. The possibility that such hominins were geographically isolated, as in the case of Homo florensiensis, for example, and that this somehow accounted for their success seems impossible in this case. Rather, these small-brained hominins also had small teeth that in other contexts indicated advanced food processing abilities; moreover, they apparently lived alongside larger-­ brained hominin ancestors, who, according to classic theories, had superior cognitive abilities. Even more surprising, perhaps, is that these small-­brained hominins were found deep below ground in two different chambers. The Dinaledi Chamber could only be accessed by an 18 cm gap some 12 metres deep, which accounts in part for its relatively recent discovery. The positioning of the bones in this cave and the Lesedi Chamber matched up with each other, thus implying, but not proving, some sort of deliberate burial. Deliberate burial of the dead is often understood as a marker for the presence of ‘modern’ humans. Other explanations that predators took the bones to these chambers have been ruled out, as there is no evidence of the cut marks one would

48 

Celia Deane-­Drummond with Wentzel van Huyssteen

expect in the event that these hominins had provided a ready meal. Further, the inaccessibility of these chambers and the lack of any sediment particles from external sources rule out the possibility that they were dropped into the chambers by accident. The authors undertook no less than six different dating methods to show a date range of 236–335 thousand years ago. Over 1,200 specimens have been found, and each bone is now being painstakingly characterized and compared with other hominin types in order to piece together different elements of biology and function. Further, although stone tools were not found in the chambers themselves, Middle Stone Age (MSA) assemblages have their own micro-­traditions and it is relatively unusual to find these markers in precisely the same location and geological layer as hominin remains. The authors believe, therefore, that while the brain size was different, the human niche was likely to be similar to other hominins in this period. So, what are we to make of such puzzles? It certainly suggests that the classic evolutionary model that humans evolved from anatomically to cognitively modern humans is in clear need of an overhaul. And in Chapter 4, it is theologians that palaeoanthropologist Marc Kissel acknowledges assist palaeontologists to think in a slightly different frame of reference. Wisdom thinking breaks down previous dichotomies between anatomically and cognitively modern humans by asking the question in a different way: where might the evidential basis for wisdom be found? The definition of wisdom that Kissel uses as a working operational definition focuses on the importance of the pattern and ability for complex decision making in complex social situations and dynamic niches. While theologians might not recognize such a definition as being sufficient, there are certainly resonances with what theologians perceive to be wisdom. Indeed, in so far as philosophy is a love of wisdom, it is about trying to understand and unravel complexity in order to clarify and understand the underlying basis of what is being claimed. Kissel objects to the stress on ‘modern’ humans as having linguistic overtones of colonial ways of thinking. His own work with Neanderthals, in a different way, challenges the exclusive claim for the specialness of Homo sapiens, at least in terms of its origins. As in the case of the research on Homo naledi, Kissel’s careful mapping of Worldwide Instances of Symbolic Data Outlining Modernity (WISDOM) confronts any ready-­made solutions to the problem of human origins. Tracking what artefacts might provide evidence for complex symbolic thought is no easy task. However, it is quite clear that at least some instances of such thought go back very deep into human history, thus confirming the possibility that the capacity for wisdom is not an all-­or-­ nothing affair, but something rather more piecemeal. Of course, Kissel is aware that results may be updated in the future, closing apparent gaps in the record or proving some of the samples faulty. Yet the collection from a wide range of different excavation sites rules out the possibility that trends are simply the result of faulty collection or dating methods, especially as

Wisdom 49 less rigorous results were excluded. Kissel believes that the lens through which we consider symbolic thought in prehistory often assumes that the theoretical framework is the same as that of modern human populations. And, as medical doctor and theologian Andrew Robinson develops in the chapter that follows, it is Charles Peirce’s division into icon, index, and symbol that allows us to articulate a more graded and realistic approach to symbolic thinking. In evolutionary thinking, wisdom is a type of biosocial niche construction. Robinson’s work in Chapter 5 begins, therefore, by affirming the value and basic semiotic philosophy of Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914) over and above that of Ferdinand Saussure, who connected symbolic thought exclusively to language. In Peirce, language is just one instance of semiotic theory, rather than the filter through which to appraise its presence. Importantly, by stressing the material basis for signs, Peirce follows an epistemological realism rather than viewing signs as arbitrary constructions. His philosophy opens up the possibility of a more graded approach to the evolution of the capacity for wisdom through icons, indexes, and symbols, rather than an all-­or-­nothing approach. Robinson argues that it is the distinctive human capacity to combine different types of semiotic thought in icons and symbols that is particularly important to consider. Icons show resemblance to the sign and its representation. The form of iconic reasoning developed by Peirce that Robinson is particularly interested in developing is ‘diagrammatic reasoning’, linking both abstract thinking in the mind and embodiment in a physical form. The other Peircean mental operation that Robinson highlights is ‘hypostatic abstraction’, which, as the name implies, turns a ‘thought’ into something tangible, leading to concepts, such as the ‘roundness’ of a circle. Only the second shows full-­blown symbolic thought in the sense that the sign can be abstracted from its material context. In a further move, both types of reasoning can be related to each other. The ability to combine both, Robinson claims, is distinctively human hyper-­semiotic cognition. Robinson builds towards an association of wisdom with the capacity of self-­transcendence arising from these hyper-­semiotic cognitive capacities. Yet wisdom itself is also complex, being associated with more grounded ‘folk’ wisdom traditions, as well as being used in descriptions of discernment or even self-­knowledge. For Robinson, the capacity for diagrammatic reasoning is primary, and the wisdom of discernment flows from such ability. Similarly, self-­knowledge seems to require capacities for hypostatic abstraction. Robinson then makes the bold suggestion that archaeologists need to search for evidence of hyper-­semiotic cognition under the rubric of diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction. Looking for direct evidence from the archaeological record, indirect evidence through behaviours that seem to have some analogy with historically or scientifically documented behaviours, or even searching for fragmentary evidence shows a range of possible lines of investigation.

50 

Celia Deane-­Drummond with Wentzel van Huyssteen

By breaking up semiotic thinking into different elements Robinson allows for research that may at first seem puzzling or inconclusive. Would it be possible, for example, for Homo naledi to have had at least some capacities for semiotic representational thought, even if hypostatic capacities seem relatively unlikely, given the neocortical size? Was the first ‘cognitive prosthesis’ grounded in a kinship family structure, as Jon Marks discusses in the final chapter of this volume? Like other theologians, Robinson attests to the significance of wisdom for the task of theology as such and points to the way this could be developed. This is built less on some kind of semiotic ladder, and much more on a semiotic matrix which includes the possibility that our own human articulations stand under an ultimate judgement of the ‘fear of the Lord’ as the beginning of wisdom. As readers engage with the fascinating collection of chapters that follow it will soon become apparent that, for the evolutionary-­engaged palaeontologist, material evidence is the ultimate sieve. Such evidence can shake-­up previous theories and hold us to account in relation to what can be pieced together from the prehistorical record. And as such evidence accumulates, any simplistic account of human origins on the part of the theologian, which draws on biblical or other theological narratives, needs to be held in check by careful philosophical and scientific interrogation. If theologians have been even partial handmaids in the challenge to rethink standard accounts of human origins in anthropology, so, in turn, those archaeologists invite theologians to revisit their own narratives of origin, human specialness, and the nature of theological truths. For both, there is still much remaining to be done, and further research and fruitful collaboration to consider.

3 On Homo naledi and its significance in evolutionary anthropology John Hawks and Lee Berger

In 2013, Steven Tucker and Rick Hunter entered the Dinaledi Chamber for the first time.1 The chamber did not have a name then, and it was not on their map of the cave system. To reach it, they had to climb 12 meters down a narrow, 18-­cm gap. At the bottom, they found fossil bones scattered across the floor of the chamber. They thought these bones might belong to fossil human relatives called hominins. Little more than a month later, our team assembled at the entrance of the Rising Star cave system to begin one of the most remarkable excavations in the history of palaeoanthropology. The team designed by one of us (L.R.B.) included experienced archaeologists with strong climbing and underground skills to safely reach the Dinaledi Chamber, cavers to handle equipment and safety, and scientists and support specialists on the surface to prepare and conserve the fossils. When the team entered the chamber, we anticipated that they would find parts of a hominin skeleton. They quickly discovered much more than this. In 21 days of excavation, working in a tiny area of only 0.8 square meters, the team painstakingly recovered more than 1,200 specimens, all but a handful belonging to some ancient human relative. Looking at these fossil bones, we were puzzled. What could they be, and how did they get there?

Studying Homo naledi After a systematic analysis of the fossil material and its context, our team determined that these remains represent a previously unknown species of human relatives. We named the new species Homo naledi; ‘naledi’ means ‘star’ in the Sesotho language.2 This species was bipedal, as living humans are, and its feet and legs resemble those of humans.3 Its hands and wrists have broad fingertips, a long, fully opposable thumb, and wrist bones arranged like those of living humans.4 Yet the bones of its fingers are curved, and its shoulders appear to have angled upward in a way that would be well-­suited for climbing trees or rock faces.5 Other features are also reminiscent of the earliest hominins, including its widely flared pelvis,6 its somewhat cone-­ shaped ribcage,7 and its small brain – only a third the size of most humans

52  John Hawks and Lee Berger today.8 Beyond the small size of its skull, other aspects of the anatomy of H. naledi’s skull resemble specimens that scientists attribute to early forms of H. erectus or H. habilis.9 This pattern of features was unprecedented. In 2017, our team published our first study of the geological age of the Dinaledi Chamber fossils. Using six different methods of analysis, we found that the fossils must be older than 236,000 years ago and younger than 335,000 years ago.10 To many anthropologists, this date was surprisingly recent. They had imagined that such a species was likely to have existed much earlier in time, possibly 2 million or more years ago. This range of dates places H. naledi in Africa at a highly interesting time: the same time that the immediate ancestors of modern humans were beginning to differentiate.11 Scientists have suggested that other archaic human species existed at this time in Africa as well, such as H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis. Others have suggested that a population they identify as ‘early H. sapiens’ may have existed across the entire African continent.12 For the last four years, we have been engaged in the continuing scientific investigation of the H. naledi discovery. Our team has published or is preparing formal scientific descriptions of each part of the H. naledi skeleton. We are now undertaking detailed comparative analyses of biology and function, looking at the development of H. naledi infants and juveniles, how the species walked and climbed, and what foods it may have eaten.13 These kinds of questions are not easy to answer, and in many cases we must build new comparative datasets that do not yet exist. Still, in answering such questions we are going down well-­travelled scientific paths, where current state-­of-­the-­art methodologies will yield results. Here we want to discuss some deeper questions. The Rising Star discoveries have drawn us into areas at the frontiers of science, where current approaches cannot give us all the answers. • Where does H. naledi fit in the human phylogeny? • How did H. naledi survive in Africa at a time when the ancestors of modern humans and possibly other varieties of archaic humans existed? • With multiple hominin species potentially on the same landscape, how can we connect ancient species to signs of behaviour from stone tools? • Did H. naledi deliberately deposit its dead into the Rising Star cave system, and if so, what does that mean about their cultural and social behaviour? We do not have any definitive answers. Current methods of analysis in palaeoanthropology can give us a start, but real progress will require changing the way we look at the fossil and archaeological record. Some of these areas will require new interdisciplinary work to better define how these discoveries articulate with other areas of science. Here we briefly discuss the difficulties that such questions have begun to pose.

On Homo naledi and its significance 53

Where does Homo naledi fit in the human family tree? Ackermann and Schroeder discuss the current scientific knowledge about the evolutionary history of our genus, Homo.14 During the past 2 million years, our genus underwent an impressive diversification. Scientists have not yet found the common ancestor of all the species in our genus, and they disagree about which, if any, of the known fossil species of Australopithecus may have been the closest relatives of Homo.15 Many discoveries within the past two decades support the observation that our genus remained diverse throughout most of its existence. These discoveries include several new populations or species from the Middle and Late Pleistocene (780,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago), including H. naledi and also others such as the Denisovans,16 Homo floresiensis,17 and Homo luzonensis.18 Continued recovery of new fossils of long-­known groups such as the Neanderthals and Homo erectus have also added perspective on the diversity within these groups. As the fossil data have increased, reconstructing the phylogeny of our genus has become more challenging. This difficulty is not because we know less. As anthropologists have studied larger and more complete samples of fossils, they have come to understand that each form of Homo presents its own unique combination of traits that were present in Australopithecus – which we call ‘ancestral’ or ‘primitive’ traits – together with novel traits. Some of the novel, or ‘derived’, traits are shared with living humans, while others may be completely unique to each ancient species. The existence of such anatomical mosaics is not a problem; they are an expected result of evolution. But the mosaics in our ancient relatives do not align with each other in a way that would easily fit any tree. Anthropologists once assumed that the species of Homo could be placed in a rough order of increasing brain size. But this ‘march of progress’ assumption is false. Species with small brains lived both early and late in the evolution of Homo. These species, including H. habilis, H. naledi, and H. floresiensis, share different combinations of traits with Australopithecus and other early hominins, and different combinations of traits with living humans.19 The evidence cannot yet pin down the exact place that H. naledi branched from the evolution of other species. The anatomy of H. naledi suggests that its most recent common ancestors with humans lived more than a million years ago, and possibly much older.20 Some comparisons would place the origin of H. naledi relatively close to the common ancestor of much larger-­brained species like H. sapiens and H. antecessor, which is a species known from the fossil remains from Gran Dolina, Spain, and is around 800,000 years old. Other comparisons suggest that H. naledi branched away from other species at a much earlier time, reaching back to the common ancestors of today’s humans and early H. erectus as much as 2 million years ago.21 Paradoxically, H. naledi compares to our most distant ancestors within Homo, and yet in some ways looks like a close ancestor of modern humans.

54  John Hawks and Lee Berger Could it be both? The genomic revolution has revealed a legacy of mixture among ancient human groups. That ancient mixture made an important contribution to the origin of modern people.22 Yet so far, ideas about hybridization, mixture, and more complex trees have made very little impact upon the way palaeoanthropologists examine fossils. It may be time to move beyond the idea of relentless divergence of species, and towards the idea that sometimes species come together, blending a few traits in the process. Maybe in H. naledi we are looking at one component of the unique mix that led to modern humans. How can scientists make progress towards understanding our relationship with H. naledi? Most of the progress we have made on hominin phylogeny in the last 20 years has come from two sources: ancient DNA from fossil remains, and the discovery of new and more complete fossil samples. Those two lines of progress have only begun to touch our knowledge of evolution within Africa. As home to the greatest historic diversity of human relatives, Africa is critical. More fossil exploration together with breakthroughs in DNA and other biomolecules, including proteins, may unlock some of the secrets of human origins on the continent. Yet the richness of datasets like H. naledi show us that new discoveries are not enough. Anthropologists must also adopt new ways of looking at relationships that recognize the complex process of our origins.

How did H. naledi coexist with archaic and modern humans? No matter whether H. naledi branched from our tree 2 million or 1 million years ago, or even less, the species clearly overlapped in time with other human relatives throughout its entire existence.23 Other species that were contemporaries of H. naledi certainly included archaic and modern humans with much larger brain sizes, including within Africa where H. naledi is found. Large-­brained humans did not evolve alone. They shared the continent of their origin with H. naledi and its ancestors. The evolution of larger brains has had a uniquely important role in the history of ideas about human origins. Large brains use a lot of energy, and they take a long time to grow and develop. Anthropologists long assumed that early humans met such costs by expanding their niche to use a broader and broader array of resources. Cultural learning and toolmaking are important to this idea of niche expansion, because they would have allowed human ancestors to focus upon foods with high-­energy return and low costs. Any hominins that lacked these cultural and technological abilities could not have survived long in the same geographic range as larger-­brained Homo. Only in complete isolation, such as on an island like H. floresiensis, might the ancestral small brain size have remained viable. Anthropologists have developed a diversity of ideas about why large brains evolved, but in the

On Homo naledi and its significance 55 past few years questioned the notion that larger brains set us on a path of human uniqueness. This conventional way of looking at human evolution cannot explain H. naledi.24 There is plenty of evidence for brain differentiation between H. naledi and other contemporary hominins.25 But there is almost no evidence for niche differentiation. Brain size, niche expansion, and hominin competition cannot be linked in the way anthropologists have previously thought, because such a linkage predicts that a species like H. naledi could not exist in a niche occupied by larger-­brained hominins. What may be most fascinating is that H. naledi and archaic humans seem to have been adapting in many of the same ways. For example, scientists have emphasized the significance of smaller teeth to our genus, as higher-­quality foods and tool use became more and more important. The traditional story of human evolution placed tooth size along a similar trend as brain size. Our most distant ancestors, such as Australopithecus africanus, had small brains and large teeth – especially large premolar and molar teeth. A succession of species followed a trend toward smaller tooth size and larger brain size, from H. habilis to H. erectus to archaic and modern humans. Scientists have suggested that larger-­brained hominins were able to find and eat more high-­ quality foods, prompting the evolution of smaller teeth. Anthropologists have also suggested that processing foods using tools or cooking caused the human lineage to evolve smaller teeth. The underlying idea is that smarter hominins found ways to sustain themselves that substituted cleverness and food processing for tooth wear, so that larger brains and smaller teeth came to be related to each other. H. naledi violates this idea. H. naledi was similar to modern humans in its tooth sizes, and had substantially smaller molar teeth than species like H. habilis or even African H. erectus. Microwear evidence from its teeth suggest that H. naledi ate a diverse range of foods,26 and evidence of chipping on many of the Dinaledi teeth shows that some gritty or hard foods were part of its diet.27 Both are similar to some modern human hunter-­gatherer groups,28 and values for H. naledi microwear are specifically similar to Hadza foragers from Tanzania.29 Other aspects of the anatomy likewise reflect similarities between H. naledi and humans. H. naledi had hand and wrist morphology similar to modern humans and Neanderthals in most respects, consistent with humanlike manipulation of objects and toolmaking.30 H. naledi had leg and foot morphology concordant with efficient bipedal locomotion and running.31 The brain of H. naledi was vastly smaller than that of modern humans, yet it shared a human frontal lobe morphology.32 In other words, the anatomy of H. naledi and what we know about its behaviour suggest that it shared a similar ecological niche as archaic and modern humans. The traditional view would predict that H. naledi should have been wiped out by larger-­brained humans. Although the species is extinct today, it existed for a million years or more in the continent where

56  John Hawks and Lee Berger modern human ancestors arose. H. naledi must have had solutions to problems that worked as well or better than those applied by larger-­brained hominins. How can scientists make progress in understanding the ecology of H. naledi and archaic humans in Africa? Our team is applying today’s methods of studying palaeoecology, from dental microwear, stable isotope analyses, to modelling energetics and locomotion from the skeletal evidence. But we lack evidence that can only come from new approaches and sites. The Rising Star cave system does not currently provide a clear connection between palaeoenvironment and the H. naledi population we are studying. There are no clearly associated faunal or floral remains in the Dinaledi or Lesedi Chambers to tell us about the environment outside the cave when H. naledi used it. It is therefore critical for us to build a stronger understanding of the entire Rising Star cave system to connect faunal remains elsewhere in the cave to H. naledi, and to carry out work at other sites in the Cradle of Humankind area that can tell us about environments at the time H. naledi lived.

What tools did H. naledi make? An important part of understanding the ecology of any hominin is understanding its technology. Wilkins discusses what is known about the archaeological record of Africa between 500,000 and 50,000 years ago.33 H. naledi is a relevant species across this entire time period. The species or its ancestors unquestionably existed before the occurrences at the Rising Star cave, which have been dated to between 236,000 and 335,000 years ago, and these occurrences by themselves cannot tell us anything about when H. naledi may have become extinct.34 The assemblages of stone cores and flakes at other sites across subequatorial Africa during this time period belong to a broad category known as ‘Middle Stone Age’ (MSA). The MSA is defined by the presence of technical markers including Levallois (or ‘prepared core’) reduction, the presence of projectile points and other tools made from flakes, including blades, and the absence of large cutting tools, such as handaxes and cleavers.35 MSA assemblages sometimes include evidence for the collection and use of mineral pigments such as red ochre, and also sometimes include evidence that points were hafted onto wooden spears. Some later MSA assemblages include evidence for systematic processing and engraving of pigment blocks36 and heat-­treatment of stone.37 Archaeologists have written a great deal about the MSA and what it implies about the origins of modern humans. Many have suggested specific parallels between MSA archaeological occurrences and the cultural capacities that would have enabled modern humans to grow in population numbers, adapt to new environments, and disperse widely throughout the world. Still, other researchers maintain that the technical and cognitive abilities that underlie MSA archaeological occurrences occurred more broadly than in modern humans, including in Neanderthals38 and H. erectus.39

On Homo naledi and its significance 57 We are not prepared to enter the debate about the specific implications of particular MSA finds, such as ochre, hafting, or Levallois reduction. Instead, we make two simple observations. First, Africa was home to multiple species of hominins during the time period that MSA assemblages were made. Second, the MSA itself is not a single tradition, it is a complex array of behaviours carried out across a half million years by multiple populations of hominins. These technical markers – Levallois reduction, points, hafting, blades, and pigments – do not always occur together, and it has been clear for a long time that the earliest appearances of such technical markers were piecemeal at different times and places.40 Could H. naledi have been among the many makers of MSA technologies? It is a fact that H. naledi existed at a time when MSA artefacts and assemblages were produced. The only archaeological assemblages known in southern Africa between 335,000 and 236,000 years ago were either MSA or included evidence of the MSA technical markers.41 From its anatomy, H. naledi appears to have been a technological species. Our team has not yet recovered stone tools in the Rising Star cave system together with H. naledi fossils, but MSA artefacts are present only two kilometres away in the Lincoln Cave South and Sterkfontein Member 6 deposits which may be contemporary.42 What does it mean for hominin remains to be ‘associated with’ stone tools? Archaeologists have used the term in very different ways: sometimes meaning that tools are found within a single archaeological level with hominin remains, sometimes at the same site, sometimes at different sites but the same time, sometimes within the same region in the same broad time interval. All of these entail some assumptions about the possible coexistence or exclusivity of hominin species. When archaeologists believed that only a single lineage of hominins could have existed in Africa, it may have seemed natural to assume that stone tool assemblages were made by H. sapiens or its immediate ancestors. Now, hominin diversity must be considered together with archaeological diversity. Every archaeological site must be scrutinized closely before H. naledi can be excluded as a possible maker of ancient assemblages.43 With this in mind, only a tiny number of sites show hominin remains and MSA tools in the same geological layer during the time range of the Dinaledi Chamber. Some fossil material attributed to H. sapiens from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, comes from an MSA archaeological level between 264,000 and 387,000 years ago.44 There, fossils of H. sapiens were found in layer 7 together with an artefact assemblage that has Levallois and abundant retouched tools. One fossil hominin specimen was directly dated with electron spin resonance (ESR), as were several burned stone artefacts with thermoluminescence (TL) dating. This is the strongest example of fossil hominin remains in association with earlier MSA archaeological material. Other cases of association are weaker. A fragmentary skull from Florisbad, South Africa has also been claimed as an association of an archaic

58  John Hawks and Lee Berger human or early H. sapiens with MSA, approximately 260,000 years ago.45 At Florisbad, however, the dated specimen is an isolated tooth, with no way to demonstrate that it comes from the same individual or the same time as the skull fragments. Additionally, while the presence of MSA at the site is unquestioned, it is not clear that any MSA is as early as 260,000 years there.46 More recent in geological age, two fossil individuals from the Omo Kibish Formation of southern Ethiopia have been attributed to H. sapiens and date to around 195,000 years old.47 No artefacts were found together with either of these hominins, but MSA archaeological material does occur within the Omo Kibish Formation at other sites. The Herto H. sapiens material, among the earliest ‘modern’ human remains at around 165,000 years old, also were not found together with tools. The Middle Awash deposits from this time range do include archaeological materials with Levallois cores but also large cutting tools characteristic of Late Acheulean assemblages.48 What can scientists do to improve the evidence of association for MSA tools and hominins in Africa? Some sites, like Florisbad, were unfortunately excavated during a time when recording standards were lower than today. Data that might have been collected were instead lost. Archaeologists must insist on high standards of proof for the chronology, and they must work together to build regional databases that allow cross-­correlation of sites, fossil hominins, and assemblages. In critical areas like the Cradle of Humankind region, our team and others must intensify efforts to investigate new sites that represent the later Middle Pleistocene to understand the local transition from ESA to MSA and its connection to H. naledi.

Did H. naledi care for its dead? A remarkable aspect of the Rising Star discoveries is the context of the fossil remains. At most other fossil-­bearing sites in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, fossil hominins either do not occur or are very rare, vastly outnumbered by the bones of other kinds of animals. The Dinaledi Chamber has so far produced more than 2,000 hominin fossil specimens, representing at least 15 individuals of H. naledi. Yet our team has found almost no other animal remains with these fossils – only a small number of bones of a bird,49 and teeth and isolated bones of rodents. The Dinaledi Chamber fossils are not highly mineralized, and they lie within a soft, unconsolidated sediment different from the hard breccia deposits at most known fossil sites.50 Our team investigated the taphonomic evidence on the hominin bones and within the deposit.51 No H. naledi bone fragments suffered the bite or crunching of a carnivore. Nor do any bear evidence that their surfaces had been smoothed by water or tumbled through the cave from anywhere else. Some of the bones remained in their anatomical position, articulated, in the deposit. Almost every single part of the skeleton was there, many from multiple individuals. The lack of remains of animals other than H.

On Homo naledi and its significance 59 naledi suggests strongly that the chamber was not easily accessible from outside the cave system in the past. This idea is confirmed by the difference in sediment composition inside the chamber compared to the neighbouring Dragon’s Back Chamber, and the lack of externally derived sediment particles with bones of H. naledi shows that the bodies entered the chamber at a time when surface sediments could not enter with them. These observations together reject most of the mechanisms that could lead to hominin bones being deposited in a cave system. What is left is the hypothesis that H. naledi itself was responsible for depositing the bodies. This hypothesis was tested when the team uncovered the situation within the Lesedi Chamber. This second depositional locality for H. naledi is a different area of the cave system from the Dinaledi Chamber. Yet the depositional situation of the fossils is strikingly similar.52 As in the Dinaledi Chamber, the bones of H. naledi in the Lesedi Chamber are at most lightly mineralized, and they lie within soft unlithified sediments. None of the hominin remains bear any signs of cutmarks, tooth marks, or other damage from predators. Water may have affected the deposits in the Lesedi Chamber by washing out some areas of the chamber’s sediments, but the Neo skeletal remains appear to be relatively undisturbed, suggesting that such erosion happened long after this body was deposited. If H. naledi was using these chambers of the Rising Star cave system to deposit dead bodies, what does it mean? A short answer to this question is that we do not know. Every claim about burial among non-­modern humans has been controversial. This has been true even regarding possible evidence of intentional burial by Neanderthals,53 who undeniably were close relatives of modern people and had brains of modern size. Many archaeologists have considered mortuary practices among ancient humans to be a marker of modern human behaviour.54 Yet the idea that burial is uniquely modern has been challenged by archaeologists who suggest that Neanderthals and possibly a wider array of hominins sometimes deliberately buried dead individuals.55 How can science make progress in understanding the role of burial and mortuary practice in evolution? The Rising Star cave system is an exceptional context, and it is essential to recover high-­resolution data from this site to better understand how the deposits formed and how H. naledi used the entire cave system. Our team continues to work in the Rising Star system to test hypotheses about deposition or burial of the remains. Still, in our opinion, to understand the possibility of burial or other mortuary practices by ancient hominins, science must find new ways to address some fundamental questions. Past debates about symbolic culture and modern human origins have been mired in binary thinking: hominins were either ‘modern’ or ‘archaic’; they were either ‘symbolic’ or ‘not symbolic’. That kind of thinking does not reflect the way that evolution works. New traits and behaviours are selected from variation in populations. Human minds could not have emerged in a single huge jump. They evolved by natural

60  John Hawks and Lee Berger selection over thousands of generations, each generation encompassing individuals with great variability in behaviour. Science must find better ways to understand these patterns of past variability of behaviour. Trying to shoehorn ancient populations into binary categories does not help to build this understanding.

Conclusion The evidence from the Rising Star cave system is causing us to reexamine many entrenched assumptions about human evolution. Homo naledi existed near the border of humanity, so different from us in many ways, yet in some ways familiar. From the first discovery of fossils in the Dinaledi Chamber, to the uncovering of Lesedi Chamber remains, the cave system has produced unparalleled evidence about this new human relative. Understanding the place of H. naledi in the human journey may tell us much about the deep parts of our shared behavioural capacities. But to do this, we must work as scientists to find new ways to test some hypotheses using both the fossil record of human ancestors and the archaeological record of their behaviour. This process will take us beyond old assumptions of how human evolution happened into a richer realm of new evidence.

Notes 1 The authors acknowledge the sources of funding that have enabled them to carry out research on the Rising Star cave system, including the National Geographic Society, the South African National Research Foundation, and the Gauteng Provincial Government for funding of the discovery, recovery, and analysis of the material. Further support includes the Lyda Hill Foundation, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the Vilas Trust, and the Fulbright Scholar Program. We thank the Jacobs Family, and later the Lee R. Berger Foundation for Exploration, for access to the site, and the South African Heritage Resource Agency and Cradle of Humankind UNESCO World Heritage Site Management Authority for issuing the various permits required for this work, including the excavation permit. 2 Lee R. Berger, John Hawks, Darryl J. de Ruiter, Steven E. Churchill, Peter Schmid, Lucas K. Delezene, Tracy L. Kivell et al., ‘Homo naledi, a New Species of the Genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa’, eLife 4 (2015): e09560. 3 William E.H. Harcourt-­Smith, Zachary Throckmorton, Kimberly A. Congdon, Bernhard Zipfel, Andrew S. Deane, Michèle S.M. Drapeau, Steven E. Churchill, Lee R. Berger, and Jeremy M. DeSilva, ‘The Foot of Homo naledi’. Nature Communications 6 (2015): 8432; Damiano Marchi, Christopher S. Walker, Pianpian Wei, Trenton W. Holliday, Steven E. Churchill, Lee R. Berger, and Jeremy M. DeSilva, ‘The Thigh and Leg of Homo naledi’, Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 174–204. 4 Tracy L. Kivell, Andrew S. Deane, Matthew W. Tocheri, Caley M. Orr, Peter Schmid, John Hawks, Lee R. Berger, and Steven E. Churchill, ‘The Hand of Homo naledi’, Nature Communications 6 (2015): 8431.

On Homo naledi and its significance 61 5 Elen M. Feuerriegel, David J. Green, Christopher S. Walker, Peter Schmid, John Hawks, Lee R. Berger, and Steven E. Churchill, ‘The Upper Limb of Homo naledi’, Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 155–173. 6 Caroline VanSickle, Zachary Cofran, Daniel García-­Martínez, Scott A. Williams, Steven E. Churchill, Lee R. Berger, and John Hawks, ‘Homo naledi Pelvic Remains from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 125 (2018): 122–136. 7 Scott A. Williams, Daniel García-­Martínez, Markus Bastir, Marc R. Meyer, Shahed Nalla, John Hawks, Peter Schmid, Steven E. Churchill, and Lee R. Berger, ‘The Vertebrae and Ribs of Homo naledi’, Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 136–154. 8 Ralph L. Holloway, Shawn D. Hurst, Heather M. Garvin, P. Thomas Schoenemann, William B. Vanti, Lee R. Berger, and John Hawks, ‘Endocast Morphology of Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 22 (2018): 5738–5743. 9 Myra F. Laird, Lauren Schroeder, Heather M. Garvin, Jill E. Scott, Mana Dembo, Davorka Radovčić, Charles M. Musiba et al., ‘The Skull of Homo naledi’, Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 100–123; Lauren Schroeder, Jill E. Scott, Heather M. Garvin, Myra F. Laird, Mana Dembo, Davorka Radovčić, Lee R. Berger, Darryl J. de Ruiter, and Rebecca R. Ackermann, ‘Skull Diversity in the Homo Lineage and the Relative Position of Homo naledi’, Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 124–135. 10 Paul H.G.M. Dirks, Eric M. Roberts, Hannah Hilbert-­Wolf, Jan D. Kramers, John Hawks, Anthony Dosseto, Mathieu Duval et al., ‘The Age of Homo naledi and Associated Sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa’, eLife 6 (2017): e24231. 11 Carina M. Schlebusch, Helena Malmström, Torsten Günther, Per Sjödin, Alexandra Coutinho, Hanna Edlund, Arielle R. Munters et al., ‘Southern African Ancient Genomes Estimate Modern Human Divergence to 350,000 to 260,000 Years Ago’, Science 358, no. 6363 (2017): 652–655. 12 Jean-­Jacques Hublin, Abdelouahed Ben-­Ncer, Shara E. Bailey, Sarah E. Freidline, Simon Neubauer, Matthew M. Skinner, Inga Bergmann et al., ‘New Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the Pan-­African Origin of Homo sapiens’, Nature 546, no. 7657 (2017): 289–292; Eleanor M.L. Scerri, Mark G. Thomas, Andrea Manica, Philipp Gunz, Jay T. Stock, Chris Stringer, Matt Grove et al., ‘Did our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations across Africa, and Why does it Matter?’ Trends in Ecology and Evolution 33, no. 8 (2018): 582–594. 13 Michael A. Berthaume, Lucas K. Delezene, and Kornelius Kupczik, ‘Dental Topography and the Diet of Homo naledi’, Journal of Human Evolution 118 (2018): 14–26; Peter S. Ungar and Lee R. Berger, ‘Brief Communication: Dental Microwear and Diet of Homo naledi’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 166, no. 1 (2018): 228–235. 14 Rebecca Rogers Ackermann and Lauren Schroeder, ‘The Emergence of Complexity and Novelty in the Human Fossil Record’, current volume. 15 Darryl J. de Ruiter, Steven E. Churchill, John Hawks, and Lee R. Berger, ‘Late Australopiths and the Emergence of Homo’, Annual Review of Anthropology 46 (2017): 99–115. 16 David Reich, Richard E. Green, Martin Kircher, Johannes Krause, Nick Patterson, Eric Y. Durand, Bence Viola et al., ‘Genetic History of an Archaic Hominin Group from Denisova Cave in Siberia’, Nature 468, no. 7327 (2010): 1053–1060. 17 Peter Brown et al., ‘A New Small-­bodied Hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia’, Nature 431, no. 7012 (2004): 1055–1061.

62  John Hawks and Lee Berger 18 Florent Détroit, Armand Salvador Mijares, Julien Corny, Guillaume Daver, Clément Zanolli, Eusebio Dizon, Emil Robles, Rainer Grün, and Philip J. Piper, ‘A New Species of Homo from the Late Pleistocene of the Philippines’, Nature 568, no. 7751 (2019): 181–186. 19 John Hawks, Marina Elliott, Peter Schmid, Steven E. Churchill, Darryl J. de Ruiter, Eric M. Roberts, Hannah Hilbert-­Wolf et al., ‘New Fossil Remains of Homo naledi from the Lesedi Chamber, South Africa’, eLife 6 (2017): e24232. 20 Mana Dembo, Davorka Radovčić, Heather M. Garvin, Myra F. Laird, Lauren Schroeder, Jill E. Scott, Juliet Brophy et al., ‘The Evolutionary Relationships and Age of Homo naledi: An Assessment Using Dated Bayesian Phylogenetic Methods’, Journal of Human Evolution 97 (2016): 17–26; John Hawks and Lee R. Berger, ‘The Impact of a Date for Understanding the Importance of Homo naledi’, Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 71, no. 2 (2016): 125–128. 21 Dembo et al., ‘The Evolutionary Relationships’; Debbie Argue, Colin P. Groves, Michael S.Y. Lee, and William L. Jungers, ‘The Affinities of Homo floresiensis based on Phylogenetic Analyses of Cranial, Dental, and Postcranial Characters’, Journal of Human Evolution 107 (2017): 107–133. 22 Rebecca Rogers Ackermann, Alex Mackay, and Michael L. Arnold, ‘The Hybrid Origin of “Modern” Humans’, Evolutionary Biology 43 (2016): 1–11. 23 Lee R. Berger, John Hawks, Paul H.G.M. Dirks, Marina Elliott, and Eric M. Roberts, ‘Homo naledi and Pleistocene Hominin Evolution in Subequatorial Africa’, eLife 6 (2017): e24234. 24 Ibid. 25 Holloway et al., ‘Endocast Morphology of Homo naledi’. 26 Ungar et al., ‘Brief Communication’. 27 Ian Towle, Joel D. Irish, and Isabelle De Groote, ‘Behavioral Inferences from the High Levels of Dental Chipping in Homo naledi’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 164, no. 1 (2017): 184–192. 28 Christopher W. Schmidt, Ashley Remy, Rebecca Van Sessen, John Willman, Kristin Krueger et al., ‘Dental Microwear Texture Analysis of Homo sapiens sapiens: Foragers, Farmers, and Pastoralists’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 169, no. 2 (2019): 207–226. 29 Peter S. Ungar, Sarah V. Livengood, and Alyssa N. Crittenden, ‘Dental Microwear of Living Hadza Foragers’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 169, no. 2 (2019): 356–367. 30 Berger et al., ‘Homo naledi’; Kivell et al., ‘The Hand of Homo naledi’. 31 Marchi et al., ‘The Thigh and Leg of Homo naledi’. 32 Holloway et al., ‘Endocast Morphology of Homo naledi’. 33 Jayne Wilkins, ‘Archaeological Evidence for Human Social Learning and Sociality in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa’, current volume. 34 Hawks and Berger, ‘The Impact of a Date for Understanding’. 35 A.J.H. Goodwin, ‘An Introduction to the Middle Stone Age of South Africa’, South African Journal of Science 25 (1928): 410–418. 36 Christopher S. Henshilwood, Francesco d’Errico, Karen L. Van Niekerk, Yvan Coquinot, Zenobia Jacobs, Stein-­ Erik Lauritzen, Michel Menu, and Renata García-­Moreno, ‘A 100,000-­Year-­Old Ochre-­processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, Science 334, no. 6053 (2011): 219–222. 37 Schmidt et al., ‘Dental Microwear Texture Analysis of Homo sapiens sapiens’. 38 Francesco d’Errico, ‘The Invisible Frontier: A Multiple Species Model for the Origin of Behavioral Modernity’, Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 12, no. 4 (2003): 188–202.

On Homo naledi and its significance 63 39 Marc Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise: What Can Anthropologists Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom?’, current volume. 40 Sally McBrearty and Alison S. Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior’, Journal of Human Evolution 39, no. 5 (2000): 453–563. 41 Andy I.R. Herries, ‘A Chronological Perspective on the Acheulian and its Transition to the Middle Stone Age in Southern Africa: The Question of the Fauresmith’, International Journal of Evolutionary Biology (2011): 961401. 42 Sally C. Reynolds, Ronald J. Clarke, and K. A. Kuman, ‘The View from the Lincoln Cave: Mid-­to Late Pleistocene Fossil Deposits from Sterkfontein Hominid Site, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 53, no. 3 (2007): 260–271; Christine A. Ogola, ‘The Sterkfontein Western Breccias: Statigraphy, Fauna and Artefacts’, PhD diss. (University of the Witwatersrand, 2009). 43 Berger et al., ‘Homo naledi’; Hawks and Berger, ‘The Impact of a Date for Understanding’. 44 Daniel Richter, Rainer Grün, Renaud Joannes-­Boyau, Teresa E. Steele, Fethi Amani, Mathieu Rué, Paul Fernandes et al., ‘The Age of the Hominin Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the Origins of the Middle Stone Age’, Nature 546, no. 7657 (2017): 293; Hublin et al., ‘New Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco’. 45 Rainer Grün et al., ‘Direct Dating of Florisbad Hominid’, Nature 382, no. 6591 (1996): 500. 46 Berger et al., ‘Homo naledi’. 47 Ian McDougall, Francis H. Brown, and John G. Fleagle, ‘Stratigraphic Placement and Age of Modern Humans from Kibish, Ethiopia’, Nature 433, no. 7027 (2005): 733. 48 J. Desmond Clark, Yonas Beyene, Giday WoldeGabriel, William K. Hart, Paul R. Renne, Henry Gilbert, Alban Defleur et al., ‘Stratigraphic, Chronological and Behavioural Contexts of Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia’, Nature 423, no. 6941 (2003): 747–752. 49 Ashley Kruger and Shaw Badenhorst, ‘Remains of a Barn Owl (Tyto alba) from the Dinaledi Chamber, Rising Star Cave, South Africa’, South African Journal of Science 114, no. 11–12 (2018): 1–5. 50 Paul H.G.M. Dirks, Lee R. Berger, Eric M. Roberts, Jan D. Kramers, John Hawks, Patrick S. Randolph-­Quinney, Marina Elliott et al., ‘Geological and Taphonomic Context for the New Hominin Species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa’, eLife 4 (2015): e09561. 51 Ibid. 52 Hawks et al., ‘New Fossil Remains of Homo naledi’. 53 Robert H. Gargett, ‘Grave Shortcomings: The Evidence for Neandertal Burial’, Current Anthropology 30, no. 2 (1989): 157–190; Robert H. Gargett, ‘Middle Palaeolithic Burial is not a Dead Issue: The View from Qafzeh, Saint-­Césaire, Kebara, Amud, and Dederiyeh’, Journal of Human Evolution 37, no. 1 (1999): 27–90. 54 Philip G. Chase and Harold L. Dibble, ‘Middle Paleolithic Symbolism: A Review of Current Evidence and Interpretations’, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6, no. 3 (1987): 263–296; Richard G. Klein, ‘Anatomy, Behavior, and Modern Human Origins’, Journal of World Prehistory 9, no. 2 (1995): 167–198. 55 Paul Pettitt, The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial (London and New York: Routledge, 2010); João Zilhão, ‘Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Mortuary Behaviours and the Origins of Ritual Burial’, in Death Rituals, Social Order and the Archaeology of Immortality in the Ancient World, edited by Colin Renfrew, Michael J. Boyd, and Iain Morley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 27–44.

64  John Hawks and Lee Berger

Glossary ancient DNA:  DNA evidence directly from the skeletal remains of dead individuals. Cradle of Humankind:  the area northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the numerous ancient caves that contain fossil hominins and other traces of the past. derived:  referring to traits that are newly evolved within a lineage and not shared with distant ancestors of the group. When two species share derived traits, these may provide evidence that the species evolved from the same ancestral lineage. electron spin resonance (ESR):  a method of determining the geological age of teeth based upon the long-­term effects of natural radiation upon electrons within the crystalline structure of enamel. microwear:  microscopic scratches and pits on the surfaces of teeth made in the course of chewing. Microwear can provide a signature of the types of foods or food processing used by ancient hominins. Middle Pleistocene:  the period of time between 780,000 and 130,000 years ago. Middle Stone Age (MSA):  the term for African stone tool assemblages that share several technical markers including prepared core reduction sequences, high numbers of blades and points, hafted tools, and pigments. phylogeny:  the pattern of relationships among species, usually depicted in the form of a tree. Pleistocene:  the period of Earth’s history between 2.5 million and 10,000 years ago. prepared core (Levallois) reduction:  a method of stone toolmaking in which the toolmaker removes several small flakes from a rock for the purpose of facilitating the creation of large flakes of a predetermined size and shape. The resulting Levallois flakes may be further altered to make points or blades. primitive:  referring to traits that were present in the common ancestors of a group of species. Sometimes the word ‘ancestral’ is also used for such traits. taphonomic:  relating to the natural and human-­mediated processes that can alter skeletal remains and archaeological material at the time that they are deposited and afterward. thermoluminescence (TL):  a method of determining the geological age of stone, based upon the long-­term effects of natural radiation upon electrons within its crystalline structure.

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On Homo naledi and its significance 67 Marchi, Damiano, Christopher S. Walker, Pianpian Wei, Trenton W. Holliday, Steven E. Churchill, Lee R. Berger, and Jeremy M. DeSilva. ‘The Thigh and Leg of Homo naledi’. Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 174–204. McBrearty, Sally, and Alison S. Brooks. ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior’. Journal of Human Evolution 39, no. 5 (2000): 453–563. McDougall, Ian, Francis H. Brown, and John G. Fleagle. ‘Stratigraphic Placement and Age of Modern Humans from Kibish, Ethiopia’. Nature 433, no. 7027 (2005): 733. Ogola, Christine A. ‘The Sterkfontein Western Breccias: Statigraphy, Fauna and Artefacts’. PhD diss. (University of the Witwatersrand, 2009). Pettitt, Paul. The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial (London and New York: Routledge, 2010). Randolph-­ Quinney, Patrick S. ‘The Mournful Ape: Conflating Expression and Meaning in the Mortuary Behaviour of Homo naledi’. South African Journal of Science 111, no. 11–12 (2015): 1–5. Reich, David, Richard E. Green, Martin Kircher, Johannes Krause, Nick Patterson, Eric Y. Durand, Bence Viola et al. ‘Genetic History of an Archaic Hominin Group from Denisova Cave in Siberia’. Nature 468, no. 7327 (2010): 1053–1060. Reynolds, Sally C., Ronald J. Clarke, and K.A. Kuman. ‘The View from the Lincoln Cave: Mid-­to Late Pleistocene Fossil Deposits from Sterkfontein Hominid Site, South Africa’. Journal of Human Evolution 53, no. 3 (2007): 260–271. Richter, Daniel, Rainer Grün, Renaud Joannes-­Boyau, Teresa E. Steele, Fethi Amani, Mathieu Rué, Paul Fernandes et al. ‘The Age of the Hominin Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the Origins of the Middle Stone Age’. Nature 546, no. 7657 (2017): 293. Scerri, Eleanor M.L., Mark G. Thomas, Andrea Manica, Philipp Gunz, Jay T. Stock, Chris Stringer, Matt Grove et al. ‘Did our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations Across Africa, and Why Does it Matter?’ Trends in Ecology and Evolution 33, no. 8 (2018): 582–594. Schlebusch, Carina M., Helena Malmström, Torsten Günther, Per Sjödin, Alexandra Coutinho, Hanna Edlund, Arielle R. Munters et al. ‘Southern African Ancient Genomes Estimate Modern Human Divergence to 350,000 to 260,000 years ago’. Science 358, no. 6363 (2017): 652–655. Schmidt, Christopher W., Ashley Remy, Rebecca Van Sessen, John Willman, Kristin Krueger et al. ‘Dental Microwear Texture Analysis of Homo sapiens sapiens: Foragers, Farmers, and Pastoralists’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 169, no. 2 (2019): 207–226. Schmidt, Patrick, Guillaume Porraz, Aneta Slodczyk, Ludovic Bellot-­Gurlet, William Archer, and Christopher E. Miller. ‘Heat Treatment in the South African Middle Stone Age: Temperature Induced Transformations of Silcrete and their Technological Implications’. Journal of Archaeological Science 40, no. 9 (2013): 3519–3531. Schroeder, Lauren, Jill E. Scott, Heather M. Garvin, Myra F. Laird, Mana Dembo, Davorka Radovčić, Lee R. Berger, Darryl J. de Ruiter, and Rebecca R. Ackermann. ‘Skull Diversity in the Homo Lineage and the Relative Position of Homo naledi’. Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 124–135. Towle, Ian, Joel D. Irish, and Isabelle De Groote. ‘Behavioral Inferences from the High Levels of Dental Chipping in Homo naledi’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 164, no. 1 (2017): 184–192.

68  John Hawks and Lee Berger Ungar, Peter S., and Lee R. Berger. ‘Brief Communication: Dental Microwear and Diet of Homo naledi’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 166, no. 1 (2018): 228–235. Ungar, Peter S., Sarah V. Livengood, and Alyssa N. Crittenden. ‘Dental Microwear of Living Hadza Foragers’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 169, no. 2 (2019): 356–367. VanSickle, Caroline, Zachary Cofran, Daniel García-­Martínez, Scott A. Williams, Steven E. Churchill, Lee R. Berger, and John Hawks. ‘Homo naledi Pelvic Remains from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa’. Journal of Human Evolution 125 (2018): 122–136. Williams, Scott A., Daniel García-­Martínez, Markus Bastir, Marc R. Meyer, Shahed Nalla, John Hawks, Peter Schmid, Steven E. Churchill, and Lee R. Berger. ‘The Vertebrae and Ribs of Homo naledi’. Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 136–154. Zilhão, João. ‘Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Mortuary Behaviours and the Origins of Ritual Burial’. In Death Rituals, Social Order and the Archaeology of Immortality in the Ancient World, edited by Colin Renfrew, Michael J. Boyd, and Iain Morley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 27–44.

4 Becoming wise What can anthropologists say about the evolution of human wisdom? Marc Kissel For the last few years, I have had the distinct pleasure of working alongside theologians, philosophers, and other scholars tracking the evolution of human wisdom. As a trained anthropologist, I will admit that when starting this project my knowledge of what theologians did was pretty rudimentary. However, after numerous conversations I have come around to the notion that such discussions are not only fruitful, but necessary. Discussions about human origins are by their very nature political ones1 and we need to be cognizant of how the facts of human evolution can often be misused, intentionally or not, by people wishing to cause divisions and create hostile situations between groups. In this sense, discussions of what makes us human must involve these transdisciplinary conversations, even if by their very nature they can be difficult and occasionally divisive. Wisdom, though, might be something anthropologists can work with. The working definition of wisdom for this project has been the pattern (and ability) of successful complex decision-­ making in navigating social networks and dynamic niches in human communities. This is perhaps similar to concepts in anthropology such as cumulative cultural evolution.2 If wisdom evolves there must be variation in its expression. Thus, we can imagine a time when only a handful of hominins were truly wise. This is somewhat worrisome, as it may, if improperly used, suggest that some modern people are not truly wise. In other words, we need to be careful in applying a term like wisdom since it often has implicit connotations. So, why talk about wisdom? For one, it avoids the problematic, colonialist overtones of talking about ‘modern human behaviour’ or ‘behavioural modernity’. Was it a fast track or slow burn to humanity and how did our ancestors go from hominin to human are seminal questions in the field of palaeoanthropology. The fossil record hints at these transitions, but cannot yet tell us when we became human. Indeed, one of the most frustrating aspects of hominin evolution is that we do not have a succinct and definitive fossil definition of what makes a specimen Homo sapiens (we cannot even agree if modern humans should be called H. sapiens or H. sapiens sapiens). Recent work, both theoretical3 and evidence-­based,4 has questioned the assumptions of the standard model of how we became human; specifically, the

70  Marc Kissel ‘sapiens paradox’, which argues that anatomical and behavioural modernity were separate events in human evolution. As noted earlier, if wisdom is a trait that evolves, there has to be variation in the ways individuals navigate these social networks. Archaeologists have mostly worked under the dual inheritance model of Cavalli-­Sforza and Feldman, which suggests that humans possess two distinct systems of information transfer: one is genetic and the other is cultural.5 Other scholars, working with the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis,6 take a different perspective, emphasizing niche selection and other behaviours that are inherited non-­genetically. Wisdom would seemingly be passed on non-­genetically, though perhaps requiring some preexisting substrate. For the majority of scholars, modernity has been placed between 200–50 ka. Following Deacon,7 Homo sapiens’ success relative to other members of the genus Homo was not due to a physical difference but rather a suite of behavioural changes. Deacon argues that it was humans’ ability to think symbolically, to link a sign to an object via convention, rather than contiguity or similarity, that allowed for our ancestors’ success. If true, the question then becomes when this behaviour originated. Did it appear all at once, as White8 argues? If so, can we trace symbolic thought to its lair? Or, does it have a more complex origin? The presence of symbolic artefacts at Neandertal9 sites in Europe10, plus the evidence of engraved objects created by non-­H. sapiens populations outside of Africa11, complicate the issue of what makes us modern. If ornamentation and decoration are evidence of wisdom, what does the fact that Neandertals were able to produce these artefacts say about the cognitive capabilities of these and other Pleistocene Homo populations? We could use these data as evidence that we have simply misstated what makes us unique. If it is not shell beads, perhaps it is the control of fire (a hot topic for sure) or hunting large game. Yet these too are found in non-­modern humans.12 This leads to an interesting question: Is there anything symbolic that is not found in non-­modern humans?13 Yet, this is skirting a fairly important issue. Namely, what is meant by symbolic thought?14 Deacon, whom most palaeoanthropologists cite as the source of ‘symbolism made us human’, popularized the use of Peircean semiotics, especially in regards to the icon/index/symbol distinction. While perhaps being misread, many have taken a hard-­line approach: attempting to discern which cultural materials are legitimately symbolic. However, discerning that a conventional link exists is difficult when the broader cultural system is unknown, as is the case in the Pleistocene. It may be better to focus attention on how signs were able to convey meaning, rather than on what specific meaning the signs are conveying. In order to understand how the human cultural niche evolved across the Pleistocene, and how wisdom evolved, we need a better understanding of the actual archaeological data that inform this question. In order to properly

Becoming wise 71 contextualize the data, address these conflicts, and begin to more effectively and systematically answer questions about the emergence of modern human behaviour, we created an open-­access database resource, the Worldwide Instances of Symbolic Data Outlining Modernity (https://marckissel.shin yapps.io/wisdom_database/).15 This online, open-­ access database allows users to query the published record for examples of artefacts that have been argued to be symbolic. As previously noted, there is no consensus on what makes an artefact symbolic. Archaeological sites are palimpsests of activity,16 and interpreting individual artefacts is often difficult. A case in point is a purported ‘lion figurine’ from the Lower Palaeolithic of India.17 The object, while undated, is suggested to be an early example of palaeoart. However, the lack of detailed description makes it difficult to assess its legitimacy. That, plus a lack of contextual information, puts the claim into question. Even better-­known examples such as the Bilzingsleben markings18 have been questioned by sceptics on taphonomic grounds.19 After extensive review of the literature, and the debates, we included artefacts in the database if they fit at least three of the following criteria: 1 Published in a peer-­reviewed article or book chapter; 2 Had an illustration/picture of the artefact or sufficient data-­ based descriptions that supported the assertion of potentially symbolic representation; 3 Had contextual information to assess its age (though in context of surface finds this was relaxed); 4 Has undergone some taphonomic study; 5 Referenced/discussed as a valid symbolic artefact in at least two publications by different scholars. The database is kept up-­to-­date and regularly receives updates and edits to keep it as accurate as possible. These updates are sent to the database manager, who then assesses the information and updates accordingly.

The data Based on previous models and research, the data should demonstrate the following patterns: 1

There will be a major increase in the amount of symbolic representation at sites and in artefacts after 200,000 years ago, concomitant with the unambiguous appearance of anatomically modern humans; 2 The data should show a clear geographic clustering of the earliest sites of symbolic expression in one region. Figure 4.1 shows the number of sites with potential symbolic artefacts in 100,000-­year intervals, while Figure  4.2 shows the geographic placement

72  Marc Kissel

Figure 4.1 Graph showing the number of localities that have reported evidence of symbolic behaviour.

of these sites. Breaking up the data into 100,000-­year histograms partially distorts the picture, but allows for a general overview that will be impossible otherwise due to difficulties in dating sites from different regions and time periods. While there are indicators of symbolic thought prior to 200 ka, there are significantly more after this time period. If for the moment we consider all of these pre-­200 ka examples legitimate artefacts, these early examples show that the capacity to create these objects existed earlier than often posited. If Homo sapiens postdate the appearance of these behaviours, it suggests that complex behaviours and a human-­like pattern of semiosis existed before the appearance of our species (as discussed in the last section, new evidence argues that our species might be closer to 300 ka). Perhaps rather than arguing who was modern and who was not, we are better placed to discuss the processes occurring in the past

Becoming wise 73

Figure 4.2 Map showing locations of sites that have been suggested to show evidence of symbolic behaviour.

that shifted behaviours and provoked early humans to engage in more complex sharing of information. On the other hand, perhaps all the pre-­200 ka artefacts are misdated or not proper artefacts. In an attempt to mitigate this factor, we only include artefacts that fit the criteria listed previously in this chapter. Similarly, one could ignore or leave out sites or artefacts that were excavated and studied prior to modern techniques. The relational aspect of the WISDOM database allows scholars to use any criteria they see fit. The same problem is inherent in discussing human evolution, where many of the fossils argued to be archaic Homo sapiens are poorly dated. As an example, we can turn to the site of Broken Hill, Zambia (the nearby town is now known as Kabwe, and thus some prefer this term to refer to the site and cultural remains). This site yielded not only some of the earliest bone tools associated with the genus Homo but also a well-­preserved cranium, with a large cranial capacity, estimated at 1280 cm,3 and an expanded midvault. Rightmire20 has noted that its large cranial capacity and less strongly curved occipital suggests a different form from H. erectus, arguing it either belongs to H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis. The face is somewhat forwardly placed and has a heavy supraorbital torus, while the cranial base is not as flexed as it is in most modern humans.21 In sum, the cranium does

74  Marc Kissel not fit with what we would normally consider to be H. sapiens. The site was located on a small hill (referred to as a kopje). Based on field reports the hill was originally around 15 meters high, but mining for zinc and copper had erased the hill from the landscape by 1930.22 Sadly, many of the artefacts and bone (including a hominin clavicle) have been lost over the years. The date of the cultural materials found within the ‘Bone Cave’ has been subject to much debate. Clark excavated an area ~250 yards from where the cave used to be and discovered a series of archaeological deposits.23 Some interpretations suggest the bulk of the fossils are from a higher level than the skull, which would suggest that the fauna and archaeological remains may not be associated with the cranium. Clark, however, suggested that the skull can be linked to the other materials.24 This leaves the question of how old the materials are. Klein noted that the fauna are similar to those from Upper Bed II through Bed IV at Olduvai.25 Millard used this to date the deposits to no younger than 490 ka (though depending on the dating one uses from Olduvai, it could also be older than 990 ka).26 We will always have a difficult time knowing the ages of these early finds. However, more recent finds, such as the engraved clam shell from Trinil from 540,000–43,000 years ago,27 artistic objects associated with Homo erectus,28 and the use of ochre by pre-­modern Homo,29 pass more rigorous dating and taphonomic assessment, suggesting that earlier members of the genus Homo were making these complex objects. These glimmerings of wisdom suggest that the ability to produce these artefacts that are seemingly distinctly human has ancient roots, but a more recent solidification.

Potential problems For obvious reasons, the further back in time we look, the less likely it is for objects to be preserved. This is especially true for the mostly ephemeral products of wisdom, most of which do not even leave archaeological traces. If we assume that these artefacts were important to their creators, what is the probability that we will find them? Of course, in some sense loss is what allows for most of what we find: if these objects were not lost and left behind by their users, we would not be finding them.30 Preservation of stone is more likely than that of wood or bone artefacts. Similarly, smaller artefacts are more likely to be missed during excavation, especially those that were undertaken before modern excavation techniques such as water screening and piece-­plotting. This makes searching collections from the early part of the twentieth century problematic, since not all archaeologists saved everything. For example, if the shaft fragments of faunal remains are considered unidentifiable, then they may not be curated. However, research has shown that ignoring shaft fragments can bias the record.31 The questions and assumptions we bring to the table can also have a large affect on interpretations. Recent findings of Neandertals using bird talons as necklaces are based on excavations undertaken ~100 years prior.32 If no

Becoming wise 75 one had gone looking in these collections, they might not have been found.33 Another type of bias comes from where we search. The WISDOM database shows clusters of artefacts (see Figure 4.2). Does this show legitimate patterning, or is it simply a reflection of where people worked? Finally, perhaps the types of sites have changed. If there is a switch from residential to logistic mobility then this could affect the sites uncovered and the types of artefacts at each of these sites.34 For example, Pike-­Tay and colleagues suggest the change in artefact and faunal assemblages seen from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic in Spain is due to an increase in logistical economic strategies.35 A similar pattern has been seen in the Archaic period in Michigan.36 Recently, work has concentrated on the effect that population size has on the archaeological record. The population size model has its genesis in work by Joseph Henrich.37 In part, his model was a response to critiques that cultural evolution could not be explicable by selection due to the low fidelity of the transmission of ideas across generations. These models suggest that it is not simply a cognitive change, but rather cognitive potential combined with a significant demographic expansion, which explains the variation in the appearance of modern human behaviour. Others question this, arguing that these models are based on faulty assumptions and predictions, such as not incorporating task specialization, which can mitigate the need for everyone in a society to master all tasks.38 Much of the theory about modern human behaviour is predicated on assumptions of what the archaeological record would look like if it was created by individuals who were capable of complex thought. Yet, this often assumes much about the nature of the archaeological record. It also requires us to apply theoretical frameworks derived from studies of modern humans to populations that might not have been as cognitively or anatomically modern as humans are today. Keeping these issues in mind, there is a significant increase in the number of sites that show symbolic expression after 200 ka (there is also an increase in the direct number of artefacts). In the next section, I sketch out some thoughts about the nature of wisdom in human evolution.

Conclusions and future work If these artefacts are legitimate, do they represent one-­off occurrences that do not imply anything about human evolution in the long term or rather are they signals of wisdom? Some scholars suggest that the reason why behaviours such as these disappear is due to a change in the fitness landscape. For example, Henshilwood suggests that the disappearance of the Still Bay (SB) (~76–68 kya) culture in South Africa and the apparent lack of evidence for the use of engraved ochre and bead technology in the subsequent Howieson Poort (HP) (65–60 kya) that followed may be due to a change in the genetic fitness value of the SB technology and its accompanying artefacts.39

76  Marc Kissel Applying the concept of wisdom, we might suggest that the decision-­making practices that produced a higher fitness value were no longer adaptive. However, the hypothesis that such behaviours vanished and reappeared has been questioned on numerous grounds, with scholars noting that it may be an effect of dating issues and taphonomic processes.40 While the WISDOM database cannot of yet answer this question, recent scholarship does suggest that as we increase our geographic and temporal data, these ‘gaps’ tend to disappear.41 Moreover, it may put too strong an emphasis on natural selection, while sidestepping other forms of inheritance. Changes in the types of artefacts found could be due to random events not related to selection, such as local extinction events.42 Populations can go extinct for numerous reasons, and more than likely, small populations of early humans living in highly structured communities were constantly under threat of collapse. These extinctions are driven in part due to an inability to find solutions to external problems, an issue that can be mitigated by contact with other groups. Jordan discusses the skis, sledges, and canoe production among the Khanty population of Northwest Siberia, studying how various traits within these crafts are inherited culturally.43 He notes how a specific type of cloth used in creating these skis originated in NW Siberia, and then spread outwards. This cloth covering prevents snow from clogging up the bindings. While not life-­saving, it shows how the horizontal transfer of cultural traits is important. Similarly, an update to their sledges, created by a single individual who observed how Russian snowmobile drivers created sledges, has been passed down. In other words, having the ability to borrow from neighbours can drive cultural innovation. Why does this matter? Research suggests that first learning tends to be from parent/family members to the children and then the child may update (via oblique transmission) when they find people who are sufficiently better at the task. This updating tends to occur when a child is older. The likelihood of finding someone who is significantly better at a task to make the effort worthwhile increases as population size, or migration, increases.44 A recent article by Sikora and colleagues argues that changing patterns in the reproductive behaviours of Upper Palaeolithic peoples may, in part, explain their relative success compared to Neandertals.45 By analysing ancient DNA, they show that the individuals from a site in Russia, while composed of a small population, are highly outbred. This suggests that marriage/mating practices that prevented inbreeding may have been in place. Perhaps such practices have a more ancient origin. The use of so-­called symbolic artefacts could be part of the package of practices that created, and maintained, such social groups. These practices might not have affected genetic fitness directly, but could have changed the communal niche. This would then have been passed down, non-­genetically, to the next generation. Such changes in the human niche may have been a prime driver in human evolution.46

Becoming wise 77 Perhaps human populations were experimenting with new types of artefacts, art, and conceptual processes that may not have had a direct effect on their fitness, with the evolution of new artefact types being part of the expansion of the human niche. The human cultural niche has been the co-­ director of human evolution since at least the earliest stone tool industries over 3 million years ago.47 The opening up of the human niche shows an increased reliance on cooperation and cultural transmission, as well as more dense and complex communications systems. The degree to which humans make and remake the world is a distinctive aspect of our behaviour. Wisdom, at its core, is a type of niche construction. Our ancestors were able to successfully navigate increasingly complex social niches. The evolution of this ability, which is part of human wisdom, is difficult to see in the palaeoanthropological record. The objects that archaeologists have considered to be ‘symbolic’ may be signals of this increasing need to manage social networks. Many models ignore the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, which emphasizes other types of inheritance.48 Keeping in mind that symbolic inheritance was an integral part of the early human niche can shed light on patterns of artefact densities. For example, if it is true that there are few examples of engraved ochre after the Still Bay, rather than seeing this as a change in the fitness landscape, perhaps it is indicative of the evolving human niche. In this sense, it does not necessarily have to be the fitness of engraved ochre pieces that changed, but rather an evolving cultural landscape. The ‘usefulness’ of these specific artefacts could have a short shelf-­life, like many modern day fads. Insight from evolutionary biology has led researchers to suggest that evolutionary theory needs to move beyond focusing on genetic fitness and incorporate a systems-­based approach that includes non-­genetic inheritance.49 Finally, we must also be aware of the antiquity of modern humans. Up until 2017, most scholars would put the First Appearance Date (FAD) of Homo sapiens at ~200,000 years ago. However, both fossil50 and genetic51 evidence now suggests that our species arose closer to 300,000 years ago. This fits well with some of the data from the WISDOM database, which shows that many of the indicators of modern semiotic thought appear by this date. Of course, we cannot expect the fossil data to show us when the earliest member of a species arose. The recent genetic data, which examines DNA from skeletons to estimate the divergence date of modern humans, places H. sapiens between 260–350 ka. If we accept the fossils from Jebel Ihroud as also being close to this date, placing H. sapiens at least 300 ka fits the data well. Thinking symbolically does not require the production of artefacts, just the ability to use them. Maybe what was holding us back, so to speak, was not the potential to produce these artefacts, but rather the time. After all, most of us probably could create complex art, but simply lack the time and effort to put into it. Was the change more one of time than of ability? Did

78  Marc Kissel we increase our free time, which allowed some to master more complex tasks? Discussions around the campfire are often about more than just subsistence.52 Tracing the evolution of human wisdom may help to elucidate this process in light of modern evolutionary thinking and recognizing what makes us distinctively human. The types of conversations that this symposium allowed not only generated interesting discussions, but provided, for me, a more nuanced perspective on the framing of these questions. Questions of who we are inevitably lead to questions of who we were. Understanding how we became human is thus an important step in understanding what it means to be human. This is a lesson that can best be taught through transdisciplinary studies that highlight both the shared questions, as well as points of contention, that are at the heart of both science and the humanities.

Notes 1 Jonathan Marks, Tales of the Ex-­Apes: How We Think about Human Evolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015). 2 Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015); Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Stephen Shennan, Genes, Memes and Human History: Darwinian Archaeology and Cultural Evolution (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003). 3 Antonis Iliopoulos, ‘The Material Dimensions of Signification: Rethinking the Nature and Emergence of Semiosis in the Debate on Human Origins’, Quat. Int. 405 (2016): 111–124; Duilio Garofoli, ‘Cognitive Archaeology without Behavioral Modernity: An Eliminativist Attempt’, Quat. Int. 405 (2015): 125–135; Lambros Malafouris, ‘Metaplasticity and the Human Becoming: Principles of Neuroarchaeology’, J. Anthropol. Sci. 88 (2010): 49–72. 4 John Shea, ‘Homo Sapiens Is as Homo Sapiens Was’, Curr. Anthropol. 52, no. 1 (2011): 1–35; Sally McBrearty and Alison Brooks, ‘The Revolution That Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior’, J. Hum. Evol. 39 (2000): 453–563; Christopher Henshilwood and Curtis Marean, ‘The Origin of Modern Human Behavior’, Curr. Anthropol. 44, no. 5 (2003): 627–651. 5 Luigi Luca Cavalli-­Sforza and Marcus Feldman, Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). 6 Kevin Laland et al., ‘The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis : Its Structure, Assumptions and Predictions’, Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 282 (2015): 20151019. 7 Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-­Evolution of Language and the Brain (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997). 8 Leslie White, ‘The Symbol: The Origin and Basis of Human Behavior’, Philos. Sci. 7, no. 4 (1940): 451–463. 9 I use the spelling ‘Neandertal’ (rather than ‘Neanderthal’) throughout this chapter to avoid unhelpful overtones of Neandertals as ‘uncivilized’ and to connote a closer connection between Neandertals and modern Homo sapiens. 10 Joaquín Rodríguez-­Vidal et al., ‘A Rock Engraving Made by Neanderthals in Gibraltar’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 37 (2014): 13301–13306; Wil Roebroeks et al., ‘Use of Red Ochre by Early Neandertals’,

Becoming wise 79 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 109, no. 6 (2012): 1889–1894; João Zilhão et al., ‘Symbolic Use of Marine Shells and Mineral Pigments by Iberian Neandertals’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 107, no. 3 (2010): 1023–1028. 11 Josephine Joordens et al., ‘Homo Erectus at Trinil on Java Used Shells for Tool Production and Engraving’, Nature 518 (2014): 228–231; Nikolay Sirakov et al., ‘An Ancient Continuous Human Presence in the Balkans and the Beginnings of Human Settlement in Western Eurasia: A Lower Pleistocene Example of the Lower Palaeolithic Levels in Kozarnika Cave (North-­Western Bulgaria)’, Quat. Int. 223 (2010): 94–106; Xing Gao et al., ‘120–150 Ka Human Tooth and Ivory Engravings from Xinglongdong Cave, Three Gorges Region, South China’, Chinese Sci. Bull. 49, no. 2 (2004): 175. 12 Ran Barkai et al., ‘Fire for a Reason: Barbecue at Middle Pleistocene Qesem Cave, Israel’, Curr. Anthropol. 58 (2017): 1–16; Laura Niven et al., ‘Neandertal Mobility and Large-­Game Hunting: The Exploitation of Reindeer during the Quina Mousterian at Chez-­Pinaud Jonzac (Charente-­Maritime, France)’, J. Hum. Evol. 63, no. 4 (2012): 624–635. 13 What is meant by modern humans is, of course, the very question under study, which often makes this a circular question. Skeletally, it is worth remembering what Tobias noted in 1995: ‘After all, we are not in the habit of speaking of “anatomically modem elephants” or “anatomically modem hippopotami” ’ Phillip Tobias, ‘The Bearing of Fossils and Mitochondrial DNA on the Evolution of Modern Humans, with a Critique of the “Mitochondrial Eve” Hypothesis’, South African Archaeol. Bull. 50, no. 162 (1995): 158. 14 Marc Kissel and Agustín Fuentes, ‘Semiosis in the Pleistocene, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27, no. 3 (2017). See also Andrew Robinson, ‘On the Origin of Symbols: Archaeology, Semiotics and Self-­ Transcendence’, current volume. 15 Marc Kissel and Agustin Fuentes, ‘A Database of Archeological Evidence of Representational Behavior’, Evol. Anthropol. Issues, News, Rev. 26, no. 4 (2017): 149–150. 16 Michael Bolus, ‘Settlement Analysis of Sites of the Blattspitzen Complex in Central Europe’, in Settlement Dynamics of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age II, edited by Nicholas Conard (Tübingen: Kerns Verlag, 2004), 201–226. 17 P. Rajendran, ‘A Lion Figurine with Non-­Acheulian Lower Palaeolithic Implements’, Curr. Sci. 102, no. 9 (2012): 1260–1261. 18 Allegedly engraved bone artifacts from a ~370,000-­year-­old site from Germany. For more information, see Dietrich Mania and Ursula Mania, ‘The Natural and Sociocultural Environment of Homo Erectus at Bilzingsleben, Germany’, in The Hominid Individual in Context: Archaeological Investigations of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Landscapes, Locales and Artifacts, edited by Clive Gamble and Martin Porr (New York: Routledge, 2005), 98–114. 19 Taphonomy is the study of what happens to a bone from when an animal dies to when it is studied by an archaeologist and involves distinguishing marks left by humans to those left by carnivore tooth marks. Iain Davidson, ‘Bilzingsleben and Early Marking’, Rock Art Res. 7 (1990): 52–56. 20 G. Philip Rightmire, ‘The Evolution of Cranial Form in Mid-­Pleistocene Homo’, S. Afr. J. Sci. 108 (2012): 68–77. 21 G. Philip Rightmire, ‘Middle and Later Pleistocene Hominins in Africa and Southwest Asia’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 106 (2009): 16046–16050. 22 Lawrence S. Barham et al., ‘Bone Tools from Broken Hill (Kabwe) Cave, Zambia, and Their Evolutionary Significance’, Before Farming 2, no. 3 (2002): 1–12. 23 J. Desmond Clark, ‘Further Excavations at Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia’, J. R. Anthropol. Instutute Gt. Britain Irel. 89, no. 2 (1959): 201–232.

80  Marc Kissel 24 J. Desmond Clark et al., ‘New Studies on Rhodesian Man’, J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 77, no. 1 (1947): 7–32. 25 Richard Klein, ‘Geological Antiquity of Rhodesian Man’, Nature 244, no. 5414 (1973): 311–312. 26 Andrew Millard, ‘A Critique of the Chronometric Evidence for Hominid Fossils: I. Africa and the Near East 500–50 Ka’, J. Hum. Evol. 54, no. 6 (2008): 848–874. 27 Joordens et al., ‘Homo Erectus’. 28 Francesco d’Errico and April Nowell, ‘A New Look at the Berekhat Ram Figurine: Implications for the Origins of Symbolism’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 10, no. 1 (2000): 123–167. 29 Ian Watts et al., ‘Early cecularite Use in the Northern Cape (South Africa) Between ˜500 and ˜300 Ka’, Curr. Anthropol. 57, no. 3 (2016): 287–310. 30 Jacqueline Fehon and Sandra Scholtz, ‘A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Artifact Loss’, Am. Antiq. 43, no. 2 (1978): 271–273. 31 Travis Rayne Pickering et al., ‘Importance of Limb Bone Shaft Fragments in Zooarchaeology: A Response to “On in Situ Attrition and Vertebrate Body Part Profiles” (2002), by M.C. Stiner’, J. Archaeol. Sci. 30, no. 11 (2003): 1469–1482. 32 Davorka Radovčić et al., ‘Evidence for Neandertal Jewelry: Modified White-­ Tailed Eagle Claws at Krapina’, PLoS One 10 (2015): e011980. 33 In some sense, the hope of this database is to show which sites/collections need to be reexamined with modern techniques. 34 In residential mobility, hunter-­gatherers bring the people to the food, while in logistic mobility the food is brought to the people. This can affect the way in which sites are formed. See Lewis Binford, ‘Willow Smoke and Dogs’ Tails: Hunter-­Gatherer Settlement Systems and Archaeological Site Formation’, Am. Antiq. 45, no. 1 (1980): 4–20. 35 Anne Pike-­Tay et al., ‘Seasonal Variations of the Middle-­Upper Paleolithic Transition at El Castillo, Cueva Morín and El Pendo (Cantabria, Spain)’, J. Hum. Evol. 36 (1999): 283–317. 36 William A. Lovis et al., ‘Long-­Distance Logistic Mobility as an Organizing Principle among Northern Hunter-­Gatherers: A Great Lakes Middle Holocene Settlement System’, Am. Antiq. 70 (2005): 669–693. 37 Joseph Henrich, ‘Demography and Cultural Evolution: How Adaptive Cultural Processes Can Produce Maladaptive Losses: The Tasmanian Case’, Am. Antiq. 69, no. 2 (2004): 197–214. 38 Krist Vaesen et al., ‘Population Size Does Not Explain Past Changes in Cultural Complexity’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 113 (2016): E2241–2247. 39 Christopher Henshilwood, ‘Fully Symbolic Sapiens Behaviour: Innovation in the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, in Rethinking the Human Revolution: New Behavioural and Biological Perspectives on the Origins and Dispersal of Modern Humans, edited by Paul Mellars (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeologial Research, 2007), 123–132. 40 Marlize Lombard and Isabelle Parsons, ‘Fact or Fiction? Behavioural and Technological Reversal after 60 Ka in Southern Africa’, South African Archaeol. Bull. 65 (2010): 224–228; Marlize Lombard and Isabelle Parsons, ‘What Happened to the Human Mind after the Howiesons Poort?’ Antiquity 85 (August 2011): 1433–1443; Marco Langbroek, ‘Trees and Ladders: A Critique of the Theory of Human Cognitive and Behavioural Evolution in Palaeolithic Archaeology’, Quat. Int. 270 (2012): 4–14. 41 Ibid.

Becoming wise 81 42 Luke S. Premo and Steven Kuhn, ‘Modeling Effects of Local Extinctions on Culture Change and Diversity in the Paleolithic’, PLoS One 5, no. 12 (2010): e15582. 43 Peter Jordan, Technology as Human Social Tradition: Cultural Transmission among Hunter-­Gatherers (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015). 44 Joseph Henrich et al., ‘Understanding Cumulative Cultural Evolution’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 113, no. 44 (2016): E6724–E6725. 45 Martin Sikora et al., ‘Ancient Genomes Show Social and Reproductive Behavior of Early Upper Paleolithic Foragers’, Science (October 2017): 1–15. 46 Andrew Whiten and David Erdal, ‘The Human Socio-­Cognitive Niche and Its Evolutionary Origins’, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. Biol. Sci. 367, no. 1599 (2012): 2119–2129. 47 Agustín Fuentes, ‘Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution’, Am. Anthropol. 117, no. 2 (2015): 302–315; Sonia Harmand et al., ‘3.3-­Million-­Year-­Old Stone Tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya’, Nature 521 (2015): 310–315. 48 Agustín Fuentes, ‘The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology’, Curr. Anthropol. 57 (June 2016): S13–S26; Laland et al., ‘Extended Evolutionary Synthesis’; Whiten and Erdal, ‘Human Socio-­Cognitive Niche’. 49 Kim Sterelny, The Evolved Apprentice (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012); Kevin Laland et al., ‘Does Evolutionary Theory Need a Rethink? Yes, Urgently’, Nature 514 (2014): 161–164. 50 Jean-­Jacques Hublin et al., ‘New Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the Pan-­African Origin of Homo Sapiens’, Nature 546, no. 7657 (2017): 289–292. 51 Carina Schlebusch et al., ‘Southern African Ancient Genomes Estimate Modern Human Divergence to 350,000 to 260,000 Years Ago’, Science (September 2017): eaao6266. 52 Polly Wiessner, ‘Embers of Society: Firelight Talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 111, no. 39 (2014): 14027–14035.

Glossary cumulative cultural evolution:  transmission of an idea over time and space. Extended Evolutionary Synthesis:  a way of thinking about evolution that includes genetic, behavioural, and symbolic inheritance. Homo:  the genus of species that includes modern humans (Homo sapiens) and our direct ancestors, including the Neandertals. icon:  a sign in which the link between the sign and the thing it stands for is based on similarly. For example, a street sign of a bicycle indicates that particular lane is a bike path. index:  a sign in which the link between the sign and the thing it stands for is based on a causal link. Smoke is an index of fire and dark clouds are an index of rain. Neandertal:  a population of humans who inhabited parts of Europe and Asia from ~400,000 – ~30,000 years ago. semiotics:  the study of signs and symbols and the ways in which meaning is created and communicated. symbol:  a sign in which the link between the sign and the thing it stands for is based on convention/agreement. For humans, these are culturally learned.

82  Marc Kissel symbolic artefact:  an archaeological object that is suggested to have a symbolic reference. taphonomy:  the study of what happens to a bone from when an animal dies to when it is studied by an archaeologist; it involves distinguishing marks left by humans to those left by carnivore tooth marks.

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84  Marc Kissel Lombard, Marlize, and Isabelle Parsons. ‘What Happened to the Human Mind after the Howiesons Poort?’ Antiquity 85 (August 2011): 1433–1443. Lovis, William A., R.E. Donahue, and M.B. Holman. ‘Long-­ Distance Logistic Mobility as an Organizing Principle among Northern Hunter-­Gatherers: A Great Lakes Middle Holocene Settlement System’. Am. Antiq. 70 (2005): 669–693. Malafouris, Lambros. ‘Metaplasticity and the Human Becoming: Principles of Neuroarchaeology’. J. Anthropol. Sci. 88 (2010): 49–72. Mania, Dietrich, and Ursula Mania. ‘The Natural and Sociocultural Environment of Homo Erectus at Bilzingsleben, Germany’. In The Hominid Individual in Context: Archaeological Investigations of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Landscapes, Locales and Artifacts, edited by Clive Gamble and Martin Porr (New York: Routledge, 2005), 98–114. Marks, Jonathan. Tales of the Ex-­Apes: How We Think about Human Evolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015). McBrearty, Sally, and Alison Brooks. ‘The Revolution That Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior’. J. Hum. Evol. 39 (2000): 453–563. Millard, Andrew. ‘A Critique of the Chronometric Evidence for Hominid Fossils: I. Africa and the Near East 500–50 Ka’. J. Hum. Evol. 54, no. 6 (2008): 848–874. Niven, Laura, Teresa Steele, William Rendu, Jean-­Baptiste Mallye, Shannon McPherron, Marie Soressi, Jacques Jaubert, and Jean-­Jacques Hublin. ‘Neandertal Mobility and Large-­Game Hunting: The Exploitation of Reindeer during the Quina Mousterian at Chez-­Pinaud Jonzac (Charente-­Maritime, France)’. J. Hum. Evol. 63, no. 4 (2012): 624–635. Pickering, Travis Rayne, Curtis Marean, and Manuel Domı-nguez-­Rodrigo. ‘Importance of Limb Bone Shaft Fragments in Zooarchaeology: A Response to “On in Situ Attrition and Vertebrate Body Part Profiles” (2002), by M.C. Stiner’. J. Archaeol. Sci. 30, no. 11 (2003): 1469–1482. Pike-­Tay, Anne, V. Cabrera Valdés, and F. Bernaldo de Quirós. ‘Seasonal Variations of the Middle-­Upper Paleolithic Transition at El Castillo, Cueva Morín and El Pendo (Cantabria, Spain)’. J. Hum. Evol. 36 (1999): 283–317. Premo, Luke S., and Steven Kuhn. ‘Modeling Effects of Local Extinctions on Culture Change and Diversity in the Paleolithic’. PLoS One 5, no. 12 (2010): e15582. Radovčić, Davorka, Ankica Oros Sršen, Jakov Radovčić, and David W. Frayer. ‘Evidence for Neandertal Jewelry: Modified White-­Tailed Eagle Claws at Krapina’. PLoS One 10 (2015): e0119802. Rajendran, P. ‘A Lion Figurine with Non-­Acheulian Lower Palaeolithic Implements’. Curr. Sci. 102, no. 9 (2012): 1260–1261. Richerson, Peter, and Robert Boyd. Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Rightmire, Philip. ‘The Evolution of Cranial Form in Mid-­Pleistocene Homo’. S. Afr. J. Sci. 108 (2012): 68–77. Rightmire, Philip. ‘Middle and Later Pleistocene Hominins in Africa and Southwest Asia’. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 106 (2009): 16046–16050. Rodríguez-­Vidal, Joaquín, Francesco d’Errico, Francisco Giles Pacheco, Ruth Blasco, Jordi Rosell, Richard Jennings, Alain Queffelec, Geraldine Finlayson, Darren Fa et al. ‘A Rock Engraving Made by Neanderthals in Gibraltar’. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A 111, no. 37 (2014): 13301–13306.

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5 On the origin of symbols Archaeology, semiotics, and self-­transcendence Andrew Robinson

The relationship between semiotics and archaeology has a long and rather mixed history. For a large part of the twentieth century, archaeology was influenced by structuralism, which was itself closely related to the tradition of semiotics stemming from the Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure. More recently, the semiotic theory of the American scientist-­ philosopher C.S. Peirce (1839–1914) has appeared to many to be a more promising starting point. Peirce developed a taxonomy of signs in which the best-­known division is that between: 1) icons (which involve some kind of resemblance between the sign and whatever it represents; 2) indexes (which involve some direct or causal relationship between sign and object); and 3) symbols (in which the relation between sign and object is governed by a rule or convention, rather than by any resemblance or direct connection). Peirce’s full taxonomy of signs includes other dimensions, resulting in an elaborate classification of sign-­types. In principle, the full classification could be used to identify one or more types of sign in which humans have a particular proficiency. In practice, interest tends to have focussed, following Terrence Deacon’s lead, on the role of symbols in human evolution. It is suggested in this chapter that human distinctiveness rests not so much on a special capacity for using one particular kind of sign (i.e. symbols), but on a proficiency in combining certain kinds of signs (especially icons and symbols) in specific ways. This distinctively human form of thinking is called ‘hyper-­semiotic’ cognition in this chapter, and it is suggested that we are not so much the ‘symbolic species’ as the ‘hyper-­ semiotic’ species. How this way of thinking about human distinctiveness relates to ideas about human capacities for ‘self-­transcendence’ and ‘wisdom’ is discussed, which locates the chapter within the volume as a whole. It is asked in the chapter what kind of evidence archaeologists might look for as evidence of hyper-­semiotic behaviour, and a scheme for grading the potential archaeological evidence from direct evidence (Grade A) to fragmentary evidence (Grade D) is suggested. This approach is illustrated with reference to the finds from the Blombos Cave, and the importance of distinguishing between symbols sensu stricto (the Peircean sense) and symbolism in a wider sense (symbols sensu lato) is discussed. Finally, this

On the origin of symbols 87 approach is set within a wider theological context, which is called here ‘Christian Semiotic Realism’.

Introduction When Christopher Henshilwood and his team excavated two pieces of ochre engraved 70,000 years ago with cross-­hatched markings at the Blombos Cave, South Africa, the question arose whether these pieces were evidence of ‘symbolic’ behaviour. Alternatively, perhaps they reflected something (allegedly) less exciting, such as doodling.1 The assumption that symbols would be more interesting than doodles reflects a conviction in palaeoanthropology that there is something particularly special about ‘symbolic’ representation, a capacity for which is an important aspect of what makes humans distinct.2 This in turn reflects, at least in part, the result of efforts to incorporate the insights of semiotics (the theory of how signs operate and are interpreted) into human origins research. The relationship between semiotics and archaeology has a long and rather mixed history. For a large part of the twentieth century, archaeology was influenced by structuralism (an intellectual movement which sought to explain cultural meanings in terms of identifiable patterns of ‘structural’ relationships between elements of the culture), which was itself closely related to the tradition of semiotics stemming from the Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure. More recently, the semiotic theory of the American scientist-­ philosopher C.S. Peirce (1839–1914) has appeared to many to be a more promising starting point.3 Whereas Saussure took language (especially the relation between words and the mental concepts to which they correspond) as the model for every other kind of representation, Peirce took language to be a special case of a more general semiotic theory. As a result, Peirce’s semiotics has proved to have a broader range of applicability. In addition, Peirce’s theory lends itself to epistemological realism – the idea that our representations have the potential to approximate the way things really are – whereas Saussure’s tends to lead to a view of signs as irredeemably arbitrary and therefore disconnected from any underlying reality.4 For both these reasons (generality and epistemological realism), Peircean semiotics offers more promising resources for disciplines within, or allied to, the natural sciences, including archaeology. A further reason for regarding Peircean semiotics as potentially helpful in the analysis of archaeological material is the range of sign-­types elaborated in his theory, and hence the degree of discrimination between different types of representation that may be made with respect to cultural artefacts, mental operations, and the relation between the two. Peirce developed a taxonomy of signs in which the best known division is that between: 1) icons (which involve some kind of resemblance between the sign and whatever it represents, the latter being known as the object); 2) indexes (which involve some direct or causal relationship between sign and object); and 3) symbols

88  Andrew Robinson (in which the relation between sign and object is governed by a rule or convention, rather than by any resemblance or direct connection). Peirce’s full taxonomy of signs includes other dimensions, resulting in an elaborate classification of sign-­types.5 In principle, the full classification could be used to identify one or more type of sign in which humans have a particular proficiency. In practice, interest tends to have focused, following Terrence Deacon’s lead, on the role of symbols in human evolution.6 In this chapter I will suggest that human distinctiveness rests not so much on a special capacity for using one particular kind of sign (i.e. symbols), but on proficiency in combining certain kinds of signs (especially icons and symbols) in specific ways. I will call this distinctively human form of thinking ‘hyper-­semiotic’ cognition, making us not so much the ‘symbolic species’ as the ‘hyper-­semiotic’ species. I will connect this way of thinking about human distinctiveness with ideas about human capacities for ‘self-­transcendence’ and ‘wisdom’, and I will ask what kind of evidence archaeologists might look for as evidence of hyper-­semiotic cognition. I will then illustrate this approach with reference to the finds from the Blombos Cave, and discuss the implications of such an approach for understanding the emergence of humans as the hyper-­semiotic species. Finally, I will set this approach within a wider theological context, which I propose to call ‘Christian Semiotic Realism’.

Beyond symbols: diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction If we ask what Peirce would have said about the distinctiveness of human sign use, I think he might have pointed not exclusively to symbols, but to his concepts of diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction.7 Diagrammatic reasoning is a form of reasoning that depends on thinking with icons. In general, a diagram is a sign that represents the relations between things. An example is a circuit diagram, in which the relationship between the electronic components is represented schematically. Overall a diagram is an iconic sign, because the relationships between its component elements bear a resemblance to the relationships between the things represented. This semiotic concept of an ‘icon’ is not to be confused with an icon as a particular kind of religious art. Within the overall diagrammatic (iconic) sign there may be other kinds of signs, including symbols (such as the symbols for capacitors or resistors). Peirce proposed that ‘all thought is in signs’.8 Diagrammatic reasoning is one of the ways in which we think by manipulating signs. Diagrams are cognitively useful because the relations between their component semiotic elements can easily be changed, providing the potential for ‘thought experiments’ concerning the realities they represent. Other forms of diagram that enable this form of cognition include maps (iconic representations of spatial relationships) and geometrical figures (iconic representations of mathematical relationships). A diagram can exist simply in the mind of its user, or can

On the origin of symbols 89 be embodied in some external physical form. I will mention later the sense in which physical diagrams can function as external vehicles for mental functions (as opposed to mere expressions of internal mental functions), and the possible evolutionary importance of such ‘cognitive prostheses’. Alongside diagrammatic reasoning, the other special kind of mental operation identified by Peirce is ‘hypostatic abstraction’. Peirce described hypostatic abstraction as the transformation of a predicate into a subject, or, less technically, making a thought into a ‘thing’.9 For example, there are many things that are circle-­shaped, but it is a further step to form a concept of ‘roundness’ (and a further one to form a concept of ‘circularity’). Roundness is a hypostatic abstraction, as are abstract concepts such as power, justice, and freedom. These are all thoughts that we have turned into ‘things’, and once we have made them into things they can take on a life of their own. Admittedly, it may seem odd to apply the word ‘thing’ to an abstract concept, but therein lies the originality of Peirce’s insight into the nature of hypostatic abstraction, which is our capacity to reify an abstract generalization. Once this reification has occurred, a sign-­token representing the abstraction can be ‘manipulated’ in the same way that can be done for a token representing a more concrete thing. In fact, in our ordinary thought and language we do not normally notice the difference between using words to represent concrete entities and using words to represent abstractions. Both diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction are therefore cognitive strategies that depend on the manipulation of signs. We have seen that a diagram is a representation of the relations between ‘things’; hence, diagrams are iconic. In the case of diagrammatic reasoning, the cognitive strategy depends on experimentation with this iconic sign. In hypostatic abstraction, a symbol is used as a vehicle for representing an abstract concept. Hypostatic abstractions are necessarily represented by symbols, because symbols are the sign type that enables the sign to have a life relatively free from any underlying material realities. Hypostatic abstraction thus allows the ‘things’ that are manipulated in diagrammatic reasoning to include abstract concepts. Diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction are complementary, in that hypostatic abstractions can be related to one another through diagrammatic reasoning. Conversely, a diagram may give rise to a hypostatic abstraction. For example, a diagram of international airline routes would show that some cities have more connections than others. From this observation we might form a new concept, which we might call ‘connectivity’. Some cities have greater ‘connectivity’ than others. The diagram has helped us make this hypostatic abstraction – namely, the formulation of the abstract concept of connectivity prompted by the visual appearance of nodes (cities) connected by differing numbers of lines (routes). In fact, air-­route connectivity is a favourite hypostatic abstraction among those who study the economics of air traffic, for such connectivity turns out to have a correlation with per capita economic productivity.10 Of course

90  Andrew Robinson correlation does not imply causation, so the airline industry’s recent success in pointing to this correlation to persuade the UK government to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport on the grounds that it would improve the UK’s economic performance may well rest on a statistical fallacy, not to mention environmental foolishness. To anticipate a point I shall return to, this reminds us that sophisticated reasoning (in the form of diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction) is not to be confused with wisdom! I hypothesize, then, that human distinctiveness is not based simply on a capacity to use symbols but is, rather, at least partly a function of our capacity for using a combination of diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction.11 This would mean that thinking with icons is at least as important to human distinctiveness as thinking with symbols. Indeed, thinking of humans as the ‘symbolic’ species might result in us overlooking certain important aspects of what makes humans different from other animals. In order to avoid premature closure of the question of what kinds of sign use are especially characteristic of human cognition, I therefore suggest that the distinctive human capacities for sign use (hypothesized here to involve combining hypostatic abstraction with diagrammatic reasoning) should be called ‘hyper-­semiotic’ cognition. We are the ‘symbolic species’, yes, but even more distinctively, we are the ‘hyper-­semiotic’ species. This view is consistent with the idea that behavioural modernity emerged gradually and piecemeal at various times and places, rather than as a single event, since capabilities for diagrammatic reasoning, for hypostatic abstraction, and for combining the two, would not be all-­or-­nothing capacities.12 What my proposal adds to that perspective is clarification of the nature of the semiotic capacities in question and how to grade the evidence for the emergence of such capacities. To be clear, I propose the concept of ‘hyper-­semiotic cognition’ to cover whatever specific capacities for combining different kinds of signs contribute to human distinctiveness. The term ‘hyper-­semiotic’ is chosen to distinguish this view from ideas that identify human distinctiveness with special capacities for using a single sign type (usually symbols). I hypothesize that hyper-­semiotic cognition rests on diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction which, together, involve specific ways of using and combining icons and symbols. For the rest of this chapter, I will take hyper-­semiotic cognition to be synonymous with a combination of diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction. However, other ways of combining sign types – alongside or instead of diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction – could in principle be proposed as a semiotic basis of the general concept of hyper-­semiotic cognition.

Self-­transcendence and wisdom Let us consider how these concepts – diagrammatic reasoning, hypostatic abstraction, and hyper-­semiotic cognition – would fit with more familiar notions such as self-­transcendence or wisdom.

On the origin of symbols 91 The concept of self-­transcendence, at least in its cognitive aspects under consideration here,13 arises from a contrast with another key aspect of human nature, our finiteness. Our finiteness is that of all animals: we are constrained by our physiology, our temporality, and our mortality. Our capacity for transcendence of this finiteness arises from our ability to conceive of the past and the future: to reconstruct the past and to imagine a variety of futures. To the extent that we can thus step outside the immediate constraints of time and embodiment (while yet remaining dependent on these) we are capable of self-­transcendence.14 I suggest that underpinning cognitive capacity for self-­transcendence are the strategies of diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction. Recall that a diagram is any representation of relationships between things. To imagine alternative pasts or futures requires us to be able to form an image (something ‘imagined’) in which the relationships between certain people and things is different from that which currently obtains. Such an image (diagram) can be mentally manipulated as a form of experimentation with possibilities. The extent to which such diagram-­based mental manipulations are undertaken by non-­human animals may be debated. My hypothesis that humans are distinctively hyper-­semiotic does not depend on arguing that some degree of diagrammatic reasoning cannot be undertaken by other animals. I think it is clear, however, that humans can imagine and mentally manipulate alternative possibilities with a remarkable amount of flexibility and sophistication. This aspect of self-­transcendence depends on a highly developed capacity for diagrammatic reasoning. A second feature of self-­transcendence that reflects a hyper-­semiotic cognitive capacity is our ability to develop and choose our values and purposes. Other animals may make choices, and perhaps they may sometimes make choices informed by diagrammatic reasoning. However, the range of options that they choose between is commonly understood to be strictly limited by survival and reproductive strategies shaped by their evolutionary history. We humans are, of course, no less shaped by an evolutionary history, but we can choose values and purposes that are neutral with respect to our survival prospects, or even detrimental to them. This is not to deny that many non-­human animals possess cultures. However, non-­human cultures are inherited by (non-­genetic or epigenetic) mechanisms that, together with genetic forms of inheritance, constitute a ‘developmental system’ that is maintained over successive generations because of its adaptive advantages.15 Human culture, in contrast, is characterized by abstractions (such as values and purposes) which come to have normative functions, influencing behaviour in a way that is not so tightly bound to the need for specific variations in the combined system of genetic-­cultural inheritance to be selected directly for their immediate adaptive advantage.16 To form such values or purposes, which can act at one remove from the kinds of selective pressure acting on non-­human cultural processes, requires a capacity for hypostatic

92  Andrew Robinson abstraction. For example, concepts such as justice or liberty are not concrete things in the world (though choosing such concepts as values to be pursued does have concrete consequences). Rather, they are abstractions which are formed by making generalizations from sets of particular states of affairs: such and such is an example of a social order based on justice; so and so is an example of a person exercising liberty. Furthermore, what counts as justice or freedom may change over time, this being one of the ways in which hypostatic abstractions are able to operate to continually expand our cognitive horizons.17 Having made a thing out of an idea (that is what defines a hypostatic abstraction, as noted previously), and having agreed upon some way of representing this thing (by means of a word or other kind of token), we can then use that representation as part of a process of diagrammatic reasoning. I can decide, for example, that my actions will be determined by giving special value to, say, social justice or personal liberty. Of course justice and liberty may sometimes conflict with one another, in which case some further diagrammatic reasoning will be required in order to weigh the consequences of giving more or less weight to one or the other in any particular situation. Such evaluation could take the form of an actual visual diagram, or it could be expressed in the form of a representation of the relationships between the relevant things and concepts within a written text. Either of these would be a form of diagrammatic reasoning. In short, the concept of self-­transcendence corresponds to a set of capacities that are necessarily underpinned by diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction; capacities that justify labelling the distinctively human use of signs with the term ‘hyper-­semiotic cognition’. How do these capacities connect with conceptions of wisdom, which is a key theme of the present volume? Consider the following three possible construals of wisdom, each of which may be regarded as a manifestation of the kind of self-­transcendence afforded by hyper-­semiotic cognition. The wisdom of tradition, folk wisdom Such wisdom typically involves an abstract concept expressed in some concrete way. As such, it is a manifestation of hypostatic abstraction, because hypostatic abstractions are ideas that become related to other things and ideas by taking the form of a ‘manipulable’ representation. For example, the different concepts involved in various kinds of kinship systems constitute a major area of anthropological interest, though of course not usually expressed in terms of these being hypostatic abstractions.18 I have in mind such concepts as ‘cousin’, ‘mother-­in-­law’, and so on. Similar considerations would apply to the hypostatic abstraction of ‘sharing’ as a value lying behind gift-­exchange practices in hunter-­gather societies, and the association of such practices with forms of traditional wisdom that value forms of equality and egalitarianism.19 That hunter-­gatherer egalitarianism is based

On the origin of symbols 93 on a conceptual norm, as opposed to being a non-­conceptually mediated behaviour, is evidenced by, for example, the way in which meat-­sharing occurs in the context of a concept that the (dead) animal would be offended if its meat were not shared.20 Further examples of the role of hypostatic abstraction embodied in the traditional wisdom of hunter-­gatherers could be given in relation to their conceptions of their relationship with the animal world, relationships to landscape (including the imperative to keep moving), the principles lying behind one’s relationship to a spirit world (expressed in shamanism), and so on. The wisdom of discernment This is the wisdom for which Solomon prays: ‘Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?’21 Discernment requires an ability to see the relationship between things, concepts, or people. It also requires a capacity to imagine the consequences of any changes to these relationships. This kind of wisdom is therefore a manifestation of diagrammatic reasoning, because such relationships must be represented, either physically or mentally, in the form of some kind of diagram. It also requires the use of hypostatic abstractions such as, in the previous example of Solomon’s wisdom, ‘good’ and ‘evil’. To employ a New Testament example (without wishing to imply that discernment always has a religious context) consider the parable of the wise man who built his house on rock, contrasted with the foolish man who built his house on sand.22 The wise man would have known that if he stands on rock his feet are secure, but not so if he stands on sand. Perhaps he even has some experience of house building on rock and sand. Either way, the wise man would reason by analogy – which is a form of diagrammatic reasoning – that corresponding consequences would follow from building a house on these different foundations. The wisdom of self-­knowledge This is the wisdom of ‘know thyself’. At a minimum, self-­knowledge requires a mental capacity to represent oneself and one’s relationship to other things or people. Such a capacity requires, first, a hypostatic abstraction: specifically, it requires that we abstract, from the totality of our experiences, a concept of ‘I’. Second, it requires diagrammatic reasoning, in that it implies an ability to represent (to oneself) this I’s relation to others. Without such a capacity we would be unable to mentally reconstruct our past thoughts and actions and to evaluate their consequences upon ourselves and others. Interestingly, Peirce suggests that the origin of the sense of self lies in our first experiences of fallibility.23 If we only ever acted successfully we would never be prompted to reflect upon the ‘I’ who has been successful. It is only when we make a mistake that we are forced to evaluate why we made a

94  Andrew Robinson mistake, and it is from this reflection that we develop a sense that it was ‘I’ who was wrong. More recent psychological24 and phenomenological25 approaches to the emergence of a concept of the self place greater emphasis on its interpersonal, intersubjective origins. Invariably, however, concepts of selfhood seem to require an implicitly semiotic grounding, implying, as they do, the capacity of the self to represent itself.

Grading the evidence of hyper-­semiotic behaviour We have made a connection, then, between capacities for wisdom or self-­ transcendence and the distinctive human characteristic of ‘hyper-­semiotic’ thinking. When trying to identify evidence of hyper-­ semiotic cognition, what should archaeologists look for?26 I suggest there could be four possible grades of evidence for the identification of hyper-­semiotic behaviour in the archaeological record. From strongest to weakest these would be: Grade A. Direct evidence: such evidence would be comprised of artefacts which directly imply the operation of diagrammatic reasoning and/or hypostatic abstraction. Examples would be maps and notational devices where the artefact in question is found in association with evidence of the specific behavioural use to which it was put. Such evidence may turn out to be rare in the archaeological record of human evolution. Grade B. Analogical evidence: i.e. evidence for behaviours that have a specific analogy in historically or scientifically documented behaviours, where the documented example is known to involve hypostatic abstraction and/or diagrammatic reasoning. Examples would include finds that suggest ritual (including ritual burial) or ‘art’, where there is an analogy with similar current or (recently lost) hunter-­gatherer practices, and where the latter are known to have involved diagrammatic reasoning/hypostatic abstraction. Grade C. Indirect evidence: i.e. evidence of behaviours for which the use of hypostatic abstraction and/or diagrammatic reasoning is likely to have been required, but which fall short of being sufficiently specific for an argument from analogy as defined previously. Examples might include patterns of domestic organization or of long-­distance trade, both of which are likely to require these kinds of hyper-­semiotic cognition.27 Grade D. Fragmentary evidence: i.e. any artefact or set of artefacts that can reasonably be hypothesized to have originally been part of an assemblage which, if more fully known, might offer evidence of types A to C. For example, contemporary hunter-­gatherer groups might be known to incise ostrich shells with geometric patterns and use them in rituals that involve hypostatic abstractions. A fragment of similarly incised ostrich shell found without any other specific evidence of its use in a ritual might be taken as Type D (fragmentary) data for what might otherwise justify a Type B (analogical) inference. In addition to constructing a graded scheme of potential types of evidence of hyper-­semiotic cognition, let us also ask, what would be the ‘holy grail’

On the origin of symbols 95 of the archaeology of hyper-­semiosis? This could be answered in terms of a hypothesis about the original selective pressure for such a cognitive capacity. Consider a map, which is a diagrammatic representation of the spatial relationship between things. If we draw a route between two points on the map as a way of planning a journey, we are using the map as an aid to diagrammatic reasoning. In fact, we could think of the map as a kind of ‘cognitive prosthesis’; something which we construct in order to exteriorize our thought processes. Importantly, when I say ‘exteriorize’ I do not simply mean that the diagram in question is a way of expressing some mental event or process that has initially occurred inside our brains. Rather, the cognitive prosthesis is being used as, and is part of, the cognitive process itself.28 Other forms of cognitive prosthesis include notational devices, such as finger-­counting, notched tallies, and stringed beads, about which there is already a considerable literature in palaeoanthropology.29 The notion of a cognitive prosthesis coheres with, and has been explored in (though not necessarily under that name), the field of ‘extended cognition’.30 When I refer to the ‘holy grail’ of hyper-­semiotic cognition, I have in mind any primitive or ‘proto-­’ cognitive prosthesis. This could be, for example, a primitive map or primitive notational device. The first such forms of exteriorized diagrammatic reasoning would have been functionally useful in their own right. Crucially, they would have also given rise to a selective advantage for the evolution of ever greater competence in diagrammatic reasoning. This would, in turn, have provided a setting in which a capacity for hypostatic abstraction would be selected for, because hypostatic abstractions can be incorporated into cognitive diagrams. The consequences of the operation of such selective pressures might have provided the evolutionary context in which hyper-­semiotic behaviour grew into the defining characteristic of our species. Whether there is any reasonable chance that such a holy grail of hyper-­ semiosis will ever be found may be questioned, since the circumstances of the initial adaptive pressure for hyper-­semiotic thinking may have left few archaeological traces. Indeed, there is no certainty that the beginnings of this coevolution of diagrammatic and abstractive capabilities were scaffolded by a preservable external cognitive prosthesis. Suppose, for example, that the need to conceptualize different kinds of relationship within a kinship structure was the original context for selection for capacities for diagrammatic reasoning. Such reasoning could have been initiated and subsequently reinforced by diagrammatic and abstractive aspects of a particular ritual, the details of which have left no trace in the archaeological record.

Hyper-­semiotic behaviour at Blombos I now turn to consider the finds from the Blombos Cave in South Africa, which I mentioned at the start of the chapter, as an example of the application of my proposed grading of evidence for hyper-­semiotic cognition.

96  Andrew Robinson The Blombos material dates from around 100,000 to 70,000 years ago. Some of the ochre pieces had probably been transported to the cave from 35–40 km inland, and ochres of high intensity redness (as opposed to yellower shades) were favoured for use.31 The most enigmatic of the pieces are those characterized by deliberately incised surface markings, which fall into four categories: parallel lines, dendritic shapes, right-­angled lines, and cross-­hatched patterns. There is some evidence of change in this tradition over time. Two of the chronologically later (but earliest found) pieces were hatched geometrical pattern. In addition, remarkmarked with a cross-­ ably, two ochre-­processing toolkits were recovered from 100,000-­year-­old layers.32 Whatever exact interpretation one places on the Blombos material, the whole assemblage, spanning a period of about 30,000 years starting from about 100,000 years ago, may be taken as evidence for the presence of hyper-­semiotic thinking. I would rate such evidence as at least grade B on the scale outlined earlier in this chapter because the evidence is analogical in nature. The relevant analogy is with other ritual behaviours involving ochre of which (unlike the makers of the Blombos material) we have some firmly established knowledge. An example of such a relatively well-­attested ritual would be that associated with female puberty among the recently extinct Southern San hunter-­gatherers of South Africa. After a spell of isolation in a specially constructed hut away from the usual living area, and lasting until the new moon following the first menses, the pubescent woman would give ochre to the older women to paint their faces, and would herself paint the bodies of the young men of the group with zebra-­like ochre stripes.33 I am not suggesting that the use of ochre at Blombos is likely to have been the same as this in detail. The question is whether there is sufficient evidence of the ochre pieces at Blombos having had some special (probably ritual) significance to their users to count as Grade B (analogical) evidence that the Blombos ochres served the same kind of role in diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction as the ritual use of ochre did among the much later Southern San. With regard to the puberty ritual practised by the San we know that (at least some of) the participants would have had a capacity for hypostatic abstraction, for such an abstraction must have lain behind their capacity to conceptualize the abstract concept of puberty or sexual maturity (however named). Likewise, we can say that the participants would have been able to engage in a form of diagrammatic reasoning, in that taking a particular place in the whole ritual (whether the place of the girl who has started her first menses, or of the older women who attend to her) is equivalent to placing oneself within a diagram. In doing so, each participant is represented as having a particular relationship to other participants, and that relationship would have been deemed to hold in some respect even after the ritual has been performed: after the ritual, the girl is regarded as having certain new rights and responsibilities within the group. Furthermore, the participants can potentially imagine themselves in different relationships to

On the origin of symbols 97 one another by imaging themselves taking a different role in the ritual. For example, pre-­pubescent girls can imagine themselves taking the place of the girl who is entering adulthood, and the older women can remember previously having gone through that transition. We can reason by analogy, then, that just as the recently extinct Southern San showed evidence of their use of hyper-­semiotic cognition in their rituals, so the people who made and used the Blombos ochres are likely to have been capable of using the same kinds of cognitive strategies.34 Arguably, when we take into account the finds of the elaborate and stereotyped toolkits for making ochre paint, we might even say that the evidence for the ritual use of ochre at Blombos (and hence the existence of hyper-­semiotic cognition) reaches Grade A standard on the scale proposed previously. It is worth considering a thought experiment (a form of diagrammatic reasoning!) in which the finds from Blombos were less complete and less extraordinary than they actually are. Suppose that Henshilwood and colleagues had only found simple ochre pieces with use-­wear suggestive of having been ground to produce a powder; and suppose, further, that there was no evidence of the ochre ever having been transported a significant distance to the cave for such use or selected for particular shades of colour. The evidence provided by such a find would barely count as evidence for hyper-­semiotic cognition. The need for caution in the interpretation of such evidence as ‘symbolic’ is emphasized by Lyn Wadley in her interpretation of ochres from the Rose Cottage and Sibudu Caves in South Africa, which she interprets as having had a primarily functional use as an adhesive for hafting tools (though she acknowledges that such toolmaking may itself have been imbued with a ‘symbolic’ meaning).35 If instead of unmarked ochre pieces we also had the finding of the original two ochres with cross-­hatched geometrical markings, then we would have Grade D (fragmentary) evidence of hyper-­semiotic cognition. This assessment of the grade of evidence provided by these finds would be based on the fact that if these engraved ochres had been found in a context that suggested a ritual use, then one would have had an analogical argument for hyper-­semiotic cognition (Grade B). In the absence of evidence for such a context the evidence remains ‘fragmentary’ (Grade D). In fact, such a context is probably provided by the evidence of the ochres having sometimes been specially transported to the site and selected for certain colour properties: hence, my evaluation of the Blombos finds as at least Grade B evidence for hyper-­semiotic cognition. As noted previously, with the addition of the ochre-­processing toolkits, the Blombos finds approach the standard of Grade A evidence. This kind of approach to grading the evidence for hyper-­semiotic behaviour is clearly quite different to the original debate, mentioned at the start of this chapter, about whether the cross-­hatchings on the ochres were symbols or doodles. This issue has become, in the approach I am proposing, whether there is evidence (direct, analogical, indirect, or fragmentary) for the

98  Andrew Robinson operation of diagrammatic reasoning and/or hypostatic abstraction, rather than whether any particular sign type (especially ‘symbols’) are represented in the finds. It may be thought that this approach is merely a complex way of expressing a trivial fact; namely, that any inference about archaeological material from the deep past will be hypothetical. The approach becomes important, however, once it is realized that, as I have been arguing in this chapter, mere identification of an artefact as possibly being of some specific semiotic type (such as a symbol) falls short of providing direct evidence for the kind of sign use that is so distinctive of modern humans (namely, hyper-­ semiotic thinking). This principle is relevant to the project of cataloguing the evidence of potentially ‘symbolic’ (hyper-­semiotic in my terminology) material in the archaeological record from the Pleistocene, especially the African Middle Stone Age (c. 290,000 to 50,000 years ago), so comprehensively undertaken by Marc Kissel and Agustín Fuentes.36 Such work is enormously valuable, not least because so many of these artefacts are likely to offer no more than Grade D (fragmentary evidence) of hyper-­semiotic cognition makes an overview of their nature and geographical distribution all the more important. Future finds may help to join these fragmentary pieces of evidence into a more tightly knit network of inferences about their relationship to hyper-­ semiotic thinking.37

Symbols: sensu stricto and sensu lato Can we begin to untangle the potential confusions that arise from different uses of the concepts of symbols and symbolism in the literature on human origins? Let us approach this by considering the difference between Terrence Deacon’s concept of the ‘Symbolic Species’ and Alan Barnard’s ideas about the ‘Genesis of Symbolic Thought’.38 Deacon’s thinking about the origin of symbols arises from the question, why is there no simple language? His answer is that language depends on symbols; that is, symbols in the technical Peircean sense of signs with an arbitrary or conventional relation to the thing they signify (their object). Deacon suggests that learning how to use symbols poses a severe cognitive and evolutionary challenge because it requires a capacity to manipulate mental tokens (symbols) that have no direct connection to their real-­world objects. He argues that such a dissociation of a mental token from the world is performed by the pre-­frontal cortex, which is relatively large in humans, and that this enlargement reflects a coevolution of symbolic competence together with its underlying neural substrate. The adaptive advantages offered by this evolutionarily costly coevolution are the advantages offered by complex language; namely (according to Deacon), the ability to perform an infinite range of re-­combinations of symbols, representing an equally large range of real or imaginary real-­ world situations. Deacon further offers a hypothesis about the first step in

On the origin of symbols 99 this coevolutionary process, in other words, the context in which the first human symbols functioned. His scenario draws on the adaptive advantage that could derive, within certain structures of early-­human sociality, from being able to abstractly represent a bond between male and female partners. In short, Deacon’s suggestion is that the original symbol was a symbol of marriage.39 Alan Barnard’s approach to symbolic thought has a different starting point to Deacon’s question about the origin of language. Indeed, Barnard, in contrast to Deacon, believes that we can conceive of a simple language, one which would be an adequate medium for communicating mundane matters such as techniques for tool manufacture or the location of prey. Such a language would differ from fully modern language in that only the latter has a sufficiently complex grammar and vocabulary to support mythological narratives, metaphorical concepts, meaningful rituals, religious practices, and so on. Barnard labels these various aspects of modern human existence ‘symbolic’, though he deliberately refrains from offering a tight definition of what ‘symbolic’ means. He suggests (similarly to Deacon) that the origins of symbolic thought may lie in the need to conceptualize kinship structures and relations.40 However, in spite of the similarity of terminology (the centrality of ‘symbols’) and the fact that they both locate the origins of symbolic thought in the origins of marriage and kinship structures, the two anthropologists’ use of the symbol concept is quite different. For Deacon, the role of symbols in his argument is as a specific type of sign (one with an arbitrary relation to its object) whose use requires a particular neuroanatomical development, namely enlargement of the pre-­frontal cortex. The coevolution of the capacity for symbol use and the neural basis of such a capacity then provide the explanation of the remarkable human capacity for language, and thence other aspects of modern human distinctiveness. For Deacon, human distinctiveness is explained by the use of symbols, where symbol is understood in the narrow technical Peircean sense. Let us call this the sensu stricto meaning of ‘symbol’. For Barnard, in contrast, symbolism is more loosely defined. His sensu lato (broad) conception of symbols is thus closer to the everyday or folk understanding of the word. Although he sometimes alludes to a connection between his notion of ‘symbolic thought’ and semiotic theory (Saussurian as much as Peircean), semiotic theory does not play a specific explanatory role in his scheme, at least not in the same way that it does for Deacon. Instead, Barnard’s method for exploring the origins of symbolic thought involves a more general attempt to integrate the findings of social anthropology (especially the anthropology of hunter-­gatherer societies) with those of archaeology, genetics, primatology, psychology, etc. In short, the sensu lato approach to symbolic thought (Barnard’s approach, and others like it) treats ‘symbolism’ as the explanandum rather than the explanans – that which is to be explained, rather than that which will do the explaining. That approach is fine, as long as it is remembered that, in

100  Andrew Robinson the sensu lato approach, explanatory work remains to be done, whether via semiotic theory or by some other explanatory route. The problem arises when a loose concept of symbols/symbolism (sensu lato) is accompanied by an assumption that the explanatory work needed to explain the emergence of such symbol-­use/symbolism has already fully been done (via a Deacon-­ type employment of semiotic theory, the sensu stricto approach to symbols). Without wishing to diminish the importance of Deacon’s work in showing how Peircean semiotics can contribute to palaeoanthropology, it is that assumption that I have been challenging in this chapter. I have been arguing that the mere arbitrariness of symbols is insufficient to account for the various human behaviours and forms of cognition that fall under the wider (sensu lato) concept of symbolism. I am suggesting instead that the explanation of symbolism (sensu lato) lies not in symbols (sensu stricto) but in a capacity for hyper-­semiotic cognition. Symbols have a role in hyper-­semiotic cognition (both in diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction), but they do not do all of the explanatory work. This is an extension of (rather than alternative to) Deacon’s work, in that it develops Deacon’s proposal for explaining human distinctiveness in terms of Peirce’s theory of signs. However, in order for such an explanatory strategy to work, I contend that it is essential to disentangle the sensu stricto and sensu lato uses of the terms symbol and symbolism in palaeoanthropology. Only then can the full potential of Peircean semiotics be brought to bear on the question of human distinctiveness.

Christian semiotic realism My aim in this chapter has been to outline the case for considering hyper-­ semiosis (rather than mere symbolic competence) as the distinctive human form of sign use, where hyper-­semiosis encompasses a capacity for diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction. I will be happy if I have succeeded in making a plausible case for the relevance of such a broader semiotic approach to the evolution of modern human distinctiveness, as compared to a narrower focus on particular sign types such as symbols. It has not been my primary aim to set this view within a broader theological context; indeed, it is important to stress that the synthesis of conceptual and scientific approaches that I have sketched is intended to be of value in its own right, without any theological overlay. As a theologian I shall, however, allow more explicit theological concepts to have the last word by offering some remarks about how the concept of humanity as the hyper-­semiotic species relates to a wider theological perspective. I have proposed elsewhere that the triadic processes of semiosis (the interplay of signs, objects, and interpretative responses) offer a model for the Christian conception of God as Trinity. On this view, semiosis models perichoresis, the latter being the theological term for the dance-­like dynamic interaction between the trinitarian persons. Putting the case at its strongest,

On the origin of symbols 101 sign processes in the world may even be understood as vestiges of the Trinity in creation – traces of the creative activity of God.41 An outworking of this semiotic model of the Trinity gives rise to a specific account of how human semiotic practices can be the basis of participation in God’s life.42 A discussion of the full implications to this approach to the Trinity and humanity’s participation therein is beyond the scope of this chapter. In the context of my argument for hyper-­semiosis (rather than simply symbol use) as the defining human characteristic, it is significant that the semiotic model of the Trinity depends on a non-­hierarchical view of the relation between Peirce’s various sign types. Just as Christian theology holds the three persons of the Trinity to be ontologically equal, the semiotic model of the Trinity depends on the non-­hierarchical nature of the metaphysical categories that underpin semiotic processes. (Peirce called these categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness; I find it useful to re-­name them Quality, Otherness, and Mediation.) This theological perspective makes me disinclined to see signs as organized hierarchically (icons at the bottom, symbols at the top). Such a non-­hierarchical view of signs underpins my idea that human distinctiveness depends on entering a ‘semiotic matrix’, rather than climbing a ‘semiotic ladder’.43 Deacon, in contrast (and, I believe, contrary to Peirce himself), views the icon-­index-­symbol taxonomy hierarchically, with icons at the bottom and symbols at the top. Matt Rossano similarly assumes a hierarchical relationship between sign types, with the result that he is more interested in looking for symbols than for icons or indexes in the material cultures of pre-­history.44 In contrast, a non-­hierarchical view of the icon-­ index-­symbol relationship (which I hold to be implied in Peirce’s broader metaphysics) is a necessary precursor to recognizing diagrammatic reasoning (which depends primarily on manipulation of icons) as complementary to hypostatic abstraction (which depends on symbolic competence). A further connection between Christian theology and the approach to palaeoanthropology I have been sketching in this chapter can be found in Reinhold Niebuhr’s theological account of human self-­transcendence. Niebuhr held that human nature has one foot in finiteness and one in transcendence.45 Our finiteness is that of all animals: we are constrained by our physiology, our temporality, and our mortality. Our capacity for transcendence of this finiteness arises from our ability to conceive of the past and the future: to reconstruct the past and to imagine a variety of futures. To the extent that we can thus step outside the immediate constraints of time and embodiment (while yet remaining dependent on these) we are capable of self-­transcendence. The ability to imagine and choose between alternative futures that are not strictly determined by the past, or to choose purposes and values that are not determined by our physiology, enables us, within limits, to choose what we shall individually and collectively become. According to Niebuhr, this is both humanity’s glory and its downfall. It is our glory because we are thereby able, in a qualified sense, to escape the confines of our temporality

102  Andrew Robinson and finitude. It is our downfall because it creates in us anxiety and insecurity. We are anxious about what we should do with our capacity for self-­ transcendence; we are insecure because our self-­transcendence alerts us to our mortality. The proper response to this anxiety would be to accept that, though self-­transcendent, we are not ultimately self-­sufficient, and our future lies ultimately in the hands of our Creator. Sin is not ontologically ‘necessary’, but realistically it is ‘inevitable’ because we inevitably choose to deal with our anxiety by assuring ourselves of, and attempting to shore up, our illusory self-­sufficiency by placing our faith in finite things, ideas, or principles, rather than in God. The result of sin is that our own sources of security always come at the expense of someone else’s wellbeing. Wisdom, on this view, is not self-­transcendence itself (for self-­transcendence is the source of both wisdom and foolishness) but, rather, the humility to recognize, and to seek to ameliorate, the inevitable misuses of our self-­transcendence. To the three forms of wisdom enumerated earlier (traditional wisdom, discernment, and self-­knowledge) we now add, therefore, a fourth and ultimate form of wisdom, which corresponds to the psalmist’s view that, ‘the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom’.46 Which is not to say, of course, that fearfulness is the highest state that humanity can achieve, but that cognitive self-­transcendence, if exercised without the humility to acknowledge that all of our achievements stand under an ultimate judgement, is the root of human foolishness and sinfulness. Since no one is completely free of this kind of sinfulness, we all stand in need of God’s grace.47 Niebuhr did not express his theological anthropology in explicitly semiotic terms. I suggest, however, that a Peircean approach to the distinctiveness of human sign use, especially as I have formulated it in terms of the capacity for self-­transcendence as dependent on hyper-­semiotic cognitive strategies (diagrammatic reasoning and hypostatic abstraction), offers a theoretical basis for Niebuhr’s account of human self-­transcendence. Conversely, Niebuhr’s ethics offers a practical programme (or better, a methodological principle) for pursuing the present-­day implications of this theoretical view of what lies behind the emergence of modern humans. Understanding ourselves as the hyper-­semiotic species may help us to see how the consequences of our capacity for self-­transcendence may be positive or negative, and require (a particular kind of) wisdom to save us from hubris. We can discern, by means of diagrammatic reasoning, the possible consequences of alternative courses of action, but we may choose to use this discernment in ways that harm our fellow humans and other creatures. Our behaviour can be influenced by abstract principles formed as the products of hypostatic abstraction, but such abstractions can lead us to do evil as well as to do good. Niebuhrian ethical realism is the corollary of a Peircean (hyper-­semiotic) anthropology. We should ask, finally, is it accidental that Peirce’s semiotics and Niebuhr’s ethics seem to be such a good fit? Probably not, given that Niebuhr stands firmly in the tradition of American pragmatism, of which Peirce was the

On the origin of symbols 103 founder.48 I am not aware of Niebuhr having read Peirce, the former’s main pragmatist influence usually being traced to William James. Stanley Hauerwas sees James’s influence on Niebuhr as the latter’s Achilles heel, leading Hauerwas to claim that Niebuhr’s theology is probably no more than, ‘a complex humanism disguised in the language of the Christian faith’.49 However, it may be truer to say that Niebuhr modified Jamesian pragmatism to adapt it to the requirements of a more orthodox, epistemologically realist, Christian theology.50 In doing so, perhaps through some unknown stream of Peircean influence, I think Niebuhr in effect reinvented, or rediscovered, the resources for a Peircean kind of Christian pragmatism.51 Niebuhr is often criticized, among other things, for his lack of an ecclesiology and his allegedly deficient account of the Trinity. I hold that what may only be implicit, or simply unexplored, in Niebuhr’s theology can be made explicit via a Peircean ecclesiology, Trinitarianism, etc. (though not via Peirce’s own theology, which is quite different to my own appropriation of Peirce for theological purposes). Borrowing the name Niebuhr gave to his theology – Christian Realism – my approach might be appropriately labelled ‘Christian Semiotic Realism’, reflecting this (re)union of Peircean and Niebuhrian themes. The palaeoanthropological hypothesis sketched in the present chapter is a scientific outworking of this synthesis. Of course, as noted previously, one does not need to have any interest or belief in the non-­hierarchical ontology of the Trinity or in a naturalistic conception of the nature of participation in God to pursue the science; neither would successful testing of the science constitute direct evidence for the truth of the theology. Nevertheless, to the eye of faith, a certain overarching coherence might begin to emerge if these theological and scientific approaches both prove independently fruitful within their own legitimate domains.52

Notes 1 M. Balter, ‘From a Modern Human’s Brow – or Doodling?’ Science 295 (2002): 247–249. 2 See, for example, Terrence W. Deacon, The Symbolic Species (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997); Alan Barnard, Genesis of Symbolic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 3 For example, Robert W. Preucel, Archaeological Semiotics (Oxford: Wiley-­ Blackwell, 2006). 4 T.L. Short, Peirce’s Theory of Signs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 16–21. 5 Charles S. Peirce, The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, vol. 2 (1893–1913), edited by the Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 483–491. 6 Deacon, Symbolic Species. 7 Frederick Stjernfelt, Diagrammatology: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology, and Semiotics (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007); J. Jay Zeman, ‘Peirce on Abstraction’, The Monist 65 (1982): 211–229.

104  Andrew Robinson 8 Charles S. Peirce, The Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, vol. 2 (1867–1871), edited by the Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 213. 9 Peirce, Essential Peirce, 394. 10 Mark Smyth and Brian Pearce, IATA Economics Briefing No 8: Aviation Economic Benefits (IATA: July 2007), 5 (Chart 1). 11 Andrew Robinson, ‘Can the Cognitive Basis of the Apprehension of Transcendence be Mapped to Cerebral Structure and Function?’ Religion, Brain and Behaviour 7, no. 4 (2017): 313–315. 12 Cf. Marc Kissel and Agustín Fuentes, ‘Behavioral Modernity as a Process, Not an Event, in the Human Niche’, Time and Mind 11, no. 2 (2018): 163–183; Marc Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise: What Can Anthropologists Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom?’, current volume. 13 The specific concept of self-­transcendence I am employing here is that used by Reinhold Niebuhr, to which I return in the final section of the chapter. 14 For a theological approach to hominin evolution that coheres with this, see Celia Deane-­Drummond, ‘Practical Wisdom in the Making: A Theological Approach to Early Hominin Evolution in Conversation with Modern Jewish Philosophy’, in The Evolution of Human Wisdom, edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2017), 167–190. 15 Susan Oyama, Paul E. Griffiths, and Russell D. Gray, Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001); Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioural and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005). 16 To the extent that non-­human animals may demonstrate capacities that could be called ‘moral’, this behaviour is not likely to be mediated by abstract concepts (of justice and the like), though such capacities may have provided an evolutionary platform on which such concepts could develop. 17 Short, Peirce’s Theory of Signs, 263–288. 18 See Jon Marks, ‘Continuities and Discontinuities in Human Evolution’, current volume. 19 Vicki Cummings, The Anthropology of Hunter-­Gathers: Key Themes for Archaeologists (London: Bloomsbury, 2013); Robert L. Kelly, The Lifeways of Hunter-­ Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 20 Cummings, Anthropology of Hunter Gatherers, 57. 21 1 Kings 3:9, NRSV, my italics. 22 Matthew 7:24–27, NRSV. 23 Vincent M. Colapietro, Peirce’s Approach to the Self: A Semiotic Perspective on Human Subjectivity (New York: State University of New York Press, 1989). 24 Peter Fonagy, György Gergely, Elliott L. Jurist, and Mary Target, Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). 25 Susan Bredlau, The Other in Perception: A Phenomenological Account of our Experience of Other Persons (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2018). 26 I thank Professor Rebecca Ackermann for posing this question at the Stellenbosch symposium. See Rebecca Rogers Ackermann and Lauren Schroeder, ‘The Emergence of Complexity and Novelty in the Human Fossil Record’, current volume. 27 See Jayne Wilkins, ‘Archaeological Evidence for Human Social Learning and Sociality in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa’, current volume.

On the origin of symbols 105 28 Cf. Lambros Malafouris, ‘Material Engagement and the Embodied Mind’, in Cognitive Models in Palaeolithic Archaeology, edited by Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 69–87. 29 Alexander Marshack, The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man’s First Art, Symbol and Notation, rev. and expanded ed. (New York: Moyer Bell, 1991); Karenleigh A. Overmann, ‘Materiality and Numerical Cognition: A Material Engagement Perspective’, in Cognitive Models in Palaeolithic Archaeology, edited by Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 89–112. 30 For example, Robert A. Wilson and Andy Clark, ‘How to Situate Cognition’, in The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, edited by Philip Robbins and Murat Aydede (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 55–77. 31 Ian Watts, ‘Red ochre, Body-­Painting, and Language: Interpreting the Blombos Ochre’, in The Cradle of Language, edited by Rudolf Botha and Chris Knight (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 62–92 (esp. 80–92). 32 Christopher S. Henshilwood, Francesco d’Errico, and Ian Watts, ‘Engraved Ochres from the Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 57 (2009): 27–47; Christopher S. Henshilwood et al., ‘100,000-­Year-­Old Ochre-­Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, Science 334 (2011): 219–222. 33 Roger Hewitt, Structure, Meaning and Ritual in the Narratives of the Southern San (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1986), 205–211. 34 Note that I am not suggesting that the San people represented a ‘primitive’ form of humanity. The reason for comparing their practices with those of the makers of the Blombos artefacts is that the latter were hunter-­gatherers, so inferences about the role of their artefacts is best made by comparison with other, better-­ known, hunter-­gatherer societies. 35 Lyn Wadley, ‘Putting Ochre to the Test: Replication Studies of Adhesives that May Have Been Used for Hafting Tools in the Middle Stone Age’, Journal of Human Evolution 49 (2005): 587–601. 36 See Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise’; Marc Kissel and Agustín Fuentes, ‘A Database of Archeological Evidence of Representational Behavior’, Evolutionary Anthropology 26, no. 4 (2017): 149–150; Marc Kissel and Agustín Fuentes, ‘Semiosis in the Pleistocene’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27 (2017): 397–412. 37 For the record, my hunch is that many of these artefacts do indeed reflect the operation of hyper-­semiotic cognition traceable back through the Middle Stone Age, but for the reasons outlined before, such a hunch falls short, for the moment, of the status of a Grade A or B conclusion. 38 Deacon, Symbolic Species; Barnard, Genesis of Symbolic Thought. 39 Deacon, Symbolic Species, 406–407. 40 See Marks, ‘Continuities and Discontinuities’. 41 Andrew Robinson, God and the World of Signs: Trinity, Evolution and the Metaphysical Semiotics of C. S. Peirce (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Andrew Robinson, Traces of the Trinity: Signs, Sacraments and Sharing God’s Life (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2014). 42 Robinson, Traces of the Trinity; Andrew Robinson, ‘Representation and Interpretation as the Basis of Participation in the Trinity’, Religions 6 (2015): 1017–1032. 43 Robinson, God and the World of Signs, 157. 44 Deacon, Symbolic Species, 75; Matt J. Rossano, ‘Making Friends, Making Tools, and Making Symbols’, Current Anthropology 51, no. S1 (2010): S89–S98. 45 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 vols (London: Nisbet & Co., 1941–1943).

106  Andrew Robinson 46 Psalm 111:10. 47 ‘Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace’ (Romans 3:23-­ – 24, NRSV). The subtitle of the present volume is ‘Dialogues in Wisdom, Humility and Grace’. In this chapter I have set out four meanings of wisdom related to the concept of self-­transcendence. I am suggesting, with Niebuhr, that humility is the recognition that self-­transcendence inevitably leads us not only to infinite possibilities for good but also, as a response to our felt insecurity, to inevitable sin and evil. Since this is an inescapable consequence of our capacity for self-­transcendence, only God’s free gift of forgiveness can offer the hope of ultimate deliverance from our individual and collective condition. This free gift is what I refer to here as ‘grace’. 48 See, for example, Cornel West, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989). 49 Stanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2001), 131. 50 Robin W. Lovin, Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 39–40. 51 Perhaps such an influence could have run through Josiah Royce, whose work Reinhold’s brother, H. Richard Niebuhr, knew well; see H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith On Earth: An Enquiry in the Structure of Human Faith, edited by Richard R. Niebuhr (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), ix. Alternatively, perhaps Walter Marshall Horton’s Realistic Theology (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935), and associated realist theological tendencies in America at that time, may have transmitted echoes of Peirce’s epistemological realism to Niebuhr. 52 I am grateful to Terrence Deacon, Margaret Boone Rappaport, and Christopher Corbally for discussions over several years which contributed to my thinking on the semiotics of palaeoanthropology. I am also grateful to the participants at the symposium held in January 2017 at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, who responded constructively to the paper on which this chapter is based, and I thank editors of this volume, and Christopher Southgate, for helpful suggestions about the final manuscript.

Glossary Christian Semiotic Realism:  a synthesis, proposed in this volume, between an evolutionary anthropology based on C.S. Peirce’s semiotics, and an ethical pragmatism based on Reinhold Niebuhr’s ‘Christian realism’. cognitive prosthesis:  a material artefact employed as an aid to (not merely an expression of) a cognitive process. Cognitive prostheses, which are examples of a form of ‘extended cognition’, would be expected to be particularly important aids to diagrammatic reasoning. diagrammatic reasoning:  a cognitive strategy involving the arrangement and rearrangement (actual or mental) of signs (often symbols) in relation to one another. A diagram (in the widest possible sense) is an iconic representation of the relation between things and/or concepts. Diagrammatic reasoning involves the mental manipulation of a diagram. hyper-­semiotic cognition:  a term, introduced in this volume, for the kind of semiotic capability that is characteristically human. The term is intended to label such a capacity without implying, as is often held to be

On the origin of symbols 107 the case, that human distinctiveness rests primarily on the ability to use symbols. Rather, the term hyper-­semiotic cognition allows for human distinctiveness to rest on particular capacities for combining different kinds of sign in various ways. hypostatic abstraction:  the mental process of reifying a concept. Once a concept has been reified (made into a mental ‘thing’), it can be represented using a symbol and incorporated into the process of diagrammatic reasoning. semiotics:  the theory of how signs (representations) operate and are interpreted. symbol:  a type of sign whose relation to what it represents (its object) is given by a rule or convention. In that sense a symbol is ‘arbitrary’, in contrast to an icon (whose relation to its object consists in some kind of resemblance) or an index (which has a direct or causal relation to its object).

Bibliography Balter, M. ‘From a Modern Human’s Brow – or Doodling?’ Science 295 (2002): 247–249. Barnard, Alan. Genesis of Symbolic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Bredlau, Susan. The Other in Perception: A Phenomenological Account of our Experience of Other Persons (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2018). Colapietro, Vincent M. Peirce’s Approach to the Self: A Semiotic Perspective on Human Subjectivity (New York: State University of New York Press, 1989). Cummings, Vicki. The Anthropology of Hunter-­Gathers: Key Themes for Archaeologists (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). Deacon, Terrence W. The Symbolic Species (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997). Deane-­Drummond, Celia. ‘Practical Wisdom in the Making: A Theological Approach to Early Hominin Evolution in Conversation with Modern Jewish Philosophy’. In The Evolution of Human Wisdom, edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2017), 167–190. Fonagy, Peter, György Gergely, Elliott L. Jurist, and Mary Target. Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). Hauerwas, Stanley. With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2001). Henshilwood, Christopher S., Francesco d’Errico, Karen L. van Niekerk, Yvan Cloquinot, Zanobia Jacobs, Stein-­Eric Lauritzen, Michel Menu, Renata Garcia-­ Moreno. ‘100,000-­Year-­Old Ochre-­Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa’. Science 334 (2011): 219–222. Henshilwood, Christopher S., Francesco d’Errico, and Ian Watts. ‘Engraved Ochres from the Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa’. Journal of Human Evolution 57 (2009): 27–47. Hewitt, Roger. Structure, Meaning and Ritual in the Narratives of the Southern San (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1986).

108  Andrew Robinson Horton, Walter Marshall. Realistic Theology (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935). Jablonka, Eva, and Marion J. Lamb. Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioural and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005). Kelly, Robert L. The Lifeways of Hunter-­Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Kissel, Marc, and Agustín Fuentes. ‘Behavioral Modernity as a Process, Not an Event, in the Human Niche’. Time and Mind 11, no. 2 (2018): 163–183. Kissel, Marc, and Agustín Fuentes. ‘A Database of Archeological Evidence of Representational Behavior’. Evolutionary Anthropology 26, no. 4 (2017): 149–150. Kissel, Marc, and Agustín Fuentes. ‘Semiosis in the Pleistocene’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27 (2017): 397–412. Lovin, Robin W. Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Malafouris, Lambros. ‘Material Engagement and the Embodied Mind’. In Cognitive Models in Palaeolithic Archaeology, edited by Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 69–87. Marshack, Alexander. The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man’s First Art, Symbol and Notation, rev. and expanded ed. (New York: Moyer Bell, 1991). Niebuhr, H. Richard. Faith on Earth: An Enquiry in the Structure of Human Faith, edited by Richard R. Niebuhr (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989). Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 vols (London: Nisbet & Co., 1941–1943). Overmann, Karenleigh A. ‘Materiality and Numerical Cognition: A Material Engagement Perspective’. In Cognitive Models in Palaeolithic Archaeology, edited by Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 89–112. Oyama, Susan, Paul E. Griffiths, and Russell D. Gray. Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001). Peirce, Charles S. The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, vol. 2 (1893–1913), edited by the Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998). Peirce, Charles S. The Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, vol. 2 (1867–1871), edited by the Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). Preucel, Robert W. Archaeological Semiotics (Oxford: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2006). Robinson, Andrew. ‘Can the Cognitive Basis of the Apprehension of Transcendence Be Mapped to Cerebral Structure and Function?’ Religion, Brain and Behaviour 7, no. 4 (2017): 313–315. Robinson, Andrew. God and the World of Signs: Trinity, Evolution and the Metaphysical Semiotics of C. S. Peirce (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Robinson, Andrew. ‘Representation and Interpretation as the Basis of Participation in the Trinity’. Religions 6 (2015): 1017–1032. Robinson, Andrew. Traces of the Trinity: Signs, Sacraments and Sharing God’s Life (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2014).

On the origin of symbols 109 Rossano, Matt J. ‘Making Friends, Making Tools, and Making Symbols’. Current Anthropology 51, no. S1 (June 2010): S89–S98. Short, T.L. Peirce’s Theory of Signs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Smyth, Mark, and Brian Pearce. IATA Economics Briefing No 8: Aviation Economic Benefits (IATA: July 2007). Stjernfelt, Frederick. Diagrammatology: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology, and Semiotics (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007). Wadley, Lyn. ‘Putting Ochre to the Test: Replication Studies of Adhesives that May Have Been Used for Hafting Tools in the Middle Stone Age’. Journal of Human Evolution 49 (2005): 587–601. Watts, Ian. ‘Red Ochre, Body-­Painting, and Language: Interpreting the Blombos Ochre’. In The Cradle of Language, edited by Rudolf Botha and Chris Knight (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 62–92. West, Cornel. The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989). Wilson, Robert A., and Andy Clark. ‘How to Situate Cognition’. In The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, edited by Philip Robbins and Murat Aydede (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 55–77. Zeman, J. Jay. ‘Peirce on Abstraction’. The Monist 65 (1982): 211–229.

Part III

Humility Introductory commentary Wendy Black Observing an intangible in the archaeological or palaeoanthropological record is often difficult and relies on investigators objectively seeking and seeing something that does not have a physical presence. Palaeoscientists have grappled with this across various disciplines, sometimes with notable success. Within the archaeological record, ideas regarding gender roles within ancient populations1 and the symbolism of engraved objects,2 for example, are generally accepted as known and understood intangible evidence, even though aspects thereof are still debated. However, the discourses within archaeological social theory,3 including aspects of identity and community ideologies during the Pleistocene, are more challenging to reconcile. Extending from this, there are interesting approaches to identifying and understanding ethical systems such as morality and virtue in deep time, and within these, the concepts of humility, grace, and wisdom are particularly complex to consider. Many authors from this volume comment that these virtues never occur in isolation and that at minimum, humility and wisdom are somewhat intertwined. The insight to not always put oneself first (characteristic of humility) is related to the evolved capacity of gaining experience, knowledge, and good judgment (characteristics of wisdom) through social interactions and modes of learning (see Jan-­Olav Henriksen’s work in Chapter 7). Therefore, humility works in tandem with heightened sensibilities and a developed social understanding of the group dynamic and its needs, and how an individual should navigate that space. In essence, humility is knowing, as the old Star Trek adage by Spock says, ‘that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’. As we see from the chapters in this section, humility can be viewed as a multifaceted state of being that needs to be described in the context of both the individual and the group. There is a duality within the concept where one aspect of the virtue focuses inwardly on the self, while the other, which is inextricably linked to the behaviour and reaction of the individual’s ideas of self, focuses outwardly on others (or the group). This gives humility a dual meaning where first, it can be described as a person having an accurate perception of self with the knowledge of his or her personal limitations, and

112  Wendy Black secondly, as a person having an awareness of others, their needs and ways of life, as well as a willingness to self-­restrain for the wellbeing of others. In my own opinion, humility amounts to a clear recognition of who I really am and an awareness that I do not live in isolation. I am a participant in a dynamic social network in which I should be mindful of others because my actions (behavioural or otherwise) affect those around me and have consequences. Therefore, in order for me to thrive in my extensive environment, I need to be, amongst other things, humble. The characteristics of humility, or any other virtue, in deep time can only be evaluated with the appearance, frequency, and presence of material and physical items left behind by our ancestors. How things are created, how they are distributed, and how they are left behind are really the only ways we can identify possible humble behaviour in the archaeological record. The chapter authors here attempt to use these markers to identify humility characteristics in a variety of ways. In Jayne Wilkins’ contribution to this section, she provides possible evidence for humility in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) by attributing the development of complex sociality and ways of learning to the remarkable behavioural traits observed from ~500–50 kya. Similarly, Penny Spikins notes that shared concepts and social interaction assist in the creation of objects such as stone tools. This process would also include the ability to teach others how to make tools as well as learn or develop new ways of producing them. Additionally, a level of ‘emotional regulation’ is required to overcome frustration and learn patience in the creation of a tool. This ability is indicative of the emergence of a complex emotional capacity and is further illustrated by the characteristics of humility, such as empathy and compassion, Spikins recognizes in ancient burial practices and osteological evidence. Celia Deane-­Drummond’s contribution to this volume also links elements of humility to the process of lithic production. The sophisticated, high levels of symmetry of a handaxe and the technical proficiency required to make one is viewed within the important qualities of self-­development and self-­ control. Similar to discussion by Spikins, Deane-­Drummond notes that burial practices, such as those outlined by Lee Berger and John Hawks in this volume, illustrate that an individual is recognized as part of a group and that they are deemed valuable on some level. Again, this demonstrates the humble characteristic of setting aside ego and recognizing that others are equals and important within a community. The inclusion of a spiritual belief system here is speculative, but the possibility of ritual or spiritual behaviour during this practice cannot be ignored. Spirituality or religious elements may become part of the human culture as they help an individual know their true self within a given situation or environment, as Henriksen asserts. Religion only provides this if the individual has successfully orientated themselves and interpreted their situation in the world. We can only evaluate these circumstances within our own agency and we can only infer or speculate as to the agency of our ancestors, which makes identifying

Humility 113 humility and the conditions that foster this virtue in the archaeological record challenging. There is no way to know how early ancestors were experiencing morality and virtues. Indeed, we have no way of knowing whether or not they were actually experiencing these types of thought processes at all, particularly when contemplating earlier Homo species. Brain development of MSA individuals was, to our current understanding, similar to what we see in modern human populations today; thus, the assumption that MSA groups had the capacity to process experiences, interact socially, and thereby encounter circumstances where humility is beneficial, is not a terribly far reach. We also have evidence, as Spikins points out, that early species such as Neanderthals and their precursors were capable of care and compassion. However, these threads of relevant evidence are small and to attribute them to virtues like humility may be problematic. As objective as we try to be, it may be our own agency that helps us ‘see’ humility in deep time when, in fact, most of what it is we ‘see’ is speculation. That said, I do think it is possible to link the success of a species to elements of humility. This can be done through an assessment of skill accumulation and sharing, and how it affects a community. In order to assess a group in this way, we have to accept that in any given group, the primary goal is survival. To survive, a group needs to be able to acquire and use various skills and therefore, group survival is proportional to the amount and variety of skill in the group. This can be defined as the group’s skills domain. Let us accept the assumption that each individual in most groups has at least one skill. Others may have more than one skill or have developed new ways of perfecting older skills. Groups that demonstrate humility, as it has been defined in this volume, will possess the largest skills domain. This would be due to a well-­defined, cooperative teaching and learning strategy that would benefit the group as a whole. The group that behaves with pride or with selfish behaviour will develop a siloed skills domain where skills are not shared for the greater good, but rather sectioned and rationed to those who guard the knowledge base to enhance their own achievements and perhaps, status. Archaeologically, we see that groups that have a broad resource base and skills domain thrive. Wilkins demonstrates in her discussion here that the MSA provides rich behavioural evidence within the archaeological record. Increased sociality during this time, coupled with the ability to imitate and emulate, likely enabled a broader skill and resource base, which in turn led to the development of unique behavioural traits and extraordinary objects such as hafted tools and engraved items. Additionally, the evolution of semiotic competence, as outlined by Henriksen here, adds to the skills domain. Signs aid in the development of learning, observation, recall, and inference abilities, all important aspects of personal and group development, and improved social conduct. This is the potential basis of the prosociality observed in the MSA. Similarly, a broader skills base is observed in, for example, earlier Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, and it is

114  Wendy Black during this time that elements of social bonding have been identified. What Deane-­Drummond admires about the variety, distinctiveness, and precision of handaxes may also be a marker for humble behaviour in terms of a survival mechanism. Sharing the skill of making these tools helps ensure the overall survival of the group, which is likely to be a primary goal. Interestingly, the appearance of special cultural items in the MSA sometimes coincides with spatial and temporal variation in stone tool production and raw material use; in general, however, their appearance is not continuous. Also, the aspects of prosociality we see in earlier species, i.e. compassion, are sporadic. Perhaps the non-­linear appearance of these cultural behaviours and its site-­by-­site variability can be attributed to the distinction between a group practicing humility over time and thereby increasing their shared skills domain versus a group that does not. A group that shares its knowledge and interacts successfully with others may also learn to negotiate and understand their environment, and their role in that environment, better than others. Humility is linked to cooperative social behaviour and when this is active within a group, mindfulness between individuals increases. The act of sharing a body of knowledge and experience, even for survival purposes, leads to the formation of more complex relationships that may include elements of spiritual, ritualistic, and virtuous behaviours. Spikins and Deane-­Drummond discuss this mindfulness here, across a number of early Homo and non-­human species, demonstrating the ability of various groups to perceive the needs and roles of another; for example, early Homo caring for the ill, Neanderthal burial practices, bonobo chimps mourning the dead, or dolphins assisting an ailing other. This demonstrates that such behaviours are not restricted to modern humans but play out in various ways across diverse species. What is observed is that, regardless of species, these complex emotions produce more meaningful social bonds. When considering this in human ancestry, the development may have added new value to interpersonal relationships and shared events. In effect, this is a utilitarian scenario; whether an action is right or wrong depends entirely on how beneficial or harmful it will be for everyone involved.4 Ultimately, only the net balance of reward versus risk matters and groups would try to ensure success over failure. This would include establishing social best practice, but as we have seen, it is difficult to observe this in deep time. It helps to observe more recent findings such as those from the Later Stone Age (LSA) and evaluate hunter-­gatherer social behaviours, which may build on what we see as possible humility further back in time. This is not to embed LSA populations within a cultural stasis, but rather to demonstrate increased variability and change across temporally diverse populations. Within the last ~45 ka, increased cultural change within hunter-­gatherer groups was notable, influenced by changing environments, technologies, economic strategies, and social stress. The discussions regarding these changes

Humility 115 are far larger than can be described here but, in general, shifts in population activity over time were dynamic and we find increased settlement of varied environments and an increase in population density and adaptations. One example of this is the appearance of the Oakhurst techno-­complex in southern Africa from approximately 12,000–7,000 BP. Consisting of four geographic variants in regions south of the Zambesi River, this complex is suggestive of an abrupt change in technology and large-­scale interactive networks. The complex is identified as a new flake based and non-­microlithic stone tool tradition characterized by few formal tools, and using coarsely grained raw materials such as quartzite and hornfels. This is quite different to the Robberg microlithic industry observed in southern Africa earlier. The complex has a marked increase in non-­lithic artefacts including bone tools and various ostrich eggshell and marine shell equipment. An intense marine exploitation along the coast is evident and a broader range of fauna are exploited alongside the use of various underground corms and tubers. Within the Oakhurst, populations were moving across the landscape providing archaeological signatures in previously uninhabited areas. This is indicative of an expansion of social networks and exchange with groups that were previously not included in established cultural traditions. Evidence for this is in the increased number of similar personal items and decoration pieces, i.e. beads found at most Oakhurst sites across southern Africa5 that may have been used during exchange or aggregation events. Aggregation events, as outlined by a number of ethnographic studies, may also assist in identifying humility in the archaeological record. The practice of gift giving, or hxaro (in southern Africa), common in hunter-­gatherer populations ensures cooperation and the survival of separated population groups. Archaeologically these have been disputably identified as aggregation or dispersal sites,6 where scattered communities gather together seasonally to exchange gifts, share food, and impart knowledge. This reciprocation enhances each community’s skills domain and helps support group resilience. Although these events have not been identified in the Oakhurst time period, we can see that technological tweaking and a shared knowledge base within regions suggests a common understanding of how best to secure food and resources, minimize risk, and guarantee population success within a somewhat difficult environment (often cold and dry). The prosocial, cooperative behaviour examined during the Oakhurst period highlights many elements of humility that have been discussed here. Within these groups there is increased resource utilization and improvement of the overall skills domain. This is observed in, for example, the increased marine food exploitation or stone tool modifications, suggestive of enhanced understanding, collaboration, and knowledge shared between members of a community. Between-­group sociality is also seen. Similar artefacts and technological adaptations across large distances are indicative of well-­developed social networks that diffuse ideas. For example, lithic technology during this time is collectively similar, but slight variations occur in geographically

116  Wendy Black dispersed areas, perhaps indicative of emulation between social groups as outlined by Wilkins. Population growth, as determined by the increased number of sites during this time period, tell us that these groups were successful, and perhaps offer another example of a group practicing humility over time. Poor resolution and preservation affect archaeological and palaeoanthropological interpretations, particularly those interpretations related to social behaviours and relationships. The nature of intangible virtues such as humility can only be framed within social and learning capacities, which in turn, can only be observed in temporally defined cultural traditions that have been explained and described by individuals with their own agency. We can construct a possible narrative that outlines the emergence of these emotional capabilities and moral inclinations, and even systemize how such behaviours could be beneficial, but there is likely no way of fully understanding how social virtues materialized in the past. Humility does appear to be important for a community to thrive and function productively. The archaeological evidence for this, particularly in the LSA, supports the establishment and importance of collective group needs over the isolated needs of individuals. While many of these ideas are speculative, such discussions open new avenues of critique and thought that may continue to engage philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, and archaeologists towards new ways of mapping human sociality and their humble beginnings.

Notes 1 I refer to the bulk of work on gender archaeology since Margaret W Conkey and Janet D Spector, ‘Archaeology and the Study of Gender’, in Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, edited by Michael B. Schiffer (Orlando/London: Academic Press, 1984), 1–38. 2 For examples, see works by Christopher S. Henshilwood, Francesco d’Errico, and Ian Watts, ‘Engraved Ochres from the Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 1 (2009): 27–47; Henshilwood et al., ‘Emergence of Modern Human Behavior: Middle Stone Age Engravings from South Africa’, Science 295, no. 5558 (2002): 1278–1280; J. Parkington et al., ‘From Tool to Symbol: The Behavioural Context of Intentionally Marked Ostrich Eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape’, in From Tools to Symbols: From Early Hominids to Modern Humans, edited by Francesco d’Errico and Lucinda Backwell (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2005), 475–492. 3 Such as Margarita Díaz-­Andreu et al., The Archaeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity and Religion (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005). 4 I refer here to the work by Jeremy Bentham, one of the primary philosophers in the Utilitarian movement who spoke out against new government strategy in A Fragment on Government: Being an Examination of What is Delivered, on the Subject of Government in General, in the Introduction to Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries: With a Preface, in Which is Given a Critique of the Work at Large (London: Printed for T. Payne . . . P. Elmsly . . . and E. Brooke, 1776).

Humility 117 5 There are a number of sites that provide evidence of this. See for example, Peter Mitchell, The Archaeology of Southern Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Ralf Vogelsang and Barbara Eichhorn, Under the Mopane Tree: Holocene Settlement in Northern Namibia, vol. 24 (Köln: Heinrich-­Barth-­Inst., 2011); Nicholas John Walker, Late Pleistocene and Holocene Hunter-­Gatherers of the Matopos: An Archaeological Study of Change and Continuity in Zimbabwe (Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, 1995). 6 See Lyn Wadley, ‘Reply to Barham: Aggregation and Dispersal Phase Sites in the Later Stone Age’, The South African Archaeological Bulletin 47, no. 155 (1992): 52–55.

Bibliography Bentham, Jeremy. A Fragment on Government: Being an Examination of What is Delivered, on the Subject of Government in General, in the Introduction to Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries: With a Preface, in Which is Given a Critique of the Work at Large (London: Printed for T. Payne, P. Elmsly, and E. Brooke, 1776). Conkey, Margaret W., and Janet D. Spector. ‘Archaeology and the Study of Gender’. In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, edited by Michael B. Schiffer (Orlando/London: Academic Press, 1984). Díaz-­Andreu, M. et al. The Archaeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity and Religion (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005). Henshilwood, Christopher S. et al. ‘Emergence of Modern Human Behavior: Middle Stone Age Engravings from South Africa’. Science 295, no. 5558 (2002): 1278–1280. Henshilwood, Christopher S., Francesco d’Errico, and Ian Watts. ‘Engraved Ochres from the Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa’. Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 1 (2009): 27–47. Meyer, Nicholas. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. 113 minutes. Paramount Pictures, 1982. Mitchell, Peter. The Archaeology of Southern Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Parkington, J., C. Poggenpoel, J.P. Rigaud, and P.J. Texier. ‘From Tool to Symbol: The Behavioural Context of Intentionally Marked Ostrich Eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape’. In From Tools to Symbols: From Early Hominids to Modern Humans, edited by Francesco d’Errico and Lucinda Backwell (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2005), 475–492. Vogelsang, Ralf, and Barbara Eichhorn. Under the Mopane Tree: Holocene Settlement in Northern Namibia, vol. 24 (Köln: Heinrich-­Barth-­Instit., 2011). Wadley, Lyn. ‘Reply to Barham: Aggregation and Dispersal Phase Sites in the Later Stone Age’. The South African Archaeological Bulletin 47, no. 155 (1992): 52–55. Walker, Nicholas John. Late Pleistocene and Holocene Hunter-­Gatherers of the Matopos: An Archaeological Study of Change and Continuity in Zimbabwe (Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, 1995).

6 Archaeological evidence for human social learning and sociality in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa Jayne Wilkins Introduction The social relationships of humans are exponentially more complex than those of other animals.1 Today, this is evidenced in society’s daily reliance on social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, as well as our huge institutions like universities, government, and corporations. Over the past few centuries, the size and reach of human social networks seem to have amplified on a global scale with each major technological innovation – agriculture, steam power, electricity, computers, internet, etc. However, the origins of our capacity for creating and maintaining large social networks go back to our early hunter-­gatherer roots when social networks helped to mediate resource risk and promote gene flow. Social networks not only ensured the survival of our species when we were all hunter-­gatherers, but they also created rich and meaningful lives, as they do today. And, in the past, humans exhibiting virtues like humility, wisdom, and grace are likely to have thrived in many aspects of their social environments, as they do today. Two socio-­cognitive capacities enable humans to navigate complex social relationships: social learning and prosociality. I consider these capacities as part of what researchers describe as the ‘modern human behaviour’ package that characterizes our species and includes our abilities for abstract thinking, planning depth, innovativeness, and symbolic behaviour.2 Social learning is the process through which animals develop new patterns of behaviour by observing or being taught by others. It is dependent on interaction with others, and in that way differs from individual trial-­and-­ error learning. Trial-­and-­error learning (i.e. inventiveness) is a characteristic shared with primates, but only humans extensively rely on social learning to transmit cultural knowledge across generations.3 Social learning can be imitative or emulative. Imitation is considered an integral component of social learning in humans, where imitation differs from emulation because it focuses on process, the way of doing something, and the exact manner in which the end goal is accomplished. In contrast, emulation is focused on the end goal and an emulator learns the process of getting there on their own.4

120  Jayne Wilkins Sociality is the extent to which animals rely on others for their survival and reproductive success. Humans have been described as ‘prosocial’5 and ‘hyperprosocial’6 because of their high levels of non-­kin cooperation and cooperative breeding. They cooperate regularly (every day) with a cost to the cooperator and without the expectation of immediate payoff.7 The concept of human sociality can alternatively be summed up by the adage that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Marean8 suggests that human hyperprosociality was in place 200–100 thousand years ago (ka), near to or just succeeding the origin point of anatomically modern Homo sapiens ~150–200 ka.9 The flip side of cooperation is conflict. Intra-­group cooperation leads to inter-­group conflict, and the social and technological structures that empower humans to make war in large groups with advanced weapons. Social learning sets the foundation for prosociality because it occurs in group settings, it helps generate and reaffirm social bonds, and it helps transmit complex beliefs and ways of doing things through multiple generations. Empirical evidence for the development of early human social learning and sociality derives from archaeological studies on the African Middle Stone Age (MSA), which begins ~500–300 ka10 and ends ~50–20 ka.11 Researchers examine how stone tools and other material items are manufactured, how far raw materials are moved across the landscape, and the material evidence for symbolling, such as brightly coloured ochre and incised objects. This chapter reviews the new evidence from ongoing archaeological investigations in South Africa that shed light on the evolution of human social learning and sociality.

Technology, social learning, and regional styles Complex technologies with multiple components and steps of production generally rely on accumulated knowledge and social learning.12 They require multiple steps13 and are often transformative in that the final product bears little resemblance to the initial state.14 Complex technologies require multiple techniques, methods, skills, and/or processes, the knowledge of which are passed down through generations and not acquired over the course of a single individual’s lifetime. They indicate aspects of early human cognition, such as the capacity for analogical reasoning15 and constructive memory,16 but also indicate increased reliance on social learning. Within the last decade, major discoveries in South Africa demonstrate that these kinds of complex technologies have a much longer chronology then previously known and some pre-­date the origins of Homo sapiens. New archaeological evidence for heat-­treatment by ~164 ka,17 compound adhesives and paints by ~100 ka,18 medicinal plant use by ~77 ka,19 long-­distance projectiles by ~70 ka,20 and hafted tools by ~500 ka21 from South African sites is transforming our perspective on the importance and early origins of social learning in the MSA.

Human social learning and sociality 121 Humans pay attention to the actual behavioural strategies of others, copying the actions and techniques.22 Because humans imitate behaviours, they are able to adopt successful strategies and create technologies that they would have been unlikely to invent on their own in a single lifetime. Stone tool technologies during some periods in the MSA are consistent with an increased emphasis on imitative social learning. Long-­distance projectiles,23 for instance, may be more difficult to replicate and maintain than hafted spears using emulative social learning mechanisms alone,24 and may have required an increased emphasis on imitation compared to earlier time periods. Furthermore, stone point styles in the later part of the MSA show variability on a continent-­wide geographic scale25 and on a temporal scale.26 There is general consensus that the spatial and temporal pattern of MSA point styles reflects cultural patterns.27 Variability in point form signifies cultural patterns because point form can be used to communicate messages about ethnic or group affiliation,28 and/or points can serve as important symbolic objects in regional exchange networks.29 These periods that emphasize imitative social learning could be associated with the need to communicate group membership or social information by replicating the behaviours of others.30 In situations where stone tools are used to communicate social information, one would expect less variability in the final end product (such as the point), and the debris resulting from manufacture (because there would be less variability in the steps of production). Along the same vein that the manufacture of finely made, symmetrical handaxes requires self-­regulation31 and humility,32 the manufacture of complex technologies that require attention to process will require similar capacities, if not more enhanced. Two techno-­complexes within the South African MSA, the Still Bay (SB) and the Howiesons Poort (HP), exhibit traits consistent with a reliance on imitative social learning. Each is characterized by a particular set of stone tool technological traits. The SB is known for its strikingly symmetrical, leaf-­shaped bifacial points, and the HP for its small backed bladelets. Each of these tool types exhibit a high degree of regularity in form with consistent manufacturing strategies across space and time that suggests the humans manufacturing these tools were imitating each other’s actions and techniques. Early evidence for many of the complex technologies highlighted earlier is associated with SB and/or HP assemblages. Much recent research is focused on identifying the driver behind the origins of these techno-­ complexes. For many years, researchers have held that shifts to cooler and drier palaeoenvironmental conditions during this time explain the technological changes, though the precise nature of the relationship between technology and environment has not been agreed upon. Various human responses to cooler, drier conditions in southern Africa that have been proposed include reduced population sizes,33 demographic expansions,34 increased population and/or group sizes, longer and more intense site occupations,35 increased inter-­group competition and territoriality,36 increased mobility,37 decreased

122  Jayne Wilkins residential mobility,38 increased interconnectedness,39 decreased interconnectedness, increased resource intensification,40 and decreased territoriality.41 Other researchers have emphasized the lack of a deterministic relationship between environment and lithic technology in the South African MSA.42 My colleagues and I have argued that we need to test hypotheses about the role of environment at a different scale, examining variability in individual lithic assemblage traits, rather than at the techno-­complex scale.43 For some periods in the MSA, variation in stone tool manufacturing strategies suggests more emphasis on emulative, rather than imitative, social learning. For example, at Kathu Pan 1, Northern Cape, three lithic assemblage characteristics are consistent with an increased focus on emulative learning over imitative learning: (1) diverse production strategies used to produce similar final tool types, (2) different blank types used to produce similar final tool types, and (3) different final tool types used to carry out similar functions.44 The assemblage exhibits intrasite diversity in reduction strategies and diverse processes leading to the same end goal: points used as hafted spear tips. Diversity is emphasized at many other MSA sites across Africa.45 This perspective of variability in the MSA is supported by evidence for dynamic, short-­term behavioural changes in the recently studied MIS 3 (57–29 ka) levels at Sibudu Cave, South Africa,46 and by Mackay et al.’s meta-­analysis showing shifts through the MSA between periods of coalescence (increased inter-­regional interaction) to periods of fragmentation (decreased inter-­regional interaction).47 Across Africa, environmental variability may have created conditions that differentially selected for emulative over imitative learning. Resource availability is likely to have shifted through Pleistocene Africa in response to changing climatic conditions.48 During the last ~700 ka, Africa has experienced increased climatic variability compared to earlier time periods. The fluctuations in global temperature are more extreme and they occur over shorter time periods.49 The human niche includes these fluctuating structural ecologies, as well as constructed ideologies and practices.50 A focus on emulative learning might reflect an adaptive response, or niche construction, by hominins to this increased climatic variability, encouraging independent invention and innovation so that hominins could occupy shifting environmental conditions (i.e. behavioural plasticity). Also, humans use style to communicate information about individual and group identity.51 A high degree of conformity bias52 is one mechanism that perpetuates shared styles. In situations where there is less resource competition, one can predict less pressure to communicate social information about group identity53 and relaxed conformity bias, with potentially less emphasis on imitative learning. Archaeologically, this may have led to more diversity in the strategies used to manufacture stone tools during some periods of the MSA.54 Together, the South African MSA record provides evidence for a technological diversity consistent with what modern humans do today,55 with differential emphasis on imitative and emulative social learning through time. Another way to

Human social learning and sociality 123 think of this is that humans have variably constructed their social niches through time, in line with current non-­linear perspectives on the origins of morality,56 human morphological, and behavioural evolution.57

Raw material movements and interaction The movement of raw materials across the landscape has important implications for social networks of stone-­tool using populations. Palaeolithic data on raw material transport distances indicate that 100 km is an important threshold for raw material movement. Middle Palaeolithic (i.e. Neanderthal) raw material transfers rarely exceed 100 km, whereas Upper Palaeolithic (i.e. Homo sapiens) transfers are sometimes in excess of 200 km.58 Raw material transfers in the Early and Middle Palaeolithic are thought to be associated with regular seasonal trips during which raw material resources were collected in addition to subsistence items,59 whereas raw material transfers in the Upper Palaeolithic are indicative of long-­distance trade.60 There is evidence from some parts of Africa for raw material transfers that exceed 100 km, and even extending beyond 300 km, during the African MSA.61 For some time, ‘exotic’ origins of stone tool raw material were wrongly assumed for many MSA sites in South Africa and this has resulted in extensive debate. The HP, for example, has resulted in multiple hypotheses regarding the increased reliance on fine-­grained raw materials that characterize this period. One of these hypotheses is that the increased reliance on fine-­grained raw materials in the HP reflects larger foraging territories, increased mobility, and/or increased exchange.62 Deacon63 suggested that the high frequencies of fine-­grained raw material in the HP resulted from the exchange of tools, as in modern San ethnography, and the desire to add both functional and symbolic value to weapons in the context of exchange. Exchange, in the context of this model, served to stimulate the expansion of social networks and interaction that would minimize the risk associated with deteriorating climatic conditions. However, surveys on the southern coast of South Africa near PP5–6 and Sibudu suggest that fine-­grained raw materials are, in fact, local.64 Here, local raw materials are defined as those that can be recovered from distances within a typical one-­day roundtrip, which averages around 15–30 km.65 Half of this average round trip, 8–15 km, represents the daily foraging radius of a hunter-­gatherer community. Instead of representing larger territories or increased mobility, Minichillo66 argues that increased frequencies of fine-­grained raw material at HP sites represent increased search time at cobble beaches adjacent to HP cave sites. Will and Mackay67 argue that silcrete selection appears to be governed more so by functional considerations (the production of blades and backed pieces) and socio-­cultural factors, than by economic or environmental ones. Fewer geochemical provenience studies have been conducted in southern Africa compared to East Africa, in part because common raw material types

124  Jayne Wilkins here exhibit high degrees of intra-­source variability, which makes provenience studies challenging. Geochemical fingerprinting of silcrete in northwest Botswana suggests that humans chose to transport silcrete raw material over 220 km from where it outcrops to White Paintings Shelter at Tsodilo Hills.68 At Diepkloof, geochemical analysis of ochre indicates that most of the ochre has a local origin, but with some pieces being transported from ≥20 km away.69 The frequency of raw material types that come from further away tend to peak with the SB and HP deposits ~100–50 ka.70 At Canteen Koppie, some 300,000-­year-­old jaspelite artefacts contain round white macrofossils similar to jaspelite exploited at the Late Acheulean quarry site of Kathu Townlands ~175 km to the northwest.71 The closest known primary outcrops of formations containing jaspelite are ~90 km west. Specularite, which is a type of hematite known for its glittery visual display properties, outcrops ~190 km to the west of Canteen Koppie; two specularite pieces were recovered from deposits dated to ~300 ka at the site, and there is no known alluvial system that could have transported the material east towards Canteen Koppie.72 At the majority of MSA sites, however, evidence for the long-­distance transfer of stone raw materials is lacking. Economizing use of local raw materials is much more common through the South African MSA. For example, at Kathu Pan 1 ~500 ka, the early MSA lithic assemblage was manufactured on local raw materials, with sources all within 11 km from the site.73 Silcrete was transported 10–30 km to Hoedjiespunt 1, Western Cape.74 Raw materials that are abundant in the surrounding landscape are generally the most common type of raw material used through the MSA, with some SB and HP sites documenting increased emphasis on either less abundant or more distant raw material types (but still within ~30 km). While much has been made of transport distances of ‘exotic’ raw material in the South African MSA, we actually still have very little conclusive evidence for long-­distance exchange. If anything, new research is highlighting more emphasis on locally available materials for most of the South African MSA, but with some speculative early evidence for long-­distance transfers extending back to before the origins of Homo sapiens. To further examine the nature and extent of trade and interaction in the MSA, we may have to look to new techniques.

Rituals and symbols Certain classes of material objects from MSA contexts are considered indicative of symbolic thought and ritual. Materials like ochre (used today in many regions of the world to decorate skin, hair, and objects), beads (used as personal adornment that can communicate information about group affiliation and individual status), and incised/engraved bone or stone (which exhibit patterns that store information). These are the kinds of material objects that would be used by early humans to serve as the basis for self-­transcendence75

Human social learning and sociality 125 and to generate, communicate, and reaffirm social bonds. Special treatment of the dead by humans sometimes involves these kinds of material objects when they are intentionally interred within the burial,76 but other times it is the context of the human remains that provide the evidence for intentional disposal practices.77 The variety of ways that hominins may have disposed of their dead, and new evidence from South Africa that special treatment of the dead is not restricted to our own species, is reviewed by Hawkes and Berger in the current volume.78 Ochre is relatively common in some MSA contexts79 with evidence for preferential selection of the reddest materials.80 Recent research places the earliest evidence for ochre at ~500 ka, based on the presence of modified specularite and other ferruginous pieces at Kathu Pan 1.81 At Canteen Koppie ~300 ka, some ochre may have been transported ~190 km from its original source.82 At Blombos Cave, an ‘ochre-­processing kit’ was found in deposits dating to 100 ka; a mixture containing ochre, bone, and charcoal was preserved within two abalone shells.83 Residue of an ochre and milk-­ based paint mixture was recovered from a 49,000-­year-­old stone tool at Sibudu.84 Ochre also served as an ingredient in adhesives for manufacturing compound tools,85 which may have improved the adhesive’s functional performance.86 Recent experiments have shown that finely ground quartz performs just as well as ochre as an adhesive additive, indicating that the decision to use ochre as an ingredient in glues was at least in part mediated by symbolic concerns.87 Incised pieces of bone and ochre have been recovered from several MSA contexts.88 The ~100 ka pieces of ochre with geometric patterns from Blombos Cave are the oldest and most well-­known examples.89 Incised pieces of ostrich eggshell have been recovered from MSA deposits at Diepkloof Rock Shelter,90 and Apollo 11, Namibia.91 Detailed analysis of engraved ostrich eggshell fragments from Diepkloof Rock Shelter indicates that designs were limited to particular motifs and that the relative frequency of particular motifs changed through time, consistent with how style changes in material objects today.92 Engraved ostrich eggshell fragments are actually rare in the South African MSA. At Diepkloof, they disappear at the end of the HP.93 Beads are another type of symbolic object that are recovered from some African MSA deposits.94 Use-­wear analyses of Nassarius kraussianus shell beads from Blombos Cave have been used to argue that starting ~75 ka, stringing arrangements changed through time, consistent with changing stylistic norms and shared traditions.95 At Border Cave, in HP deposits dated to ~75 ka, a perforated Conus shell was recovered from the pit containing infant remains.96

Conclusions Recent archaeological discoveries in South Africa are steering research on the origins of modern human behaviour in new directions. “Modern human

126  Jayne Wilkins behaviour” has long been a vague and debated concept, but often conflated with enhanced cognitive capacities and language, and presented in a progressivist manor. Today, researchers are unpacking the concept of ‘modern human behaviour’ into its many constituent parts. This is painting a much older97 and much more complex picture. For example, in southern Africa, considerations of explanations for the first appearance of modern human behaviour have moved beyond the simple association of a cooler, drier period with the SB and HP techno-­complexes. Rather, attention is given to understanding on a smaller scale how local environmental conditions influenced behaviour, and on how other non-­environmental factors, including socio-­cultural ones, also generate behavioural change. There are new directions in lithic analysis, with more emphasis on identifying technological learning processes and social interaction. There is more appreciation for diversity across time and through space, and the roles of hybridization and interaction in evolutionary process, with less emphasis on cognitive evolution and progressive models of change. The archaeological record to date suggests that at least some human capacities for social learning and sociality may have been present at the onset of the MSA before the origins of Homo sapiens, and are variably expressed through time. For example, hafted tools, ochre-­use, and long-­distance transport are some behavioural traits that appear to exhibit an early chronology ~500–300 ka, but they do not all persist through time and in all contexts. Similarly, engraved ostrich eggshell and shell beads have a limited spatial and temporal distribution through the MSA. Changing stone tool technologies exhibit different emphases on different types of social learning. I suggest that the nature of human social learning and sociality, which are capacities mediated by virtues like humility, wisdom, and grace, varied in the MSA. In many cases these changes did not occur in a temporally vectored, accumulative manner and there are differences between archaeological sites roughly the same age. This early and lengthy record of early human variability shows that there has probably never been one way of expressing human social virtues. Humans are social, and we need each other, but exactly how and how much has probably always varied and changed over time non-­linearly.

Notes 1 I would like to thank Prof Celia Deane-­Drummond and Prof Agustín Fuentes for the invitation to participate in the Humility, Wisdom, and Grace in Deep Time: A Conversation between Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology symposium, and for putting together this volume. I am grateful for assistance with the referencing style from Jacqueline McNab. The research underlying this paper was funded in part by South Africa’s DST-­NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences. I am also the recipient of an Australian Research Council Australian Discovery Early Career Award (DE190100160) funded by the Australian government.

Human social learning and sociality 127 2 S. McBrearty and A.S. Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior’, Journal of Human Evolution 39, no. 5 (2000): 453–563. 3 M. Tomasello, A.C. Kruger, and H.H. Ratner, ‘Cultural Learning’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16, no. 3 (1993): 495–511; M. Tomasello, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999); C. Tennie, J. Call, and M. Tomasello, ‘Ratcheting Up the Ratchet: On the Evolution of Cumulative Culture’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364, no. 1528 (2009): 2405–2415; M. Tomasello et al., ‘Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28, no. 5 (2005): 675–735; R. Boyd and P.J. Richerson, The Origin and Evolution of Cultures (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 4 Tennie, Call, and Tomasello, ‘Ratcheting Up the Ratchet’. 5 K. Hill, M. Barton, and A.M. Hurtado, ‘The Emergence of Human Uniqueness: Characters Underlying Behavioral Modernity’, Evolutionary Anthropology 18, no. 5 (2009): 187–200. 6 C.W. Marean, ‘An Evolutionary Anthropological Perspective on Modern Human Origins’, Annual Review of Anthropology 44, no. 1 (2015): 533–556. 7 Ibid. 8 C.W. Marean, ‘The Transition to Foraging for Dense and Predictable Resources and Its Impact on the Evolution of Modern Humans’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 371, no. 1698 (2016): 20150239. 9 McBrearty and Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t’; I. McDougall, F.H. Brown, and J.G. Fleagle, ‘Stratigraphic Placement and Age of Modern Humans from Kibish, Ethiopia.’ Nature no. 433 (2005): 733–736 10 McBrearty and Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t’; J. Wilkins and M. Chazan, ‘Blade Production ~500 Thousand Years Ago at Kathu Pan 1, South Africa: Support for a Multiple Origins Hypothesis for Early Middle Pleistocene Blade Technologies’, Journal of Archaeological Science 39, no. 6 (2012): 1883–1900; J. Wilkins et al., ‘Evidence for Early Hafted Hunting Technology’, Science 338, no. 6109 (2012): 942–946. 11 McBrearty and Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t’; P. Villa, et al., ‘Border Cave and the Beginning of the Later Stone Age in South Africa’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, no. 33 (2012): 13208–13213. 12 Boyd and Richerson, The Origin and Evolution of Cultures; J. Henrich, ‘Demography and Cultural Evolution: How Adaptive Cultural Processes Can Produce Maladaptive Losses: The Tasmanian Case’, American Antiquity 69, no. 2 (2004): 197–214. 13 M. Lombard and M.N. Haidle, ‘Thinking a Bow-­and-­Arrow Set: Cognitive Implications of Middle Stone Age Bow and Stone-­Tipped Arrow Technology’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22, no. 2 (2012): 237–264. 14 L. Wadley and L.C. Prinsloo, ‘Experimental Heat Treatment of Silcrete Implies Analogical Reasoning in the Middle Stone Age’, Journal of Human Evolution 70, no. 1 (2014): 49–60; L. Wadley, ‘Recognizing Complex Cognition through Innovative Technology in Stone Age and Palaeolithic Sites’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23, no. 2 (2013): 163–183. 15 Wadley and Prinsloo, ‘Experimental Heat Treatment’; Wadley, ‘Recognizing Complex Cognition’. 16 S.H. Ambrose, ‘Coevolution of Composite-­Tool Technology, Constructive Memory, and Language: Implications for the Evolution of Modern Human Behavior’, Current Anthropology 51, no. S1 (2010): S135–S147. 17 Wadley and Prinsloo, ‘Experimental Heat Treatment’, 49–60, 19–22. 18 L. Wadley, ‘Compound-­ Adhesive Manufacture As a Behavioral Proxy for Complex Cognition in the Middle Stone Age’, Current Anthropology 51, no.

128  Jayne Wilkins S1 (2010): S111–S119; L. Wadley, T. Hodgskiss, and M. Grant, ‘Implications for Complex Cognition from the Hafting of Tools with Compound Adhesives in the Middle Stone Age, South Africa’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 24 (2009): 9590–9594; A. Charrié-­Duhaut, et al., ‘First Molecular Identification of a Hafting Adhesive in the Late Howiesons Poort at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (Western Cape, South Africa)’, Journal of Archaeological Science 40, no. 9 (2013): 3506–3518; P. Villa et al., ‘A Milk and Ochre Paint Mixture Used 49,000 Years Ago at Sibudu, South Africa’, PLoS One 10, no. 6 (2015): e0131273. 19 L. Wadley et al., ‘Middle Stone Age Bedding Construction and Settlement Patterns at Sibudu, South Africa’, Science 334 (2011): 1388–1391. 20 Marean, ‘An Evolutionary Anthropological Perspective’; Lombard and Haidle, ‘Thinking a Bow-­and-­Arrow’; M. Lombard and L. Phillipson, ‘Indications of bow and Stone-­Tipped Arrow Use 64 000 Years Ago in KwaZulu-­Natal, South Africa’, Antiquity 84, no. 325 (2010): 635–648; K.S. Brown et al., ‘An Early and Enduring Advanced Technology Originating 71,000 Years Ago in South Africa’, Nature 431 (2012): 530–533; M. Lombard, ‘Quartz-­ Tipped Arrows Older Than 60 Ka: Further Use-­Trace Evidence from Sibudu, KwaZulu-­Natal, South Africa’, Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2011): 1918–1930, doi:10.1016/j. jas.2011.04.001. 21 Wilkins et al., ‘Evidence for Early Hafted’ Hunting Technology’; J. Wilkins and B.J. Schoville, ‘Edge Damage on 500-­Thousand-­Year-­Old Spear Tips from Kathu Pan 1, South Africa: The Combined Effects of Spear Use and Taphonomic Processess’, in Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry, edited by Radu Iovita and Katsuhiro Sano (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), 101–117. 22 Tennie, Call, and Tomasello, ‘Ratcheting Up the Ratchet’. 23 J. Shea, ‘The Origins of Lithic Projectile Point Technology: Evidence from Africa, the Levant, and Europe’, Journal of Archaeological Science 33, no. 6 (2006): 823–846. 24 Boyd and Richerson, The Origin and Evolution of Cultures; Henrich, ‘Demography and Cultural Evolution’. 25 McBrearty and Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t’, 453–456; J.D. Clark, ‘The Cultures of the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age’, in The Cambridge History of Africa: From the Earliest Times to c. 500 BC, edited by J. Desmond Clark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 248–341. 26 L. Wadley, ‘What Is Cultural Modernity? A General View and a South African Perspective from Rose Cottage Cave’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11, no. 2 (2001): 201–221. 27 McBrearty and Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t’; J.D. Clark, ‘African and Asian Perspectives on the Origins of Modern Humans’, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 337 (1992): 201–215; R.A. Foley and M.M. Lahr, ‘On Stony Ground: Lithic Technology, Human Evolution, and the Emergence of Culture’, Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 12, no. 3 (2003): 109–122; R.A. Foley and M.M. Lahr, ‘Mode 3 Technologies and the Evolution of Modern Humans’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7, no. 1 (1997): 3–36. 28 P. Wiessner, ‘Style and Social Information in Kalahari San Projectile Points’, American Antiquity 48, no. 2 (1983): 253–276. 29 J. Wilkins, ‘Style, Symboling, and Interaction in Middle Stone Age Society’, vis-­ a-­vis: Explorations in Anthropology 10, no. 1 (2010): 102–125. 30 C. Gamble, The Palaeolithic Societies of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Human social learning and sociality 129 31 P. Spikins, How Compassion Made Us Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Tenderness, Trust and Morality (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2015). 32 C. Deane-­Drummond, ‘Searching for the Soul of Homo: The Virtue of Humility in Deep Evolutionary Time’, current volume. 33 P. Spikins, How Compassion Made Us Human; H.J. Deacon, Where Hunters Gathered: A Study of Holocene Stone Age People in the Eastern Cape (Claremont: South African Archaeological Society, 1976). 34 P. Mellars, ‘Why Did Modern Human Populations Disperse from Africa ca. 60,000 Years Ago? A New Model’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103, no. 25 (2006): 9381–9386. 35 P. Karkanas et al., ‘Interpreting Human Behavior from Depositional Rates and Combustion Features through the Study of Sedimentary Microfacies at Site Pinnacle Point 5–6, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 85 (2015): 1–21. 36 Marean, ‘An Evolutionary Anthropological Perspective’; C.W. Marean, ‘The Origins and Significance of Coastal Resource Use in Africa and Western Eurasia’, Journal of Human Evolution 70 (2014): 17–40. 37 S.H. Ambrose and K.G. Lorenz, ‘Social and Ecological Models for the Middle Stone Age in Southern Africa,’ in The Emergence of Modern Humans: An Archaeological Oerspective, edited by P. Mellars (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 3–33; G.S. McCall and J.T. Thomas, ‘Still Bay and Howiesons Poort Foraging Strategies: Recent Research and Models of Culture Change’, African Archaeological Review 29, no. 1 (2012): 7–50. 38 McCall and Thomas, ‘Still Bay and Howiesons Poort’. 39 Ibid.; A. Mackay, B.A. Stewart, and B.M. Chase, ‘Coalescence and Fragmentation in the Late Pleistocene Archaeology of Southernmost Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 72 (2014): 26–51; J.S. Compton, ‘Pleistocene Sea-­Level Fluctuations and Human Evolution on the Southern Coastal Plain of South Africa’, Quaternary Science Reviews 30 (2011): 506–527. 40 McCall and Thomas, ‘Still Bay and Howiesons Poort’; C.S. Henshilwood and C.W. Marean, ‘The Origin of Modern Human Behavior: Critique of the Models and Their Test Implications’, Current Anthropology 44, no. 5 (2003): 627–651; J.L. Clark, ‘The Evolution of Human Culture During the Later Pleistocene: Using Fauna to Test Models on the Emergence and Nature of “Modern” Human Behavior’, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30, no. 3 (2011): 273–291; J.L Clark, ‘Testing Models on the Emergence and Nature of Modern Human Behavior: Middle Stone Age Fauna from Sibudu Cave (South Africa)’, PhD diss. (University of Michigan, 2009); J.L. Clark and A.W. Kandel, ‘The Evolutionary Implications of Variation in Human Hunting Strategies and Diet Breadth During the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa’, Current Anthropology 54, no. S8 (2013): S269–S387. 41 J. Deacon, ‘Changing Patterns in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Prehistory of Southern Africa As Seen from the Nelson Bay Cave Stone Artifact Sequence’, Quaternary Research 10, no. 1 (1978): 84–111; Deacon, Where Hunters Gathered; McCall and Thomas, ‘Still Bay and Howiesons Poort’. 42 S. Wurz, ‘Technological Trends in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa between MIS 7 and MIS 3’, Current Anthropology 54, no. 8 (2013): S305– S319; G. Langejans et al., ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter: Late Pleistocene Environments and Behavioural Adaptations at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, New Studies on Former and Recent Landscape Changes in Africa: Paleoecology of Africa 34 (2013): 19–44; J.L. Clark, ‘Exploring the Relationship Between Climate Change and the Decline of the Howieson’s Poort at Sibudu Cave (South Africa)’, in Zooarchaeology and Modern Human Origins: Human Hunting Behavior during the Later Pleistocene, edited by L. Jamie Clark and D. John

130  Jayne Wilkins Speth (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2013), 9–18; L. Wadley, ‘MIS 4 and MIS 3 Occupations in Sibudu, Kwazulu-­Natal, South Africa’, The South African Archaeological Bulletin 68, no. 197 (2013): 41–51; P. Roberts et al., ‘Climate, Environment and Early Human Innovation: Stable Isotope and Faunal Proxy Evidence from Archaeological Sites (98–59ka) in the Southern Cape, South Africa’, PLoS One 11, no. 7 (2016): e0157408; A.W. Kandel et al., ‘Increasing Behavioral Flexibility? An Integrative Macro-­Scale Approach to Understanding the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa’, J Archaeol Method Theory 23, no. 2 (2016): 623–668. 43 J. Wilkins et al., ‘Lithic Technological Responses to Late Pleistocene Glacial Cycling at Pinnacle Point Site 5–6, South Africa’, PLoS One 12, no. 3 (2017): e0174051. 44 J. Wilkins, ‘The Point is the Point: Emulative Social Learning and Weapon Manufacture in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa’, in Convergent Evolution and Stone Tool Technology, edited by M. O’Brien, B. Buchanan, and M. Eren (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018), 153–174. 45 D. Pleurdeau, ‘Human Technical Behavior in the African Middle Stone Age: The Lithic Assemblage of Porc-­Epic Cave (Dire Dawa, Ethiopia)’, African Archaeological Review 22 (2006): 177–197; J. Wilkins, L. Pollarolo, and K. Kuman, ‘Prepared Core Reduction at the Site of Kudu Koppie in Northern South Africa: Temporal Patterns across the Earlier and Middle Stone Age Boundary’, Journal of Archaeological Science 37, no. 6 (2010): 1279–1292; C.A. Tryon, ‘ “Early” Middle Stone Age Lithic Technology of the Kapthurin Formation (Kenya)’, Current Anthropology 37 (2006): 367–375; C.A. Tryon and S. McBrearty, ‘Tephrostratigraphy of the Bedded Tuff Member (Kapthurin Formation, Kenya) and the Nature of Archaeological Change in the Later Middle Pleistocene’, Quaternary Research 65, no. 3 (2006): 492–492; C.A. Tryon, S. McBrearty, and P.J. Texier, ‘Levallois Lithic Technology from the Kapthurin Formation, Kenya: Acheulian Origin and Middle Stone Age Diversity’, African Archaeological Review 22, no. 4 (2005): 199–229; J. Shea, ‘Homo sapiens Is as Homo sapiens Was: Behavioral Variability Versus “Behavioral Modernity” in Paleolithic Archaeology’, Current Anthropology 52, no. 1 (2011): 1–35. 46 M. Will, G.D. Bader, and N.J. Conard, ‘Characterizing the Late Pleistocene MSA Lithic Technology of Sibudu, KwaZulu-­Natal, South Africa’, PLoS One 9, no. 5 (2014): e98359; M. Will and N.J. Conard, ‘Assemblage Variability and Bifacial Points in the Lowermost Sibudan Layers at Sibudu, South Africa’, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 10, no. 2 (2018): 389–414; N.J. Conard and M. Will, ‘Examining the Causes and Consequences of Short-­Term Behavioral Change during the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu, South Africa’, PLoS One 10, no. 6 (2015): e0130001. 47 Mackay, B.A. Stewart, and B.M. Chase, ‘Coalescence and Fragmentation in the Late Pleistocene Archaeology of Southernmost Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 72 (2014): 26–51. 48 McCall and Thomas, ‘Still Bay and Howiesons Poort’. 49 L. Barham and P. Mitchell, The First Africans: African Archaeology from the Earliest Toolmakers to Most Recent Foragers (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); C.W. Marean et al., ‘A New Research Strategy for Integrating Studies of Paleoclimate, Paleoenvironment, and Paleoanthropology’, Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 24 (2015): 62–77; R. Potts, ‘Variability Selection in Hominid Evolution’, Evolutionary Anthropology 7, no. 3 (1998): 81–96. 50 Agustín Fuentes, ‘Setting the Stage: Developing the Human Niche across the Pleistocene’, current volume.

Human social learning and sociality 131 51 Wiessner, ‘Style and Social Information in Kalahari San Projectile Points’; H.M. Wobst, ‘Stylistic Behavior and Information Exchange’, in For the Director: Research Essays in Honor of James B. Griffen, edited by Charles E. Cleland (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, Anthropological Papers, 1977), 317–342. 52 Boyd and Richerson, The Origin and Evolution of Cultures; P.J. Richerson and R. Boyd, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 53 I. Hodder, Symbols in Action: Ethnoarchaeological Studies of Material Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 54 Wilkins, ‘The Point is the Point’. 55 Shea, ‘Homo sapiens Is’. 56 P. Spikins, ‘The Loss of Innocence in the Deep Past: Wisdom, Humility and Grace within a Developing Understanding of the Emergence of Human Moral Emotions’, current volume. 57 R.R. Ackermann, A. Mackay, and M.L. Arnold, ‘The Hybrid Origin of “Modern” Humans’, Evolutionary Biology 43, no. 1 (2016): 1–11; R.R. Ackermann and L. Schroeder, ‘The Emergence of Complexity and Novelty in the Human Fossil Record’, current volume. 58 Gamble, The Palaeolithic Societies. 59 J. Feblot-­Augustins, ‘Mobility Strategies in the Late Middle Palaeolithic of Central Europe and Western Europe: Elements of Stability and Variability’, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 12 (1993): 211–226. 60 Gamble, The Palaeolithic Societies. 61 H.V. Merrick, F.H. Brown, and W.P. Nash, ‘Use and Movement of Obsidian in the Early and Middle Stone Ages of Kenya and Northern Tanzania’, in Society, Culture, and Technology in Africa, edited by S. Terry Childs (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 29–44; H.V. Merrick and F.H.B. Brown, ‘Obsidian Sources and Patterns of Source Utilization in Kenya and Northern Tanzania: Some Initial Findings’, The African Archaeological Review 2, no. 1 (1984): 129–152; N. Blegen, ‘The Earliest Long-­ Distance Obsidian Transport: Evidence from the ~200 Ka Middle Stone Age Sibilo School Road Site, Baringo, Kenya’, Journal of Human Evolution 103 (2017): 1–19. 62 McCall and Thomas, ‘Still Bay and Howiesons Port’. 63 H.J. Deacon, ‘Late Pleistocene Paleoecology and Archaeology in the Southern Cape, South Africa’, in The Human Revolution: Behavioral and Biological Perspectives on the Origins of Modern Humans, edited by P. Mellars and C. Stringer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 547–564. 64 T. Minichillo, ‘Raw Material Use and Behavioral Modernity: Howiesons Poort Lithic Foraging Strategies’, Journal of Human Evolution 50, no. 3 (2006): 359– 364; K.S. Brown, ‘The Sword in the Stone: Lithic Raw Material Exploitation in the Middle Stone Age at Pinnacle Point Site 5–6, Southern Cape, South Africa’, PhD diss. (University of Cape Town, 2011); L. Wadley and M. Mohapi, ‘A Segment is Not a Monolith: Evidence from the Howiesons Poort of Sibudu, South Africa’, Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (2008): 2594–2605, doi:10.1016/j. jas.2008.04.017. 65 R.L. Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-­Gatherer Lifeways (London and Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995); L.R. Binford, Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Ethnographic and Environmental Data Sets (Oakland: University of California Press, 2001). 66 Minichillo, ‘Raw Material Use’.

132  Jayne Wilkins 67 M. Will and A. Mackay, ‘What Factors Govern the Procurement and Use of Silcrete during the Stone Age of South Africa?’ Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 15 (2017): 630–645. 68 D.J. Nash, et al., ‘Provenancing of Silcrete Raw Materials Indicates Long-­ Distance Transport to Tsodilo Hills, Botswana, During the Middle Stone Age’, Journal of Human Evolution, 64, no. 4 (2013): 280–288. 69 Ibid. 70 G. Porraz et al., ‘Technological Successions in the Middle Stone Age Sequence of Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western Cape, South Africa’, Journal of Archaeological Science 40, no. 9 (2013): 3376–3400. 71 P.B. Beaumont and J. McNabb, ‘Canteen Koppie – The Recent Excavations’, The Digging Stick 37 (2000): 3–7; I. Watts, M. Chazan, and J. Wilkins, ‘Early Evidence for Brilliant Ritualized Display: Specularite Use in the Northern Cape (South Africa) between ~500 and ~300 Ka’, Current Anthropology 57, no. 3 (2016): 287–309. 72 Watts, Chazan, and Wilkins ‘Early Evidence for Brilliant’. 73 J. Wilkins, ‘Middle Pleistocene Lithic Raw Material Foraging Strategies at Kathu Pan 1, Northern Cape, South Africa’, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 11 (2017): 169–188. 74 M. Will, J.E. Parkington, A.W. Kandel, and N.J. Conard, ‘Coastal Adaptations and the Middle Stone Age Lithic Assemblages from Hoedjiespunt 1 in the Western Cape, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 64 (2013): 518–537. 75 A. Robinson, ‘On the Origin of Symbols: Archaeology, Semiotics and Self-­ Transcendence’, current volume. 76 F. d’Errico and L. Backwell, ‘Earliest Evidence of Personal Ornaments Associated with Burial: The Conus Shells from Border Cave’, Journal of Human Evolution 93 (2016): 91–108. 77 P.H. Dirks et al., ‘Geological and Taphonomic Context for the New Hominin Species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa’, eLife 4 (2015): E09561. 78 J. Hawks and L. R. Berger, ‘On Homo naledi and its Significance in Evolutionary Anthropology’, current volume. 79 McBrearty and Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t’; Wilkins, ‘Style, Symboling, and Interaction’; L. Dayet et al., ‘Ochre Provenance and Procurement Strategies During the Middle Stone Age at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa’, Archaeometry 58, no. 5 (2016): 807–829; C.S. Henshilwood, F. d’Errico and I. Watts, ‘Engraved Ochres from the Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 1 (2009): 27–47; A. Mackay and A. Welz, ‘Engraved Ochre from a Middle Stone Age Context at Klein Kliphuis in the Western Cape of South Africa’, Journal of Archaeological Science 35, no. 6 (2008): 1521–1532; M. Lombard, ‘The Gripping Nature of Ochre: The Association of Ochre with Howiesons Poort Adhesives and Later Stone Age Mastics from South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 53, no. 4 (2007): 406–419; I. Watts, ‘Ochre in the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa: Ritualised Display or Hide Preservative?’, South African Archaeological Bulletin 57, no. 175 (2002): 1–14; L. Barham, ‘Systematic Pigment Use in the Middle Pleistocene of South-­ Central Africa’, Current Anthropology 43, no. 1 (2002):181–190; C.W. Marean et al., ‘Early Human Use of Marine Resources and Pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene’, Nature 449 (2007): 905–908. 80 I. Watts, ‘The Pigments from Pinnacle Point Cave 13B, Western Cape, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 59 (2010): 392–411. 81 Watts, Chazan, and Wilkins, ‘Early Evidence for Brilliant’ 82 Ibid.

Human social learning and sociality 133 83 C.S. Henshilwood et al., ‘A 100,000-­Year-­Old Ochre-­Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, Science 334 (2011): 219–222. 84 Villa et al., ‘A Milk and Ochre’. 85 M. Lombard, ‘The Gripping Nature of Ochre’. 86 L. Wadley, ‘Putting Ochre to the Test: Replication Studies of Adhesives that May Have Been Used for Hafting Tools in the Middle Stone Age’, Journal of Human Evolution 49, no. 5 (2005): 587–601. 87 A.M. Zipkin et al., ‘An Experimental Study of Hafting Adhesives and the Implications for Compound Tool Technology’, PLoS One 9 (2014): e112560. 88 McBrearty and Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t’ 89 See Robinson, ‘On the Origin of Symbols’, current volume; C.S. Henshilwood, F. d’Errico, and I. Watts, ‘Engraved Ochres from the Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 57, no. 1 (2009): 27–47. 90 J. Parkington et al., ‘From Tool to Symbol: The Behavioral Context of Intentionally Marked Ostrich Eggshells from Diepkloof, Western Cape’, in From Tools to Symbols: From Early Hominids to Modern Humans, edited by F. d’Errico and L. Backwell (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2005), 475–492; P.J. Texier et al., ‘The Context, Form and Significance of the MSA Engraved Ostrich Eggshell Collection from Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western Cape, South Africa’, Journal of Archaeological Science 40, no. 9 (2013): 3412– 3431; P.J. Texier et al., ‘A Howiesons Poort Tradition of Engraving Ostrich Eggshell Containers Dated to 60,000 Years Ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 14 (2010): 6180–6185. 91 McBrearty and Brooks, ‘The Revolution that Wasn’t’. 92 Texier et al., ‘The Context, Form and Significance’. 93 Ibid. 94 F. d’Errico, M. Vanhaeren, and L. Wadley, ‘Possible Shell Beads from the Middle Stone Age Layers of Sibudu Cave, South Africa’, Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (2008): 2675–2685, doi:10.1016/j.jas.2008.04.023; A. Bouzouggar et al., ‘82,000-­ Year-­ Old Shell Beads from North Africa and Implications for the Origins of Modern Human Behavior’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104 (2007): 9964–9969, doi:10.1073/pnas.0703877104; M. Vanhaeren et al., ‘Middle Paleolithic Shell Beads in Israel and Algeria’, Science 312 (2006): 1785– 1788; F. d’Errico, C. Henshilwood, M. Vanhaeren, and K. van Niekerk, ‘Nassarius Kraussianus Shell Beads from Blombos Cave: Evidence for Symbolic Behaviour in the Middle Stone Age’, Journal of Human Evolution 48 (2005): 3; C.S. Henshilwood, F. d’Errico, M. Vanhaeren, K. van Niekerk, and Z. Jacobs, ‘Middle Stone Age Shell Beads from South Africa’, Science 304 (2004): 404; F. d’Errico et al., ‘Early Evidence of San Material Culture Represented by Organic Artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (2012): 13214–13219, doi:10.1073/ pnas.1204213109. 95 M. Vanhaeren et al., ‘Thinking Strings: Additional Evidence for Personal Ornament Use in the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa’, Journal of Human Evolution 64, no. 6 (2013): 500–517. 96 d’Errico and Backwell, ‘Earliest Evidence of Personal Ornaments’; H. Cooke, B. Malan, and L. Wells, ‘Fossil Man in the Lebombo Mountains, South Africa: The “Border Cave”, Ingwavuma District, Zululand’, Man 45 (1945): 6–13. 97 M. Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise: What Can Anthropologists Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom?’, current volume.

134  Jayne Wilkins

Glossary conformity bias:  the inclination or pressure to adopt the most common practices of those in one’s social group. hafted tool:  a multi-­component tool that involves two or more elements bound together. mobility:  with respect to hunter-­gatherer settlement patterns, the degree of movement across the landscape to acquire resources (i.e. number of residential moves, distances covered, length of occupation at settlement sites). ochre:  natural earth pigment that contains ferric oxide and can impart colour. raw material:  in stone tool studies, the unmodified source of stone that is selected for knapping and tool production. symbol:  a thing (mark, character, object) that stands for something else, the meaning of which must be culturally learned. techno-­complex:  a group of stone tool assemblages that have many properties in common, believed to represent a shared response to the social and physical environment, and/or shared traditions. wisdom, humility, and grace:  virtues that help humans to thrive in social environments.

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7 An animal in need of wisdom Theological anthropology and the origins of humility and wisdom Jan-­Olav Henriksen Grace can be experienced as the power that allows humans to relate to, take into account, and be transformed by a reality they are not capable of constituting through their own agency. In turn, wisdom is the capability to acknowledge this reality outside our control, to recognize the limits of our own agency, and, when necessary, to act so that we know our own capabilities and limitations. While there is no necessary link between grace and wisdom, there can be a link, as we will see. Similarly, there is no direct or necessary relationship between humility (as defined in the next paragraph) and wisdom. Some may be humble without being wise, and some wise (at least to some extent) without being overly humble. However, to be wise often is related to a specific form of humility: the one that comes from knowing one’s own limitations, and from the acquired insight in not always having to put yourself first. This capacity is related to what we know are evolved competencies in humanity, such as social learning, observation, imitation, emulation, and evaluation.1 Humility as a virtue grows out of a combination of two basic features, which I take to be my working definition: first, the acknowledgment of my own limitations and a recognition that I am not the only one who matters in this world; second, an openness for others and for their way and mode of being in the world, shaped by an attitude of curiosity, respect, and attentive interest. We can only develop a self that is positively humble and wise by experiencing our own limitations, and by interacting with others who are, in one way or another, more skilled or better at specific things than we are. Then the direct cause of the humility we develop is not the other(s), but my own insight into what my capacities and abilities are. It is how this type of positive humility is linked to wisdom that I am exploring in the present chapter. Humility emerges out of interaction with others. It is via the detour of the other that humility comes to us, and it is the way in which we are able to handle the interaction with others that determines the shape and form of our humility. Therefore, we need to look more into the conditions for social interaction in order to understand humility. On that basis, we can also say something more substantial about the potential significance the origin of humility has for the understanding of religion.2

An animal in need of wisdom 143 To think about the conditions for grace, humility, and wisdom in deep history presents us with a specific challenge: what we can say about them is what we know from present history and from religious traditions that emerged long after the period of deep history. Our understanding of their place in the human mode of being in the world is furthermore based on some idea of what constitutes human agency, i.e. ways to act that presuppose thinking, planning, reflection, and reasons for acting. However, all evidence we have from deep history cannot give us any direct access to such processes of reasoning. Therefore, we have to infer and speculate on the basis of what is present in the material and archaeological record if we are to say anything at all about matters of agency – matters that are related to mind.3 Given these limitations, I will start by pointing to some possible pre-­ subjective and pre-­agency conditions for wisdom, humility, and grace, as these are identified in contemporary self psychology.4 This approach is, admittedly, speculative, since we cannot know for sure that the conditions for the psychological development of the self in evolutionary history were fully identical with those we have today. Nevertheless, I hope the following will clarify some of the reasons for considering the possibilities of such an approach.

Kohut on narcissism: the threat against a humble attitude towards the self In his theory about the development of the self, psychologist Heinz Kohut outlines how a humble and wise self develops due to interaction with others. Although not directly reliant on an evolutionary approach, Kohut’s theory can easily be connected to theories that are more clearly evolutionary in shape; for instance, contemporary psychological attachment theory.5 In the following, I will show how his approach helps us understand the basic psychological conditions for wisdom and humility. Kohut identifies the self’s basic condition for development as related to two relational poles. Hence, already at the initial stage, he points to the relational constitution of the self. The first pole, which Kohut calls the mirroring pole, finds expression in the infant’s need for emotional affirmation and for becoming encouraged in its authentic being for its own achievements. This need directs the infant towards the caretaker, who then becomes the one upon whom the development of the self is dependent. Kohut calls the process of affirmation ‘mirroring’. Mirroring both affirms and guides the child in discovering what is possible and what is safe. In the course of being seen for what he or she truly is, a child may then be able to realize his or her own potential. This process ‘leads the child to a sense of enjoyment of his or her own capabilities, fuels self-­esteem and a sense of worth, and forms a basis for developing ambition and a sense of self-­pride’.6 Thus, when working well, this process allows the self to learn about its capacities as well as its limitations – a basic condition for humility

144  Jan-­Olav Henriksen and adequate self-­assessment. The lack of appropriate response, however, makes the child constantly dependent on others for the necessary sense of self-­esteem and self-­worth. The child then develops a persistent need for support in order to overcome basic insecurity. Kohut sees the origins of narcissistic disturbances in the formation of the self as rooted in this lack or failure, and the result may be the development of a compensating grandiosity that not only ties the self constantly to others, but also displays a severe lack of sound or positive humility. The second relational pole, which Kohut calls the idealizing pole, emerges in the infant’s need to gain strength from feeling part of, or being identified with, someone or something that is experienced as robust and reliable. Idealization is the process by which the child at first is comforted and reassured by being held in mother’s arms and later finds strength by identifying with an idealized other or with idealized values and aims. It gives the self’s life direction and structure, knowledge of right and wrong, and a sense of self-­ control. Deficits in this relation result in feelings of weakness, of aimlessness, and of not being in charge of one’s life.7 As already noted, the idealized pole is at first constituted by the image of the idealized parent. Later on, other idealized persons or entities, including symbols of the divine, may serve as objects that the self, through a process of identification, can experience as contributing to its own feelings of strength and capability. They may also become depersonalized and transformed into ideals and motivations that guide the self in its various activities and actions when it is presented with specific challenges. The child’s relation to these two poles determines how he or she comes to see his or her own skills and talents, and thereby, his or her self. As a consequence of such learning, the self also grows in confidence. Furthermore, such learning is closely linked to Kohut’s notion of optimal frustration: the means by which one can have non-­traumatic experiences of one’s potential and its limitations. Optimal frustration enables the child to become increasingly more able to differentiate the self from the idealized object, as well as to achieve a more nuanced understanding of the limits of one’s own grandiosity.8 Both of these are psychological conditions for what I earlier labelled a positive humility. The outcome of this process is a mature and integrated self with a solidified psychic structure. How can symbolic representations of the divine or God function in ways that help the self to develop and solidify the integration of the self and a positive humility? The answer thus far is evident: this symbol needs both to affirm the stable elements of the self, and to frustrate the self in a way that helps it to orient itself in a truthful manner in the world. Religious symbols such as ‘God’, manifesting the idealized other, must be able to provide the necessary frustration in self-­experience. Such frustration can only work in a positive way, however, when it also provides the self with the required resources for stable self-­esteem. If this does not happen, the child will be left without the possibility of developing an emotionally stable self-­representation. Thus,

An animal in need of wisdom 145 both relational affirmation and God as a self-­symbol can develop a self that is distinct from and separate from the parents. The lack of adequate affirmation may, in turn, contribute to the continuation of narcissistic traits in the self, where the child is left in an eternal pursuit for confirmation and oscillates between ideas about its own grandiosity and its lack of value. Such a self does not possess good psychological conditions for the development of wisdom and humility. When the child achieves a successful integration of the different poles of the self, however, it leads to initiative and creativity. When the grandiose self matures through a process of optimal frustration, creativity is liberated. I argue that this process can also be mediated by religious symbols.9 I find it worth noting that true creativity is, according to this way of understanding the self, something that requires that the self no longer be inhibited by the demands of the archaic self and its struggle for success and admiration (which is also relevant for the development of a humbler attitude towards self and world). Moreover, a mature self becomes more self-­reliant and less dependent on others (but not unrelated to them!), a second factor that may increase the flow of creativity.10 The result may be an enhanced capacity for imagination and an increased openness for a future not conditioned by the past – both of which are important features for displaying wisdom, grace, and humility.

Evolved preconditions for subjectivity – and thus for a positive humble self-­perception The discovery (and development) of symbols was ‘the crucial step in the emergence of the uniquely human form of cognition’.11 This fact is crucial not only for understanding human agency and cooperation, but for understanding religion. In this section, I will point to how the evolution of the capacity for using different types of signs (icons, symbols, and indexes) may be seen as having an impact on the development of (a humble and wise) subjectivity, as well as on the development of religion. Signs facilitate the ability to learn from others, to draw inferences from experience, and to employ memory when we face new situations, and do so in ways not solely determined by what previously took place. Subjectivity is a theoretical notion, and the meaning of it depends on what kind of theoretical context it is used within. Here, Ingolf Dalferth’s definition is useful: ‘By subjectivity, I understand the structure of an entity that is able to thematize itself in the medium of consciousness (conceptions) or language (communication). When understood thus, subjectivity is a given, actual capacity, that coexists with other competencies’.12 Accordingly, the ability of someone to make himself or herself the theme of reflection conditions subjectivity. That is not possible without having some kind of symbolic representation of the self. Terrence Deacon (see discussion later in this section) has investigated the origins of such representations, and his research

146  Jan-­Olav Henriksen can be related to what has already been said about self-­development in Kohut, since one result of the development of the self is precisely the ability to thematize oneself as a self. Dalferth points to how subjectivity is related to semiotic activity, which is the result of evolved capacities. This approach places the subject within a specific community that makes possible the reflexive use of signs. For the understanding and development of human experience and community, this is crucial: it is by means of different signs, notions, etc. that we become aware of who we are and how we are to understand our existence and our experience. This is probably, in turn, an important condition for the development of specific human intuitions about our being, and for being able to experience our experiences as experiences in a thematic way, and as our own. Furthermore, we can see this condition as crucial for the development of the ability to become humble. Against the backdrop of the analysis in the previous section, it means that a notion of the self as limited and safe is, in turn, a precondition for establishing a self that includes features of positive humility. Among the realms that this development of semiotic capacities has offered us the chance of entering, is that of other minds. Because we assume that other humans act on and interpret the world according to the same conditions as we do, we also live with the assumption that we can understand what others think, do, and feel. The ability to have this theory of mind13 is a specific trait in the evolution of human community, and it is an extrapolation of this capacity that religious symbols can attribute to deities the ability to think and to act in a manner that is human-­like. This theory of mind is a basic condition for human interaction and for relating to others in ways that acknowledge their need for affirmation and recognition – elements that, in turn, are important for developing an adequate and humble relation to both self and world.14 One important inference from our ability to develop a semiotically mediated subjectivity is that we are not fully determined simply by our biological or historical past. Instead, the fact that we may enter different semiotic universes that allow for specific types of experience may be life-­ changing. Signs employed by our capacity for imagination may change lives and open up to a future where we are determined by other elements than those caused by the past. Not only is this a feature that allows for practicing grace and agency guided by elements other than self-­interest, but it is also important for developing a religious mode of being in the world. The ways we use language represent not only objects and immediate situations, but also relationships and events, as well as abstractions. In this way, we can engage other realms not immediately present to us. Deacon points to how our mode of using language ‘offers a means for generating an essentially infinite variety of novel representations, and an unprecedented inferential engine for predicting events, organizing memories, and planning behaviours’.15

An animal in need of wisdom 147 Religions mediate a mode of being in the world oriented by and mediated by different types of semiotic activity. This activity comes to the fore in narratives, practices, concepts, symbols, different ways of organizing social groups, etc. Accordingly, we cannot understand religion without having a grasp of how human beings employ different types of signs. Furthermore, this means we would not have religion without the evolved capacity for semiosis. It also means, following Deacon, that language in the course of evolution has become its own prime mover. The evolution of language, in turn, has triggered further brain evolution in humans, which has led to the evolution of even greater language complexity.16 One might see wisdom, like the ability to consider, judge, assess, imagine different options, perceive otherwise, etc., as closely linked to the content that is transmitted by religious signs, narratives, and reflections. Deacon holds that because we can live in a world that is abstracted from the one present in our immediate experiences, we are able to have experiences that no other species have. We live in more than the physical world and the world of our immediate group (which is what many other species do as well). We live in ‘a world of rules of conduct, beliefs about our stories, and hopes and fear about imagined futures’.17 Furthermore, ‘This world is governed by principles different from any that have selected for neural circuit design in the past eons of evolution’.18 Nowadays, these features help humans to orient themselves in a specific world; namely, that of other minds. In the following, I will elaborate a little on this feature as it is of utmost importance for understanding how religion, human evolution, and the specific human experience of the world belong together. Although humans are often wrong in what we assume about the content of the minds of others (a fact that in itself calls for some humility), what is important here is the basic fact that we assume that they have minds and that these minds work like ours. This capacity ‘gives us the ability to share a virtual common mind’.19 When we have such a theory of mind, it enables cooperation and communication, and we have ‘a mental representation of the subjective experience of others’.20 From the point of view of religious studies and theology, we can see the importance of this for imagining an unseen deity who is all-­powerful, all-­knowing, infinite, and wise. This relates back to what was said earlier about how the notion of the divine may have created safety, trust, and optimal frustration by showing us what we are not. Because we expect to find purpose, due to our theory of mind, we also ascribe purpose to events that seem to have no purpose. In its crude religious mode, this feature leads to seeing all that happens ‘as signs and symbols of an all-­knowing consciousness at work’ – or, as Deacon says: the entire universe has become a symbol.21 To become wise is to be able to interpret the signs that face us in a nuanced and appropriate manner.22 When the entire world becomes a sign or symbol, we are at the roots of what later developed into religious traditions. It makes the world potentially more meaningful to us because the immediate present is supplemented

148  Jan-­Olav Henriksen by deeper and wider spheres of significance and orientation. The symbolic capacity allows us to interpret experience by placing more emphasis on elements emerging out of the social, cultural, spiritual, and inner world, and not only focusing on the mere physical aspects of the world. Having said this, though, two points immediately need to be made: first, this approach anchors religion in all the realms of human life; second, symbolically mediated action involves the physical, the social and cultural, and the inner world of humans. This understanding of symbol and thought can shed light on the relation between religion and theology. Religion contains a wide diversity of symbols, which are reconstructed and analysed theologically. Accordingly, I argue that theology is a meaningful endeavour only because it helps us understand better the ways in which religious symbolism mediates our relation to the different realms of reality. This also means that the meaning of theology is not to articulate a specific type of philosophical reflection, but to analyse human experiences that are mediated by semiosis and thus provide opportunities for new and more transparent experiences in the diverse and interrelated realms of human reality: the physical, social, cultural, psychological, and spiritual. The development of cognitive flexibility in response to ecological and social challenges is an important feature behind the development of Homo sapiens.23 Wisdom is an expression of this flexibility, which I would argue could be considered as a result of the theory of mind and the symbolically mediated capacity for cooperation and the sharing of alternative visions of the future.24 To have common visions not only rooted in the past, but also projecting possible futures may also change our actual experience of the world.

What religions do When symbols become part of religious imaginaries, they contribute important features that are linked to basic traits in human life, and thereby to the conditions for humility. Most obvious is how religions contribute to practices of orientation and transformation.25 One main element in human evolution is how to adapt to and make the most out of the relation to the environment. In order to do so, humans were, and still are, in need of orientation. This was the case in deep history, and continues to be so. Orientation is, and always was, a precondition for agency. Orientation enables us to know ourselves in a given situation and to realize what this situation means and what it requires. Orientation makes people aware of what is important and unimportant, what is most worthy of attention, and so on. As suggested, religions provide important, semiotic resources for this task. By mediating knowledge and values important for such orientation, religions become part of human culture in interaction with the biological elements that shape human life.26 The need for orientation is

An animal in need of wisdom 149 a basic feature of human life because humans must interpret their situation and what happens to them in order to live in the world.27 Only based on such orientation are humans able to act. In order to achieve orientation, humans must order reality and place themselves in it through an interpretation of the situation in which they find themselves. This calls for defining scopes, for imagining possibilities, and for limiting the potentially infinite perspectives on the world.28 Furthermore, orientation always has a personal element, as it is not everyone, but always someone specific, who needs and makes use of orientation. Consequently, orientation is an unending task throughout our lives.29 Our lives require constant orientation and re-­orientation due to changes in circumstances, concerns, interests, and general life-­situation. It is possible to see religious notions of grace as important elements that shape orientation in life, as grace opens up to, motivates, and allows for practices we would not otherwise have. Orientation is about more than registering what is the case. It has to do with what we do, how we relate to that which is, and what use we make of what we know or think we know about the world. This approach has two important consequences. Firstly, it allows us to see religions primarily as specific types of human practices. As clusters of practices, religions are mediated through different types of signs: storytelling, symbols, rituals, reflection, and communicative cooperation. Religion contributes significance that transcends the immediacy given to the everyday, but without leaving the everyday behind. To become religious is to learn how to process and act on the signs that open up the world to more than what is immediately at hand. It is to relate to and interpret the present in light of that which transcends the immediate. To become wise is to engage in such processes of symbol-­use, reflection, and storytelling in ways that enhance the capacity for human flourishing and improve the overall conditions for life within a given ecological and social context. Among those who have suggested that religion can be understood as orientation is the late Harvard systematic theologian Gordon Kaufman. In his magnum opus, In Face of Mystery, he situates humans within a large cultural and evolutionary context. He also takes into account how humans exist in different realms of experience, and how the complexity of human life engenders the need for orientation. Kaufman writes: Human evolution from a largely animal mode of existence to a cultural and historical mode required the development of complex forms of symbolization, differentiated social and institutional arrangements, and patterns of concept, value, and ritual which could provide orientation, guidance, and motivation, as the decisions and actions of women and men became increasingly deliberate and complex.30 There is no reason to disagree with Kaufman about the fact that religions function in this way. However, he indicates that they also do more. What

150  Jan-­Olav Henriksen more they do is linked not only to practices, but also to the basic attitude of faith that religions require of their believers so they can engage with the world. The following quote describes the relationship between orientation and practice on the one hand, and belief and social compliance on the other: Religious rituals and symbol-­systems . . . orient, energize, and furnish guidance for human life by providing men and women with meaningful pictures or conceptions of the world, and of the place of human life within that world; and by offering ways to participate actively in that meaning. . . . They can function effectively in this way, of course, only if they are believed ‘true’, that is, only if they are taken to represent (more or less adequately) – and thus to present – ‘how things really are’ with humanity, the world roundabout and God (or the gods or other resources of life and meaning). It is hardly surprising, then, that most historical communities and societies have taken their religious symbolizations and rituals very seriously, protecting them (as much as possible) from attack from without and from the corrosion of doubt, disinterest, and unbelief within.31 When he interprets faith as a ‘frame of orientation’, Kaufman emphasizes, ‘Such a new frame is never simply spun out of thin air’.32 He also sees such frames as a combination of the given and the new, as a ‘product of rebuilding, transforming, reshaping the old categories’, and the pragmatics that are behind the extent to which humans see the resources in these frames (or traditions) as ‘something that still, to some extent, provide a way of grasping our situation’.33 It is also worth noting what he adds to this reflection: humans use such situations because they are ‘enabling them better to interpret life as we now experience it’.34 If Kaufman is right when he suggests that ‘it is necessary for humans to have some concept of world, in order to attain a degree of orientation in life’, and that, ‘without our pictures or conceptions of the world we would have no way to orient ourselves in the face of this mystery’,35 then a basic precondition for religion is that it must build on the recognition of life as something that is basically a mystery. Religions contribute to the awareness of that mystery and hold forth that we need something in addition to the knowledge we have about the world. It opens up the present to a different future – a very important element for transformative orientation. I would argue that to be open to the mystery is one of the main features in a wise approach to the world. The approach suggested here integrates religion into the wider system of orientation that humans employ in order to change the chaos of the world into order. Religions, as contributors to resources of orientation, make humans feel more at home in the world and contribute to the interpretation of experiences.36 In this way, religions also shape the horizon of significance from where one can engage in the world in ways perceived as meaningful.

An animal in need of wisdom 151 As a point of departure, religions help people experience belonging, and to differentiate between what is familiar and unfamiliar, what is well-­known and what is strange, alien, destructive, and disruptive. Thus, it also shapes and contributes to having a specific focus when engaging the world.37 Thus, religions articulate means for orientation and transformation that we can identify as conditions for wisdom and humility alike. When religions prescribe how to act, they may also offer different resources for ecological, social, and personal transformation. What types of transformation to aim for, and the reasons for doing so, require considerable wisdom. This point about transformation is most obvious in how many religions focus on salvation, which means a transformation from one assumed state to another. The transformative element is a component that enhances religious engagement and contributes an important motivational force.38 Accordingly, there is more implied in religion than simply how one understands the world (or how one believes in some ‘supernatural being’). Because the transformative element has both social and personal relevance, we can find it taking many different forms, both on the personal and the social level. I suggest that we see the different religious affirmations of transcendence as related to this transformative dimension. Religions affirm a dimension of something still to come into being; something that transcends the present in order to provide visions and motivation for transformation. Simply to cling to the past is not wise. To name this feature of religion transformative has to do with the fact that religious practice always has some kind of personal dimension which has to do with enduring changes in attitudes, practices, status, insight, knowledge, order, etc. By being articulated in reflective practices, the orientational frame directs such transformative elements, but these elements cannot simply be reduced to what constitutes the basic orientation. Furthermore, transformation mostly has some kind of material or embodied element, a fact that often makes it necessary for humans to relate transformation closely and internally to specifically embodied modes of being in the world. To conclude so far: religious practices are not only something that humans employ in order to achieve external aims or short-­term goals. The resources of religious traditions may also contribute to shaping the human beings themselves, for better or worse, and therefore, also to developing humility and wisdom. These are internal goals. Thus, the whole issue of understanding religion cannot be solved simply by asking what people do with religious resources for orientation and transformation; we also need to ask what orientation and transformation do with the human mode of being in the world.

Religious symbols for living wisely, humbly, and with grace What, then, have religions to do with the human need for engaging wisely with the world? Against the backdrop of the reflections in the previous

152  Jan-­Olav Henriksen sections of this chapter, this understanding of wisdom developed by Paul Fiddes makes profound sense. He writes: ‘wisdom’ has become an all-­purpose word to denote a way of living in the world which aims to transcend the self as a merely thinking subject. This wisdom must have a place within it for knowledge as collecting information about the world, and especially for reason, as a careful reflection on the world, but it is always exceeding these faculties. The term ‘wisdom’ thus contests the attempt of the subject to use cognition for the sake of controlling other things and people and indicate alternative ways of relating the self to the world.39 Fiddes underscores two important elements in his notion of wisdom: that of relationality and that of embodiment. Both these features imply that we participate in lives beyond our own, as can be experienced in phenomena like sympathy and empathy. This relational character of being in the world implies that wisdom is about living in tune with the world in which we are placed, in all its differences and otherness. From a religious point of view, ‘seeing the world’ (though reason and knowledge) can be a means of knowing others in a truly relational way, and finally knowing God.40 Fiddes thus opposes wisdom to what I would call instrumental ways of relating to the world, i.e. ways of relating to the world that do not acknowledge the otherness and the potential personal dimension of the other, presupposed in the theory of mind. A truly relational way of being requires a vision of the other and of the world as something that has qualities and meaning beyond what it can have for me. Wisdom is thus the opposite of a narcissistic approach to the world. This is why understandings of God may prove so important in the development of wisdom because it is an instantiation of the fact that it is not all about me. God as a self-­symbol can transform my basic orientation in the world from being based on me, to something that is not dependent on me and the results of my agency. Because ‘God’ signifies the infinite over against my finite being, God’s unlimited wisdom may suggest that mine is in need of further development, and God’s exceeding knowledge is telling me there is more to know. It is exactly in this function as a transformative symbol that God can contribute to positive humility and a wise engagement with the world. Fiddes’ understanding of wisdom also points towards a critical attitude against what I would call the absolutizing of human agency. To be wise and humble is to be aware that not everything is under our control, and that we need to be attentive to other conditions for life than those that originate from our own capacities and our own agency. This criticism may, in turn, be seen as a precondition for humility, as a mode of living that is opposed to

An animal in need of wisdom 153 self-­assertion and founded in recognition of limitations and lack of control. Furthermore, the emphasis on relationality may point towards an affirmation of how humans are dependent on others, and thereby open up to a stronger awareness of how we are dependent on the grace and benevolence of others in order to develop a community based on a relational rather than an instrumental approach to the world. Wisdom may also point us towards modes of cooperation that give preference to interaction instead of action, and thereby make interaction a condition for humility. In the context of theological anthropology, two main elements have strong bearing on how one understands the human being, and accordingly, on the conditions for wisdom and humility. One is the notion of the human being as created in the image of God, which relates closely to the affirmative approach to human life that Kohut emphasizes as crucial for developing a mature self. As images of God, humans are called to represent God’s wisdom and love in the world. The other notion is sin. Against what was just pointed out about the critical approach to the absolutizing of human agency, sin identifies an approach to human life that determines all quality and meaning as based on such agency. Thus, sin also becomes an important symbol for orientation that points to limitations and the need for transformation in human life. Sin belongs to a realistic view of the human condition. As opposed to a truly humble and wise approach to life, sin as hybris points towards a type of self-­affirmation that is not truly open to otherness.41 We can deepen this perspective further by pointing to how a Christian understanding of God and the world may shape human orientation and transformation when it relates to love, which is exactly what overcomes sinful self-­centeredness. David Ford writes: ‘The richest wisdom has been found in God’s love for creation for its own sake and a responsive love of God for God’s sake and for other people for their own sake’.42 Love is the most profound example of a relational and interdependent way of living in the world. When we love someone or something for its own sake, as Ford emphasizes, it means that we are opening up to them in a way that allows them to take place in our lives as they are in themselves, and not only as they appear for us on our terms. We can relate to them by what I have elsewhere called open and/or opening desire, a desire that trusts in the fact that the other will let me flourish and love me back in ways that go beyond what I need.43 God’s desire for us and ours for God is thus most profoundly experienced in the way we live in the world in ways that make us flourish in interconnection with others and with the natural world.44 Against this backdrop, it should also make sense to state that wisdom is deeply interconnected with love and humility, understood as being open to the other and to participating in something beyond what I represent by myself. It is at this point that language about grace presents itself. Theologically, grace is about gift and surplus, about that which does not depend on me but on the generosity of God, as this is expressed in the gifts of creation and redemption from sin. Grace is life-­changing, interrupts the

154  Jan-­Olav Henriksen familiar, and points towards the goodness we are given through others and through life without being conditioned by our own agency or subjected to our control. I am given something, over which I have no control and for which I have not presented any merit. In this way, grace also manifests how our need to be liberated from the past or for expanding the conditions for life and agency are sometimes met by events and powers that originate beyond our control. However, where grace appears, it can change the whole notion of agency and thus the agent’s mode of being in the world.

Conclusion: religions and the quest for wisdom From a philosophical perspective, to assess religions regarding their ability to engage in ways that make life worth living is, largely, a question about the discernment of wisdom in religious traditions. Intimately linked to such discernment is the need to ask if religions are capable of helping people live their lives wisely, and if the religious traditions actually help people engage in the pursuit of wisdom or not. The common content of these two approaches can be summarized in the question: Is it wise to engage the world by means of religious resources for orientation and transformation? In the present context, however, the question must be put differently: Can we think of reasons why our ancestors in deep history found it worthwhile to develop a religious attitude towards the world? As I have indicated, among the main reasons was the experience of being exposed to powers and conditions beyond their control, and the need to develop, by symbolic means, ways to acknowledge their own limitations, their dependence on others, and the need to cooperate with and care for others. As I have suggested, it is possible to see religions emerging out of the need to engage in practices for orientation and transformation, for which evolved capacities for symbolic engagement are necessary. It is against this backdrop that we can see how religious attitudes have encouraged humans to develop humility in relation to others. There can be no simple answer to the question asked at the beginning of this section, though, and it is hardly meaningful to do so in a generic way that does not specify the content of these practices and what they may entail under different conditions. In order to answer it in a meaningful way, the specific contents and practices of religions, as well as their predecessors in rituals and symbols, need to be taken into consideration. We have, though, very limited access to elements that can be clearly identified as religion-­ related in deep history, and even less access to the reasons that our ancestors had for engaging in religiously conditioned types of agency. Religious traditions that practice wisely need to take into account relevant knowledge about what the facts are about where we find ourselves in the world. A major problem with approaching religions as primarily doctrine, and not as practices and experience, is the tendency to ignore some realms

An animal in need of wisdom 155 of knowledge and experience. Wesley Wildman points to how humans may be prone to error due to features that have developed in the course of human evolution. However, he also has a moral concern that we should know about these tendencies in order to correct them, whenever possible.45 Against this backdrop, wise practices and religious doctrines should themselves highlight the fact that humans err. This fact is a condition for both wisdom and humility, and for making grace manifest in relation to other beings. To point out this fact is not for the sake of putting humans down and lowering their self-­esteem, but in order to open up new ways of thinking and practice that can change and transform faulty approaches to life, thus offering opportunities for orientation and transformation. The fact that what we do and how we orient ourselves is not only dependent on us, but also on what life presents to us, implies that we can trust what Wildman says about wisdom in the closing words of his article: Wisdom lives on despite the abuse it suffers at the hands of cognitively careless mortals whose particular form of idolatry is to make ultimate reality conform to their undiagnosed tendencies to cognitive self-­delusion. For those who learn to see wisdom there present in the midst of cognitive confusion, however, there is great and simple joy as the world untangles and wisdom shines through clearly. That makes the work of transformation worth the effort.46 Religious traditions cannot do without wisdom, and they represent attempts to transmit and achieve wisdom and a better understanding of the human condition. Such traditions exist in order to help people live better in all their relations to whatever beings and powers they think are in and beyond this world. To interpret this world and what happens in it as more than a matter of inalterable fate requires that we relate to the world by asking what our task is within it. This approach means that we need to make up our mind about how we answer the questions about this task. Then we also need to ask what we need to transform in ourselves and in the world in order to make life better. In this way, religious traditions will always point beyond the present and open up to transcendence. The fundamental task of religious traditions that want to be stewards of wisdom is to mediate practices that can make this happen. This has been their task during history, from the times of deep history where we find our ancestors, and up until the times in which we find ourselves today.

Notes 1 Several of the anthropological contributions in this volume deal with these features. See especially Jayne Wilkins, ‘Archaeological Evidence for Human Social Learning and Sociality in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa’, current volume; and Jon Marks, ‘Continuities and Discontinuities in Human Evolution’, current volume.

156  Jan-­Olav Henriksen 2 On similar points, but from a different perspective, see Celia Deane-­Drummond, ‘Searching for the Soul of Homo: The Virtue of Humility in Deep Evolutionary Time’, current volume. 3 Cf. Oliver Davies, ‘Grace in Evolution’, current volume. 4 The term ‘self psychology’ is coined by Heinz Kohut, among others. 5 Lee A. Kirkpatrick, Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion (New York: Guilford Press, 2005). For more on the possible overlaps, see Jan-­ Olav Henriksen, Relating God and the Self: Dynamic Interplay (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). Some of the following may be developed further in relation to Penny Spikins, ‘The Loss of Innocence in the Deep Past: Wisdom, Humility, and Grace within a Developing Understanding of the Emergence of Human Moral Emotions’, current volume. 6 Kenneth Bragan, Self and Spirit in the Therapeutic Relationship (London: Routledge, 1996), 5. 7 Ibid. 8 What Kohut describes here may be parallel to how C.S. Peirce sees the conditions for the development of the self in the experiences of failure. I owe this point to Andrew Robinson’s comments during the symposium that led to the present volume. It underscores the possible relevance for applying the present considerations to deep history as well. 9 Cf. Sigmund Karterud, Fra Narcissisme til selvpsykologi (Oslo: Gyldendal Ad Notam, 1995), 90. 10 On creativity in early history, see Agustín Fuentes, The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional (New York: Penguin Random, 2017). 11 Cf. Andrew Robinson, ‘On the Origin of Symbols: Archaeology, Semiotics, and Self-­Transcendence’, current volume and Andrew Robinson, God and the World of Signs: Trinity, Evolution, and the Metaphysical Semiotics of C.S. Peirce (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010), 145. Both texts build on both Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-­Evolution of Language and the Brain (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997) and William Noble and Iain Davidson, Human Evolution, Language, and Mind: A Psychological and Archaeological Inquiry (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 12 ‘Unter Subjektivität’ verstehe ich die Struktur einer Instanz, die fähig ist, sich selbst – im Medium des Bewußtseins (Vorstellungen) oder der Sprache (Kommunikation) – zu thematisieren. So verstanden ist die Subjektivität eine Fähigkeit, die es tatsächlich gibt, allerdings nicht isoliert als solche, sondern nur zusammen mit anderen Fähigkeiten’. Ingolf U. Dalferth, ‘Subjektivität und Glaube: Zur Problematik der Theologischen Verwendung einer Philosophischen Kategorie’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 36, no. 1 (1994): 21. For more on how he sees the self as emerging out of communications with others that enables differentiation, see Ingolf U. Dalferth, Becoming Present: An Inquiry into the Christian Sense of the Presence of God (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 66f. 13 Deacon defines this thus: ‘To have a “theory of mind” in this non-­philosophical sense is to have a mental representation of the subjective experience of others’. Deacon, The Symbolic Species, 426. 14 Cf. the elaboration in the previous section of this chapter. 15 Deacon, The Symbolic Species, 22. 16 Ibid., 44. 17 Ibid., 423. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., 426.

An animal in need of wisdom 157 21 Ibid., 435. 22 For more on this idea, see the discussion about the hyperactive agency detection device (HADD), which, in its crude form, suggest that religious beliefs emerge out of this mechanism. A nuanced discussion of HADD is found in Celia Deane-­ Drummond, Christ and Evolution (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 91ff. 23 Cf. Agustín Fuentes, ‘What Evolution, the Human Niche, and Imagination Can Tell us about the Emergence of Religion’, Theology Today 72 (2015): 170–181, esp. 175f; Wilkins, ‘Archaeological Evidence’. 24 For more on this background, see Fuentes, ‘What Evolution’, 176. 25 This section draws on material from Jan-­Olav Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation: A Maximalist Theory (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017). The more extensive argument for this approach to and interpretation of religion can be found there. For a thorough analysis of all the different aspects of orientation, see Werner Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung (Berlin/New York: Walter De Gruyter, 2008). 26 On this interaction from different angles, see for example Markus Mühling, Resonances: Neurobiology, Evolution and Theology: Evolutionary Niche Construction, the Ecological Brain and Relational-­Narrative Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014); David Sloan Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 27 Ulf Zackariasson is among those who underscore that it is a necessary condition for human experience to have orientational structure that is the experience of embodied agents. As embodied, we are in a specific place, a specific time, etc. See Ulf Zackariasson, Forces by Which We Live: Religion and Religious Experience from the Perspective of a Pragmatic Philosophical Anthropology, Studia Philosophiae Religionis (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2002), 51. 28 Cf. Ingolf Dalferth, Die Wirklichkeit des Möglichen: Hermeneutische Religionsphilosophie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 34f. 29 Ibid., 38. 30 Kaufman, In Face of Mystery, 70. 31 Ibid., 432. 32 Ibid., 51f. 33 Ibid., 52. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., 114. 36 This statement should not be taken as a way to overlook the fact that religions may also contribute significantly to human disorientation. Sometimes they do not offer any experienced or adequate interpretation of what takes place, as when they present odd claims about specific situations, or they ignore scientific knowledge on which humans base their lives and recommend that one can do without it. However, religious traditions may also positively disturb established patterns of orientation in order to provide better patterns. In fact, such disruption or de-­orientation contributes to transformative processes that in the long term offer better resources for orientation. 37 Cf. Zackariasson, Forces by Which We Live; and Martin Riesebrodt, The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2010), 124f. 38 For more on the different dimensions of this transformative element, see Riesebrodt, The Promise of Salvation, 127ff. 39 Paul S. Fiddes, Seeing the World and Knowing God: Hebrew Wisdom and Christian Doctrine in a Late-­Modern Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 4.

158  Jan-­Olav Henriksen 40 Ibid. 41 This is not to suggest that sin is identical with hybris, whereas humility is always the recommended attitude. The feminist critique of male understandings of sin as hybris has pointed clearly to the shortcomings of such interpretations. See Judith Plaskow, Sex, Sin, and Grace: Women’s Experience and the Theologies of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich (Washington: University Press of America, 1980). 42 David Ford, Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love, Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 380; Fiddes, Seeing the World, 7. 43 For this idea about desire, see Jan-­Olav Henriksen, ‘Desire: Gift and Giving’, in Saving Desire, edited by LeRon Shults and Jan-­Olav Henriksen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). 44 Cf. Fiddes, Seeing the World, 15. 45 Wesley J. Wildman, ‘Cognitive Error and Contemplative Practices: The Cultivation of Discernment in Mind and Heart’, Buddhist-­Christian Studies 29 (2009): 61–81. 46 Ibid., 78.

Glossary orientation:  a precondition for agency, which enables us to know ourselves in a given situation and to realize what this situation means and what it requires. religion:  clusters of practices that provide individuals and communities with semiotic resources for orientation in the world, for the transformation of self and world, and for reflection about the world and its conditions. subjectivity:  the ability to approach oneself as the origin of one’s actions and as a self that relates to oneself and the world as a unified centre of agency and communication.

Bibliography Bragan, Kenneth. Self and Spirit in the Therapeutic Relationship (London: Routledge, 1996). Dalferth, Ingolf U. Becoming Present: An Inquiry into the Christian Sense of the Presence of God (Leuven: Peeters, 2006). Dalferth, Ingolf U. ‘Subjektivität und Glaube: Zur Problematik der Theologischen Verwendung einer Philosophischen Kategorie’. Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 36, no. 1 (1994): 18–58. Dalferth, Ingolf U. Die Wirklichkeit des Möglichen: Hermeneutische Religionsphilosophie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003). Deacon, Terrence. The Symbolic Species: The Co-­Evolution of Language and the Brain (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997). Deane-­Drummond, Celia. Christ and Evolution (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009). Fiddes, Paul S. Seeing the World and Knowing God: Hebrew Wisdom and Christian Doctrine in a Late-­Modern Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

An animal in need of wisdom 159 Ford, David. Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Fuentes, Agustín. The Creative Spark: How Imagination made Humans Exceptional (New York: Penguin Random, 2017). Fuentes, Agustín. ‘What Evolution, the Human Niche, and Imagination Can Tell us about the Emergence of Religion’. Theology Today 72 (2015): 170–181. Henriksen, Jan-­Olav. ‘Desire: Gift and Giving’. In Saving Desire, edited by LeRon Shults and Jan-­Olav Henriksen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). Henriksen, Jan-­Olav. Relating God and the Self: Dynamic Interplay (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). Henriksen, Jan-­Olav. Religion as Orientation and Transformation: A Maximalist Theory (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017). Karterud, Sigmund. Fra Narcissisme til selvpsykologi (Oslo: Gyldendal Ad Notam, 1995). Kaufman, Gordon. In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). Kirkpatrick, Lee A. Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion (New York: Guilford Press, 2005). Mühling, Markus. Resonances: Neurobiology, Evolution and Theology: Evolutionary Niche Construction, the Ecological Brain and Relational-­Narrative Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014). Noble, William, and Iain Davidson. Human Evolution, Language, and Mind: A Psychological and Archaeological Inquiry (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Plaskow, Judith. Sex, Sin, and Grace: Women’s Experience and the Theologies of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich (Washington: University Press of America, 1980). Riesebrodt, Martin. The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2010). Robinson, Andrew. God and the World of Signs: Trinity, Evolution, and the Metaphysical Semiotics of C.S. Peirce (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010). Stegmaier, Werner. Philosophie der Orientierung (Berlin/New York: Walter De Gruyter, 2008). Wildman, Wesley J. ‘Cognitive Error and Contemplative Practices: The Cultivation of Discernment in Mind and Heart’. Buddhist-­Christian Studies 29 (2009): 61–81. Wilson, David Sloan. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). Zackariasson, Ulf. Forces by Which We Live: Religion and Religious Experience from the Perspective of a Pragmatic Philosophical Anthropology, Studia Philosophiae Religionis (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2002).

8 The loss of innocence in the deep past Wisdom, humility, and grace within a developing understanding of the emergence of human moral emotions Penny Spikins Introduction Often what is found in the archaeological record challenges our assumptions about how ancient humans felt about each other and their understanding of their world.1 One example comes from the site of Sima de los Huesos in northern Spain. Here excavations over many years have revealed the skeletal remains of around 28 early humans, deposited in what has been termed a mortuary pit. The remains date to over 400,000 years ago, and belong to a species ancestral to Neanderthals. Mortuary practices happening this far back into the deep past are already challenging to understand. We cannot help but wonder what such communities understood by some kind of ritual at death. However, amongst those interred there were also several people who must have been cared for by others for some time in order to have survived their illnesses, injuries, or deformities. One elderly man had a deformed hip and would only have been able to walk with a stick and with difficulty, one was deaf, and one individual was a child who suffered from craniosyntosis, a deformation of the crania which, in medieval periods, often lead to abandonment at birth.2 Such discoveries prompt us to wonder about the morality of these distant human ancestors. It is naturally tempting to make the motivations behind how we know people behaved easier by imagining that these people were essentially like ourselves. However, we know that this is not the case; these were peoples with brains and bodies which were notably different from our own. They were something like us, but not entirely, and perhaps even something else besides. Understanding this state of being presents a challenge to theology and philosophy as well as anthropology. How we imagine our distant ancestors not only influences who we feel we are, but also profoundly affects who we feel we can be. Thus, despite the challenges, turning our attention to a better understanding of how complex moral, emotional, and spiritual characteristics developed in the distant past is increasingly important. In this respect, tracing the emergence of

The loss of innocence in the deep past 161 wisdom, humility, and grace takes on particular significance. Each are, of course, distinctive. Wisdom is variously defined in this volume, but shares a common theme of good judgement, sharing of a body of knowledge and experience, and right relationship in respect of others;3 humility involves a recognition of self in modest relation to others;4 grace, perhaps the most challenging of the three to relate to the material record, is typically seen in terms of humble awareness of a spiritual being. However, all of these virtues emerge out of relationships with others,5 and I focus particularly in this chapter on how each is intimately connected to a certain social awareness or ‘loss of innocence’ of how our activities influence those around us. This loss of innocence seems to separate humans from other animals, coming as it does both from our awareness of other people as separate beings with their own thoughts and desires as well as with our emotional drives to put others’ wellbeing above our own (and of a similar awareness in others). We increasingly appreciate this loss of innocence and, along with complex moral capacities, recognize its key role in our evolutionary story, along with its potential role as the starting point for developments such as increases in intelligence and brain size.6 Here I hope to begin to address some of our questions about the moral nature of our distant ancestors and the extent to which they had ‘lost their innocence’ of others’ suffering.

Taking an approach from evolutionary anthropology The traditional approach of evolutionary anthropology to the question of the evolution of any human characteristic is to construct a narrative of how such a capacity may have arisen, seen through a progressive development from the ‘simpler’ abilities of our last common ancestor with other apes. In effect, by considering the cognitive and emotional capacities of other apes, and then our own, and by considering the archaeological evidence for behaviours which we infer were motivated by emotional or moral capacities, we can, as Marks notes, ‘join the dots’ of evidence to build a story.7 Our capacities to feel complex social and moral motivations and emotions are based on what we term our ‘moral emotions’. Moral emotions are those emotions that we feel in response to others, and which motivate prosocial or altruistic behaviour.8 Emotions such as compassion, gratitude, shame, guilt, or moral ‘elevation’, as well as a sense of wisdom or humility, often seem to define us as intrinsically ‘human’. Nonetheless, these emotions are notoriously difficult to relate to the dry, dusty, and ephemeral archaeological evidence left to us from thousands or millions of years ago. Morality itself is a complex combination of cultural aspirations, beliefs, conscious choices, and deep-­seated emotional motivations. ‘Morality’ in its broadest sense is thus far more complex than simply shared capacities, and deeply rooted in individual choice. However, we consider what we term ‘moral’ emotions as possible through fundamental cognitive-­emotional abilities: shared human

162  Penny Spikins capacities, evolved from our earliest ancestors, which may or may not be acted upon by any individual. At least to some extent the archaeological and anthropological record of the deep past can help us understand how our capacities to act in moral ways became possible. Attempting to ‘join the dots’ of material evidence for past behaviours which might indicate ancestral capacities is not without its problems. Cognitive capacities and emotional motivations may have existed without prompting any ‘moral’ behaviours and there may be no surviving evidence. Moreover, there may be little relationship between anything we might find left behind in the material record which relates to human feelings between people. Nonetheless, developing a broad narrative of how behaviours change through time and what we think might underlie them in emotional terms allows us to begin to better understand the significance of particular motivations, and in turn set the emergence of complex moral characteristics such as wisdom, humility, and grace within their wider context of deep time.

A starting point: the potential building blocks of morality Our ‘ancestral ape’ is essentially our first ‘dot’ in a narrative of uniquely human evolution. This ape lived around 7–9 million years ago, and was the animal from which a distinctive human lineage, as well as a lineage leading to chimpanzees, evolved. Understanding the beginning of any ‘moral’ emotional capacities of this first ‘dot’, taken as the very beginning of the story of human evolution, depends on building up an understanding of such capacities in our nearest living relatives. In essence, if humans and their closest relatives share a particular cognitive-­emotional capacity, we infer that our common ancestor is likely to also share the same capacity. As Deane-­Drummond and Fuentes argue, this ‘deeper history of human becoming’ has much to contribute to theological debate.9 Our understanding of the ‘moral’ capacities of this ancestral ape is traditionally taken from behaviours we observe in our nearest living relatives: chimpanzees, other apes, and even lower primates (we will consider arguments against this approach later in this chapter). This ancestral ape appears to have already possessed a certain moral instinct, or at least a capacity to be other-­focused.10

A concern for fairness and a capacity for empathy in non-­human apes Particular attention has been paid to potential capacities this ancestral ape may have had, such as a concern for fairness and an empathy for others’ feelings. Both capacities can be studied in living primates. Moreover, they are perhaps rather more easily traced in past human behaviour in comparison to more complex moral capacities such as wisdom, humility, and grace.

The loss of innocence in the deep past 163 Such capacities are by no means simple. A concern for fairness has been linked to an understanding of right and wrong, perhaps the first step on a path towards wisdom, whilst empathy is the emotional basis of abilities to put others first. Both have been described as the building blocks of morality.11 A concern for fairness appears to be widespread in primates, found not only in our nearest relatives, the apes, but even in some monkeys. Capuchin monkeys, for example, will be outraged by an unfair allocation of food after they have performed a task and refuse to take a lesser reward offered to them. Chimpanzees take this capacity a step further, however, as they can even refuse to take a larger reward than that given to another and which they did not fairly ‘deserve’.12 There are even suggestions that such concerns go beyond peer interactions and that other apes can think about the wellbeing of the whole group, and show a kind of community concern, being prepared to break up conflicts at their own cost that would otherwise disrupt the group.13 Demonstrations of empathy (an understanding of others’ feelings) and even compassion (combining such an understanding with a motivation to help) in chimpanzees have perhaps drawn the most attention. Chimpanzees and other apes certainly seem to display apparent feelings towards others that can be moving to observe. Grief following the loss of an infant seems all too real. Chimpanzee mothers at Boussou in Guinea have been observed carrying around the mummified remains of their infants (clearly aware that they are not alive) for several weeks,14 the implication being that leaving the corpse seems too painful. Apparent grieving among chimpanzees over the death of an adult has also been recorded, as group members stay by the corpse and remain remarkably still. Moreover, compassionate helping has been recorded in the case of suffering. There have been rare records of tending to wounds or otherwise helping chimpanzees who are ill, with one adolescent recorded helping a mother to carry her infant when she dropped behind the group due to illness.15

The emergence of complex moral emotions It does not seem unreasonable to assume that the ancestral ape at the starting point of the human story shared with other apes a concern for fairness and a capacity for empathy. However, tracing the journey of accumulating moral capacities from this ancestral ape to ourselves is both simple and complex. We may be confident that the people at Sima de los Huesos, introduced at the start of this chapter, are likely to have shared a sense of fairness and a capacity for compassion. However, what of the more complex moral emotions which concern us? Grappling with the fundamental differences between ourselves and other apes is one of the concerns which unite anthropology with theology and philosophy.16 Certain human cognitive developments can provide us with some insights into how complex ‘moral’ motivations were able to develop. Progressive

164  Penny Spikins changes in three particular cognitive characteristics implicated in complex social and moral motivations stand out. In contrast to other apes, we have developed a more sophisticated understanding and engagement with other minds (or theory of mind), enhanced abilities at emotional regulation (that is, to be aware of our feelings and integrate them into rational thought), and a more extensive and embracing empathy.17 I argue that these three characteristics form the basis for the emergence of our range of complex emotional and moral capacities, and for our understanding of our effect on others (see Figure 8.1). Our capacity for gratitude, for example, depends not only on an emotional connection to others but also on a complex understanding of others’ genuinely selfless motivations towards us.18 A capacity to express wisdom, humility, and grace – and to identify them in others – is one part of the increasingly complex social and moral capacity of any individual. Wisdom, for example, is commonly perceived as someone’s understanding and motivation in the context of their wider social setting;19 likewise, perceiving someone as humble depends on an understanding of their denial of the social status which they might assert over others. Grace, whilst different, is equally cognitively complex, depending on an understanding of another divine being, which is only possible with a certain level of theory of mind or ability to imagine20 such a being. Only through integrating theory of mind with empathy and emotional regulation can we experience those feelings which mark us out as distinctive, allowing us to agonize over our effects on others, be brought down with shame, or elevated by awe. What of evidence for such capacities? The material record for past behaviours might not provide us with any direct indication of shame or awe, but

Figure 8.1  Key emotional-­ cognitive capacities which influence the emergence of complex moral emotions.

The loss of innocence in the deep past 165 we can at least tentatively document some progressive changes in these key emotional capacities which make such feelings possible. Progressively enhanced abilities at understanding others’ thoughts and motivation – theory of mind – can be broadly traced through progressive changes in the size of the human neocortex. The size of this part of the brain correlates with the size of primate social groups and requirements to better understand complex social dynamics. Improved understanding of what others believe (and what they believe about others) seems to also be reflected in shared concepts of the form of stone tools as well as abilities to teach and learn certain ways of creating them. Improved abilities at emotional regulation are reflected in the creation, from around 2 million years ago, of stone tools requiring increasing levels of patience.21 Being able to overcome frustration and at the same time think ahead in a sequence to create a tool of a defined form is a precursor of a conscious awareness of how we feel and think (see Figure 8.2).22 The emergence of defined tool forms from a little after 2 million years ago are seen as a key stage in cognitive and emotional complexity.

Figure 8.2 Handaxe (biface) from St Acheul, France, dated to between 500,000 and 300,000 years old, showing concern for symmetry. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biface_de_St_Acheul_MHNT.jpg

166  Penny Spikins Capacities to respond to suffering compassionately, as reflected in the extent of care for the vulnerable, also become progressively more extensive from those seen in other apes as we go through time. A Homo ergaster skeleton from Kenya dating to around 1.6 million years ago, for example, must have been looked after for many weeks when suffering from hypervitaminosis. An even earlier hominin from Dmanisi in Georgia, dating to around 1.8 million years ago, had lost almost all his teeth and may have been helped to find food. From this point a capacity for compassion seems to have gradually evolved from a common ape root into something we recognize as human. As previously mentioned, several of the pre-­Neanderthal hominins at Sima de los Huesos in northern Spain appear to have been cared for. In later populations of Neanderthals, care is even more widespread. This care includes, for example, the case of Shanidar 1, an individual found in Shanidar Cave dating to around 35,000 to 65,000 years ago. This individual, who was blind in one eye and suffered from both hearing loss and a withered arm and leg, appears to have been looked after for at least 10 to 15 years following his injury (see Figure 8.3). Trinkaus and Vilotte23 comment that ‘a

Figure 8.3 Crania of Shanidar 1, showing recovery from traumatic injury to the left side. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shanidar_skull.jpg

The loss of innocence in the deep past 167 substantial degree of social support is indicated.’24 Other Neanderthals have also been carefully cared for even where there would have been no hope of recovery, as was the case with a man found at La Chapelle aux Saints, dating to around 60,000 years ago with severe osteoarthritis of the spine, shoulders, and hip and severe systemic infection.25 Early modern humans, such as those from Quafzeh in Israel at around 90,000–100,000 years ago, carefully cared for a young child with brain damage due to a traumatic injury, and this child was even buried with particular care, including adding red deer antler as some kind of offering to the grave pit.26 In each of these cases we can see how developments in emotional capacities contribute to how human culture evolves and, in turn, to the niche which people occupy.27 Healthcare provisioning, for example, affects the human ecological niche through allowing people to thrive despite the higher injury rates imposed by hunting compared to foraging. However, caring for those who are ill or injured also means that the age structure of populations changes, with older individuals being maintained in groups to contribute knowledge and to change how culture is transmitted.28 What we see as moral motivations influence how human ecology and culture evolve in far-­reaching ways. Though we may have little direct archaeological evidence for the complex moral motivations which arise from progressive changes in theory of mind, emotional regulation, and empathy, we make informed suggestions as to their emergence. As more sophisticated theory of mind abilities allow ever more subtle interpretations of others’ motivations, so particular emotional responses not merely to how others behave, but to their intentions towards us, become possible. Whilst compassion demands only an understanding of suffering in others, to feel gratitude demands a more complex understanding of others and of the motivations which might prompt others to be generous towards us. Such complex emotional motivations prompt a greater depth of social relationships and allow feelings towards others and the world around us to develop. Being able to distinguish genuine motivations is key to the emergence of relationships based on trust and long-­term emotional commitments. For this reason, capacities for complex moral emotions have a significant effect on our evolutionary success through new types of collaboration, with trust allowing high levels of give and take to develop between people. Complex moral emotions thus provide the basis for new levels of interdependence29 and it is not too far fetched to assume that even archaic humans such as Neanderthals put much thought into deciding whom to trust and were concerned with being trustworthy themselves. Capacities for complex prosocial emotions also bring a whole new experience to our existence. A capacity to perceive of a divine being has been argued to arise only with the understanding and ability to model others’ intentions, which neocortex size suggests emerged with late archaic humans.30 Such a capacity provides a baseline for capacities to feel grace. Wisdom demands integrating how we feel with what we know, and has been associated with increasingly complex symbolism, in its role in allowing humans to live in

168  Penny Spikins communities and navigate complex social networks.31 Humility depends on a sense of fairness, and an appreciation of one’s relationship to others; egalitarian societies, with their emphasis on humble leadership, can be identified within the material record of hunter-­gatherers of the deep past.32 Alongside pressures to be accepted by others comes an understanding of how we affect others and how we are perceived, a loss of innocence driving much of human insecurities and anxiety.33 As Deane-­Drummond discusses, we can begin to approach an understanding of ‘right relationship’ in the social sphere, and an experience of transcendence and humility in the deep past.34 The evolution of these characteristics is not without debate in interpretation, but we have at least a coherent narrative of a gradual and progressive evolution of complex emotional and moral capacities, rooted in intense pressures to be social and collaborative, to be aware of how to behave ‘rightly’ and to be responsible for one’s effect on others. It is hard to argue that such capacities were not present in archaic humans such as Neanderthals with their widespread mortuary practices, use of symbolism,35 and widespread care for those who were ill or vulnerable; neither is it easy to justify excluding pre-­Neanderthals at Sima de los Huesos from having similar capacities. There are, however, hidden depths to our relatively simple story of progressively more complex moral capacities from which wisdom, humility, and grace arose.

Hidden depths behind a progressive linear narrative? Our first complexity comes from thinking more deeply about the starting point of our evolutionary narrative – our ancestral ape. Our nearest relatives may not in fact be the best analogy for our own ancestors. Other highly social mammals, often sharing similar ecological conditions to early humans, may sometimes provide us with important insights into the foundations of morality, at the same time confusing our picture of the starting point of our evolutionary story.

Altruism in other animals Chimpanzees, as our nearest living relatives, are often too easily cast as equivalent to our ancestors. However, casting our sights beyond the primate order reveals foundations for morality in species which are often only very distantly related to us. There appear, therefore, to have been several different pathways to capacities to put others first. Not only mammals unrelated to humans, but even cetaceans can sometimes display what we feel to be remarkably altruistic behaviour. Rats can show empathy and altruism to non-­kin and will, for example, sacrifice an opportunity to be given chocolate in order to rescue a friend.36 Wolves console others in distress. Dolphins will support an ill individual at the surface to allow it to breath.37 Elephants display behaviours indicative of an empathetic response that goes beyond

The loss of innocence in the deep past 169 the nurturing of young, for example, in physically supporting and protecting injured animals and consoling others in distress.38 Indeed, the difficulties in carrying out research on species such as elephants and dolphins are part of the explanation for why their particular foundations of morality are less well appreciated. Since altruistic motivations are found in unrelated species, we have to conclude from an evolutionary perspective that empathy, sympathetic concern, and altruistic helping have emerged independently in social animals whose existence depends on each other rather than having only evolved in human ancestors. Acting ‘morally’ in its broadest sense of in the interests of others is thus not unique to humans or even our close relatives. Some far less related species provide us with better models of early human morality than do relatively self-­centred chimpanzees. Wolves, for example, hunt collaboratively, share food fairly, parent collaboratively, and, in some contexts, their provision for the ill and injured is driven by emotional motivations probably very similar to those we see in early humans.39 Altruistic tendencies in social animals may emerge for different reasons in different contexts: sometimes they are related to features such as collaborative parenting; at other times they are related to collaborative hunting; and on other occasions, they are related to different pressures altogether. A further challenge arises when we consider the complexity of evolutionary pathways. In other species, and humans besides, there are at any one time usually many different related forms, raising the issue of different but equivalent moralities in the past.

Different, but equivalent, moralities As better evidence emerges for complex, yet distinctive behaviours in cultures in the deep past we have also begun to appreciate that such behaviours may reflect different moral understandings and different but equivalent capacities. Human physical evolution is now known to be far less linear and far more diverse than we imagined.40 We have become aware that evolutionary pathways are not branching but also reticulate, with different branches feeding back into others.41 Whilst a complex suite of perhaps equivalent morphologies may be straightforward to imagine, however, behavioural and emotional-­cognitive evolution must have been equally complex, which present a more difficult conceptual challenge.

Different altruistic motivations in related species Perhaps most interestingly, subtle differences in capacities for altruistic or moral behaviour, which emerge in different contexts in related species, can provide important insights into how apparently different ‘moral’ motivations evolved. Apparently, quite similar species can display important differences in their emotional capacities based on something as simple

170  Penny Spikins as feeding ecology, but which can substantially influence their social relationships. Perhaps the most interesting difference in prosocial capacities is that between bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) and common chimpanzees, the two most closely related species to humans. Although these two species are only separated by around 1–2 million years of evolution, bonobos are in many ways more altruistic and can seem to be more ‘moral’ than chimpanzees. Bonobos respond in prosocial ways to members of others groups and even voluntarily share food with strangers.42 They have greater socio-­emotional competence than common chimpanzees and are better able to overcome their own frustrations in order to help others.43 Chimpanzees, on the other hand, are far more aggressive to other groups. Conflict between groups of common chimpanzees can be ruthless, with violent attacks sometimes lethal, and with such attacks motivated by entirely rational and analytical decisions about when attacking others is likely to result in success. Our common relationship to both chimpanzees and bonobos presents interesting conceptual challenges. It is naturally tempting to imagine (or hope) that we are most closely related to bonobos, though our relative kinship with either species of chimpanzee remains unclear. One significant difference may be that the bonobo social system is oriented around a female dominance hierarchy, which may minimize aggression in contrast to that observed in common chimpanzees where a male dominance hierarchy makes aggressive confrontation a more effective social strategy. It seems to be more beneficial to be socially astute and ‘likeable’ amongst bonobos, setting in place a process of increasing social tolerance. There may even be an element of ‘cultural’ difference which has affected the evolutionary trajectories of bonobos and chimpanzees. A simple conclusion that the social tolerance seen in bonobos places this species in some ‘higher rung’ of morality in comparison to common chimpanzees would be premature. Detailed comparisons can also reveal more complex differences in the nature of prosocial behaviour. Though seen as being more socially tolerant in many ways, dogs do not share food as readily as do wolves, and common chimpanzees also show levels of collaboration not seen in bonobos, such as in complex role-­based hunting. Rather than thinking of rungs of a ladder of morality (in which we all too easily imagine humans at the top) we may have to consider that different types of altruistic social motivations can emerge in different contexts. We may relatively easily imagine a being part way to ourselves; however, understanding how emotional and social motivations might have been familiar or different in past humans without necessarily being ‘simpler’ is a challenge. Nonetheless, both the paths of genetic and anatomical evolution, as well as comparisons with species such as bonobos and chimpanzees, illustrate that the evolution of moral motivations was likely to have a more complex rather than simple progression. Thorny issues arise from such challenges, such as our understanding of genetic admixture between different archaic and

The loss of innocence in the deep past 171 modern populations, and whether such is even appropriately termed ‘interbreeding’. Issues such as these require more of an interdisciplinary perspective, involving theology and philosophy, to even begin to approach. Our best evidence for difference within potential moral-­emotional equivalence comes from Neanderthals. Neanderthals are typically seen as our ‘cousins’, separated from a shared ancestor by around half a million years of evolution, with only minor admixture with modern humans taking place. They are physically distinct, as reflected in a more robust physique, and have a different brain shape and growth pattern. In terms of their moral emotional capacities, motivations to care for and support others in Neanderthal groups are well accepted. Most Neanderthals have gone through a serious traumatic injury by the time they reach adulthood, yet the skeletal record shows such injuries to have been cared for, with no evidence of infections. Caring for the vulnerable was clearly widespread44 and, if anything, seems rather more in evidence than in early modern humans for whom a similar pattern is far from clear. Yet these societies also display notable differences. Most particularly, the existing evidence for symbolism45 in the form of shell ornaments, decorative feathers, or abstract painting or engravings is rare and shows no evidence of being part of common understandings shared between communities. Moreover, group sizes are small, contacts with outsiders beyond local groups are few, and inbreeding of close relatives is the norm.46 There is little escaping that their social world appears strange to our understanding. We can only speculate that a different, internally focused morality and a suite of moral emotions may have been typical for Neanderthals. The social tolerance of strangers which paved the way for modern human social dynamics might have been absent in these communities. At the same time, however, there appear to be certain types of internal collaboration which are more in evidence. It seems likely, given different brain structures, that Neanderthals may have experienced and felt moral emotions which we do not entirely understand, and which kept together small groups of highly cohesive individuals, willing to sacrifice much for each other. Simply by their existence as equals, Neanderthals and even earlier species challenge our understanding of ourselves. It is in these particularly challenging areas where philosophy and theology contribute to the challenge of a ‘thought experiment’ which might help us understanding what such different moral understandings and experiences might comprise. Much as theology cannot afford to be anthropocentric,47 anthropology cannot avoid to restrict its thinking to direct lines drawn between ourselves and a single point in the distant past.

Shared moral motivations Lastly, it may seem obvious, but is nonetheless important, to recognize that our capacities to feel complex moral emotions are fundamentally cultural

172  Penny Spikins and social, rather than individual. Even the most basic of capacities to feel particular emotions and to respond to others are fundamentally influenced, if not even created, by this social and cultural context. Without a secure attachment to caregivers, spontaneous emotionally driven altruism does not ‘come naturally’48 and our cultural context will deeply influence how our altruistic motivations develop.49 Even the most rigidly evolutionary perspective must accept the profound influence of our experience in dictating how we feel towards others. Our cultural niche will have influenced how our emotional capacities developed, and our ‘moral’ emotions more than others. Such emotional motivations are even better understood as part of a complex interweaving of people rather than something ‘individual’. Compassion and cruelty, and the behaviours that they provoke, cascade through networks of people as each is influenced by the other.50 Gratitude inspires ‘down the line’ altruism,51 and we frequently experience a sense of moral elevation in the presence of morally inspiring acts or motivations by others, which motivates us to behave in similar ways.52 Awe can be collective in nature.53 Our ‘moral’ emotions seem to be fundamentally linked to our experience of how others feel and act. Thus, complex moral emotions can, to varying extents, be seen as existing more collectively than as a feature of an individual mind, and unlike other animals humans share a collective morality, as well as an individual one. With this context in mind we can consider different elements of the archaeological record. Considering shared moral feeling, the earliest possible evidence may come from as far back in the deep past as between 4 million and 2.5 million years ago. At Hadar site Al-­333, the skeletal remains of at least 13 individuals dating to 3.2 million years ago are found together without any clear taphonomic explanation, which Pettit argues marks the earliest evidence of a particular accepted location to lay the dead to rest.54 An accepted ritual at death also becomes increasingly evident through time. At Sima de los Huesos, for example, mortuary practice must have been a shared decision, with a possible grave good in the form of a rose quartz handaxe apparently deliberately deposited with the dead.55 Bones of Homo naledi found within the Rising Star cave system and dating to around 235,000–335,000 years ago may represent a similar case of shared moral and even ritual understanding of the appropriate deposition of the dead.56 Agreements about shared care for the vulnerable also become increasingly evident, with the whole group likely to be involved in the care of individuals who could not forage for themselves for any notable length of time. Accepted mortuary practices and extended care for vulnerable individuals argues forcibly for communities who share a sense of moral good, at least in their treatment of death and of care for those in need. In shared decisions about care for the vulnerable, mortuary practice, and inclusion there must have been options, discussions, and agreements. We might even go so far as to imagine a deep past of theological debate.

The loss of innocence in the deep past 173 The apparently simple question at the start of this chapter of what moral motivations might be like ‘on the pathway’ to humanity is far more complex than we might assume.

Conclusions We can construct at least a tentative narrative of how there may have been a gradual emergence through our deep past of capacities to feel complex moral motivations and in turn to experience a level of complex moral understanding which includes wisdom, humility, and grace. We can even begin to imagine how distant early humans who behaved in apparently ‘moral’ ways may have felt about others and the world around them. However, under the surface of an apparently simple traditional anthropological approach to the evolution of complex moral capacities there are ‘hidden depths’ in which lie challenges and complex questions which link evolutionary anthropology, theology, and philosophy. The ‘building blocks’ of morality seen in other animals outside of the primate lineage, alongside perspectives from theology and philosophy, provide a cautionary tale against making the evolution of our own moral emotions too simple a narrative. Our particular version of wisdom, humility, or grace may not have been the pinnacle of a process but rather one of many options, none necessarily better or worse than the other, and each transitory and subject to change and mutual influence. Neanderthals or indeed other non-­modern species, such as Homo naledi, may have shared moral emotional understanding which lies beyond our capacities, much as some of our understandings must lie beyond theirs. Here theology and philosophy, in particular, can play a crucial role in opening out our interpretative possibilities and helping us appreciate the potential complexity of moral emotional capacities in the deep past.

Notes 1 I would like to thank the John Templeton Foundation, grant 59475 (Hidden Depths: The Ancestry of our Most Human Emotions), for research time, which contributed to this chapter. I would also like to thank the organizers for an exciting and stimulating symposium that preceded this publication. 2 These injuries and illnesses are described in several publications: for the elderly man with a deformed hip, see Alejandro Bonmatí et al., ‘Middle Pleistocene Lower Back and Pelvis from an Aged Human Individual from the Sima de los Huesos site, Spain’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 43 (2010): 18386–18391; for the individual with deafness, see Erik Trinkaus and Sébastien Villotte, ‘External Auditory Exostoses and Hearing Loss in the Shanidar 1 Neandertal’, PLoS One 12, no. 10 (2017): e0186684; for details of the child with craniosyntosis, see Ana Gracia et al., ‘Craniosynostosis in the Middle Pleistocene Human Cranium 14 from the Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, Spain’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, no. 16 (2009): 6573–6578.

174  Penny Spikins 3 Agustín Fuentes, ‘Setting the Stage: Developing the Human Niche across the Pleistocene’, current volume; Celia Deanne-­Drummond, ‘Searching for the Soul of Homo: The Virtue of Humility in Deep Evolutionary Time’, current volume. 4 Henriksen, ‘An Animal in Need of Wisdom: Theological Anthropology and the Origins of Humility and Wisdom’, current volume. 5 Ibid. 6 Much of human cooperation depends heavily on trust, as explored by David Rand and Martin Nowak, ‘Human Cooperation’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17, no. 8 (2013): 413–425. See also, Penny Spikins, How Compassion Made Us Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Tenderness, Trust and Morality (Barnsley: Pen and Swordbooks, 2015). I argue that as a result of the importance of trust for collaboration in the distant past, deciding whom to trust created pressures on intelligence and brain size. 7 Jonathan Marks, ‘Continuities and Discontinuities in Human Evolution’, current volume; Fuentes, ‘Setting the Stage’; Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise: What Can Anthropologists Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom’, current volume; Hawks and Berger, ‘On Homo naledi and its Significance in Evolutionary Anthropology’, current volume. 8 Moral emotion is explored in detail by Johnathan Haidt, ‘Moral Emotions’, in Handbook of Affective Sciences, edited by Richard J. Davidson, Klaus R. Sherer, and H. Hill Goldsmith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 852–870. 9 See Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustin Fuentes, ‘Human Being and Becoming: Situating Theological Anthropology in Interspecies Relationships in an Evolutionary Context’, Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 1, no. 2 (2014): 251. 10 For a counter-­argument, see Celia Deane-­Drummond, Neil Arner, and Agustín Fuentes, ‘The Evolution of Morality: A Three-­Dimensional Map’, Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3 (2016): 115–151. 11 For a discussion of these ‘building blocks’ in relation to primates, see Jessica C. Flack and Franz de Waal, ‘ “Any Animal Whatever”: Darwinian Building Blocks of Morality in Monkeys and Apes’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 7, no. 1–2 (2000): 1–29. 12 See Sarah F. Brosnan and Franz de Waal, ‘Evolution of Responses to (Un)fairness’, Science 346, no. 6207 (2014): 1251776. 13 Claudia Rudolf von Rohr discusses community concern in Claudia Rudolf von Rohr, Judith M. Burkart, and Carol P. van Schaik, ‘Evolutionary Precursors of Social Norms in Chimpanzees: A New Approach’, Biology & philosophy 26, no. 1 (2011): 1–30 and Claudia Rudolf von Rohr, Sonja E. Koski, Judith M. Burkart et al., ‘Impartial Third-­Party Interventions in Captive Chimpanzees: A Reflection of Community Concern’, PLoS One 7, no. 3 (2012), doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0032494. 14 For further details, see Dora Biro, Tatyana Humle, Kathelijne Koops et al., ‘Chimpanzee Mothers at Bossou, Guinea Carry the Mummified Remains of Their Dead Infants’, Current Biology 20, no. 8 (2010): R351–R352. See also Barbara King, How Animals Grieve (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). 15 Described by Jill D. Pruetz,‘Targeted Helping by a Wild Adolescent Male Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus): Evidence for Empathy?’ Journal of Ethology 29, no. 2 (2011): 365–368. 16 Agustín Fuentes discusses differences in approach and puts forward suggestions for common areas of debate in Agustín Fuentes, ‘The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology’, Current Anthropology 57, no. S13 (2016): S13–S26.

The loss of innocence in the deep past 175 17 For more details on the evolution of theory of mind, see Robin Dunbar, ‘The Social Brain Hypothesis’, Foundations in Social Neuroscience 5, no. 71 (2002): 69. For more details of emotional regulation, see Horst Dieter Steklis and Richard D. Lane, ‘The Unique Human Capacity for Emotional Awareness: Psychological, Neuroanatomical, Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives’, in Emotions of Animals and Humans: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Shigeru Watanabe and Stan Kuczaj (Tokyo: Springer, 2012), 165–205; for more details on empathy, see Jean Decety, Greg J. Norman, Gary G. Berntson, and John T. Cacioppo, ‘A Neurobehavioral Evolutionary Perspective on the Mechanisms Underlying Empathy’, Progress in Neurobiology 98, no. 1 (2012): 38–48. 18 See Michael McCullough, Shelley D. Kilpatrick, Robert A. Emmons, and David B. Larson, ‘Is Gratitude a Moral Affect?’ Psychological Bulletin 127, no. 2, (2001): 249–266. 19 See Marc Kissel and Agustín Fuentes, ‘From Hominid to Human: The Role of Human Wisdom and Distinctiveness in the Evolution of Modern Humans’, Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3, no. 2 (2016): 217–244. 20 See Julia Feder, ‘The Impossible is Made Possible: Edward Schillebeeckx, Symbolic Imagination, and Eschatological Faith’, Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3, no. 2 (2016): 188–216. 21 See my own paper, Penny Spikins, ‘Goodwill Hunting? Debates over the “Meaning” of Lower Palaeolithic Handaxe Form Revisited’, World Archaeology 44, no. 3 (2012): 378–392. 22 See Dietrich Stout, ‘Stone Toolmaking and the Evolution of Human Culture and Cognition’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 366, no. 1567 (2011): 1050–1059. 23 Trinkaus and Villotte, ‘External Auditory Exostoses’, 6. 24 Ibid. 25 See Lorna Tilley, ‘Care among the Neandertals: La Chapelle-­aux-­Saints 1 and La Ferrassie 1 (Case Study 2)’, in Theory and Practice in the Bioarchaeology, edited by Lorna Tilley (Cham and New York: Springer International Publishing, 2015), 219–257. 26 For reviews of this evidence and reference to the source material, see Spikins, How Compassion Made Us Human; Penny Spikins, ‘Prehistoric Origins: The Compassion of Far Distant Strangers’, in Compassion: Concepts, Research and Applications, edited by Paul Gilbert (London: Taylor & Francis, 2017), 16–30. 27 For further discussion, see Agustín Fuentes, ‘Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution’, American Anthropologist 117, no. 2 (2015): 302–315; Agustín Fuentes, Matthew A. Wyczalkowski, and Katherine C. MacKinnon, ‘Niche Construction through Cooperation: A Nonlinear Dynamics Contribution to Modeling Facets of the Evolutionary History in the Genus Homo’, Current Anthropology 51, no. 3 (2010): 435–444. 28 For further discussion, see Penny Spikins, Andy Needham, Barry Wright, Calvin Dytham, Maurizio Gatta, and Gail Hitchens, ‘Living to Fight Another Day: The Ecological and Evolutionary Significance of Neanderthal Healthcare’, Quaternary Science Reviews 217, (2019): 98–118, doi:10.1016/j.quas cirev.2018.08.011. See also Fuentes, ‘Integrative Anthropology’; Fuentes et al., ‘Niche Construction through Cooperation’. 29 Explored in more depth in Penny Spikins, ‘Sharing and Inclusion: A Socio-­ Emotional Model of Generosity, Trust and Response to Vulnerability in the Distant Past’, in Sharing: The Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-­Gatherers, edited by Noa Levi and David Friesem (Cambridge: MacDonald Institute Monographs, in press).

176  Penny Spikins 30 See Robin Dunbar, ‘The Social Brain and the Cultural Explosion of the Human Revolution’, in Rethinking the Human Revolution: New Behavioural and Biological Perspectives on the Origins and Dispersal of Modern Humans, edited by Paul Mellars, Katie Boyle, Ofer Bar-­Yosef, and Chris Stringer (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2007), 91–98. 31 Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise’; Kissel and Fuentes, ‘From Hominid to Human’; Marc Kissel and Agustín Fuentes, ‘Behavioral Modernity’ as a Process, Not an Event, in the Human Niche’, Time and Mind 11, no. 2 (2018): 163–183, doi:10.1080/ 1751696X.2018.1469230. 32 For details of modern ethnographic dynamics and evidence from primates, see Christopher Boehm, Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame (New York: Basic Books, 2012); for archaeological evidence see Penny Spikins, ‘The Bashful and the Boastful’, Journal of World Prehistory 21, no. 3–4 (2008): 173–193 and Spikins, ‘Sharing and Inclusion’. 33 Our evolved minds and the effects of our understanding of how others perceive and are influenced by us are discussed in Christopher Irons and Paul Gilbert, ‘Evolved Mechanisms in Adolescent Anxiety and Depression Symptoms: The Role of the Attachment and Social Rank Systems’, Journal of Adolescence 28, no. 3 (2005): 325–341. See also Paul Gilbert, ‘The Evolution and Social Dynamics of Compassion’, Social and Personality Psychology Compass 9, no. 6 (2015): 239–254. 34 Deane-­Drummond, ‘Searching for the Soul of Homo’. 35 Fuentes, ‘Setting the Stage’. 36 For details, see Inbal Ben-­Ami Bartal, Jean Decety, and Peggy Mason, ‘Empathy and Pro-­Social Behavior in Rats’, Science 334, no. 6061 (2011): 1427–1430. 37 See Ana Pérez-­Manrique and Antoni Gomila, ‘The Comparative Study of Empathy: Sympathetic Concern and Empathic Perspective-­ Taking in Non-­ Human Animals’, Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 93, no. 1 (2018): 246–269, doi:10.1111/brv.12342. 38 See research by Joshua M. Plotnik and Frans de Waal, ‘Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) Reassure Others in Distress’, PeerJ 2 (2014), doi:10.7717/peerj.278. 39 Discussed in Penny Spikins, Hidden Depths: The Palaeolithic Archaeology of our Most Human Emotions (York: White Rose University Press, in press). 40 See, for example, Lauren Schroeder, Jill E. Scott, Heather M. Garvin et al., ‘Skull Diversity in the Homo Lineage and the Relative Position of Homo naledi’, Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 124–135; and Marta Mirazón Lahr, ‘The Shaping of Human Diversity: Filters, Boundaries and Transitions’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 371, no. 1698 (2016), doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0241. 41 Rebecca Rogers Ackermann and Lauren Schroeder, ‘The Emergence of Complexity and Novelty in the Human Fossil Record’, current volume. 42 See research by Jingzhi Tan and colleagues in Jingzhi Tan, Dan Ariely, and Brian Hare, ‘Bonobos Respond Prosocially toward Members of Other Groups’, Scientific Reports 7, no. 1 (2017): 14733; and Jingzhi Tan and Brian Hare, ‘Bonobos Share with Strangers’, PLoS One 8, no. 1 (2013): e51922. 43 See Zanna Clay and Frans de Waal, ‘Development of Socio-­Emotional Competence in Bonobos’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110, no. 45 (2013): 18121–18126. 44 See Spikins, How Compassion Made us Human; Spikins, ‘Prehistoric Origins’; Jean-­Jaques Hublin, ‘The Prehistory of Compassion’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, no. 16 (2009): 6429– 6430; David Doat, ‘Handicap, Compassion et soin: les sources préhistoriques et polémiques d’une question toujours actuelle’, ALTER – European Journal of Disability Research/Revue Européenne de Recherche sur le Handicap 10, no. 1

The loss of innocence in the deep past 177 (2016): 10–23; Nick Thorpe, ‘The Palaeolithic Compassion Debate – Alternative Projections of Modern-­Day Disability into the Distant Past’, in Care in the Past: Archaeological and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Lindsay Powell and William Southwell-­Wright (Oxford: Oxbow, 2016), 93. 45 Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise’. 46 See Penny Spikins, Gail Hitchens, and Andrew Needham, ‘Strangers in a Strange Land? Intimate Sociality and Emergent Creativity in Middle Palaeolithic Europe’, in The Diversity of Hunter-­Gatherer Pasts, edited by Graeme Warren and Bill Finlayson (Oxford: Oxbow, 2017), chapter 9. 47 Deane-­Drummond, Arner, and Fuentes, ‘The Evolution of Morality’. 48 See, for example, Mario Mikulincer, Phillip R. Shaver, Omri Gillath, and Rachel A. Nitzberg, ‘Attachment, Caregiving, and Altruism: Boosting Attachment Security Increases Compassion and Helping’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89, no. 5 (2005): 817–839. 49 See, for example, Jason M. Cowell, Kang Lee, Susan Malcolm-­Smith, Bilge Selcuk, Xinyue Zhou, and Jean Decety, ‘The Development of Generosity and Moral Cognition across Five Cultures’, Developmental Science 20, no. 4 (2017), doi:10.1111/desc.12403. 50 See James H. Fowler and Nicolas A. Christakis, ‘Cooperative Behavior Cascades in Human Social Networks’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, no. 12 (2010): 5334–5338. 51 Adam M. Grant and Francesca Gino, ‘A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98, no. 6 (2010): 946–955. 52 Walter T. Piper, Laura R. Saslow, and Sarina R. Saturn, ‘Autonomic and Prefrontal Events during Moral Elevation’, Biological Psychology 108 (2015): 51–55. 53 Paul K. Piff, Pia Dietze, Matthew Feinberg, Daniel M. Stancato, and Dacher Keltner, ‘Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108, no. 6 (2015): 883–899. 54 Paul Pettitt, The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial (New York: Routledge, 2013), 42. 55 Eudald Carbonell, Marina Mosquera, Andreu Olle et al., ‘Did the Earli est Mortuary Practices Take Place over 350,000 Years Ago at Atapuerca?’ L'Anthropologie 101, no. 1 (2003):1–14. 56 Hawks and Berger, ‘On Homo naledi’.

Glossary altruism:  behaviour which benefits others at one’s own expense. cognitive capacity:  potential ability in terms of mental activity, such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering. compassion:  a feeling of empathy for others combined with a motivation to help them. emotional capacity:  potential intuitive feelings which are the driving force behind motivations. empathy:  the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. morality:  standards or principles defining good or bad behaviour. non-­human ape:  the term ape usually excludes humans in non-­scientific terms; however, scientifically we are within the superfamily of apes, or Hominoidea, and the term ‘non-­human ape’ refers to the other members of this family – chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons.

178  Penny Spikins prosociality:  tendency towards behaviour which benefits society as a whole (such as collaborating, helping, or sharing). trust:  the belief that someone else is good and honest.

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The loss of innocence in the deep past 179 Feder, Julia. ‘The Impossible is Made Possible: Edward Schillebeeckx, Symbolic Imagination, and Eschatological Faith’. Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3, no. 2 (2016): 188–216. Flack, Jessica C., and Franz de Waal. ‘ “Any Animal Whatever”: Darwinian Building Blocks of Morality in Monkeys and Apes’. Journal of Consciousness Studies 7, no. 1–2 (2000): 1–29. Fowler, James H., and Nicolas A Christakis. ‘Cooperative Behavior Cascades in Human Social Networks’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, no. 12 (2010): 5334–5338. Fuentes, Agustín. ‘The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology’. Current Anthropology 57, no. S13 (2016): S13–S26. Fuentes, Agustín. ‘Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution’. American Anthropologist 117, no. 2 (2015): 302–315. Fuentes, Agustín, Matthew A. Wyczalkowski, and Katherine C. MacKinnon. ‘Niche Construction through Cooperation: A Nonlinear Dynamics Contribution to Modeling Facets of the Evolutionary History in the Genus Homo’. Current Anthropology 51, no. 3 (2010): 435–444. Gilbert, Paul. ‘The Evolution and Social Dynamics of Compassion’. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 9, no. 6 (2015): 239–254. Gracia, Ana et al. ‘Craniosynostosis in the Middle Pleistocene Human Cranium 14 from the Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, Spain’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, no. 16 (2009): 6573–6578. Grant, Adam M., and Francesca Gino. ‘A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98, no. 6 (2010): 946–955. Haidt, Johnathan. ‘Moral Emotions’. In Handbook of Affective Sciences, edited by Richard J. Davidson, Klaus R. Sherer, and H. Hill Goldsmith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 852–870. Hublin, Jean-­Jaques. ‘The Prehistory of Compassion’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, no. 16 (2009): 6429–6430. Irons, Christopher, and Paul Gilbert. ‘Evolved Mechanisms in Adolescent Anxiety and Depression Symptoms: The Role of the Attachment and Social Rank Systems’. Journal of Adolescence 28, no. 3 (2005): 325–341. King, Barbara. How Animals Grieve (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). Kissel, Marc, and Agustín Fuentes. ‘ “Behavioral Modernity” as a Process, Not an Event, in the Human Niche’. Time and Mind 11, no. 2 (2018): 163–183, doi:10.1 080/1751696X.2018.1469230. Kissel, Marc, and Agustín Fuentes. ‘From Hominid to Human the Role of Human Wisdom and Distinctiveness in the Evolution of Modern Humans’. Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3, no. 2 (2016): 217–244. Lahr, Marta Mirazón. ‘The Shaping of Human Diversity: Filters, Boundaries and Transitions’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 371, no. 1698 (2016), doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0241. McCullough, Michael, Shelley D. Kilpatrick, Robert A. Emmons, and David B. Larson. ‘Is Gratitude a Moral Affect?’ Psychological Bulletin 127, no. 2 (2001): 249–266.

180  Penny Spikins Mikulincer, Mario, Phillip R. Shaver, Omri Gillath, and Rachel A. Nitzberg. ‘Attachment, Caregiving, and Altruism: Boosting Attachment Security Increases Compassion and Helping’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89, no. 5 (2005): 817–839. Pérez-­Manrique, Ana, and Antoni Gomila. ‘The Comparative Study of Empathy: Sympathetic Concern and Empathic Perspective-­Taking in Non-­Human Animals’. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 93, no. 1 (2018): 246– 269, doi:10.1111/brv.12342. Pettitt, Paul. The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial (New York: Routledge, 2013). Piff, Paul K., Pia Dietze, Matthew Feinberg, Daniel M. Stancato, and Dacher Keltner. ‘Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108, no. 6 (2015): 883–899. Piper, Walter T., Laura R. Saslow, and Sarina R. Saturn. ‘Autonomic and Prefrontal Events during Moral Elevation’. Biological Psychology 108 (2015): 51–55. Plotnik, Joshua M., and Frans de Waal. ‘Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) Reassure Others in Distress’. PeerJ 2 (2014), doi:10.7717/peerj.278. Pruetz, Jill D. ‘Targeted Helping by a Wild Adolescent Male Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus): Evidence for Empathy?’ Journal of Ethology 29, no. 2 (2011): 365–368. Rand, David, and Martin Nowak. ‘Human Cooperation’. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17, no. 8 (2013): 413–425. Schroeder, Lauren, Jill E. Scott, Heather M. Garvin et al. ‘Skull Diversity in the Homo Lineage and the Relative Position of Homo naledi’. Journal of Human Evolution 104 (2017): 124–135. Spikins, Penny. ‘The Bashful and the Boastful’. Journal of World Prehistory 21, no. 3–4 (2008): 173–193. Spikins, Penny. ‘Goodwill Hunting? Debates over the “Meaning” of Lower Palaeolithic Handaxe Form Revisited’. World Archaeology 44, no. 3 (2012): 378–392. Spikins, Penny. Hidden Depths: The Palaeolithic Archaeology of Our Most Human Emotions (York: White Rose University Press, in press). Spikins, Penny. How Compassion Made Us Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Tenderness, Trust and Morality (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 2015). Spikins, Penny. ‘Prehistoric Origins: The Compassion of Far Distant Strangers’. In Compassion: Concepts, Research and Applications, edited by Paul Gilbert (London: Taylor & Francis, 2017), 16–30. Spikins, Penny. ‘Sharing and Inclusion: A Socio-­Emotional Model of Generosity, Trust and Response to Vulnerability in the Distant Past’. In Sharing: The Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-­Gatherers, edited by Noa Levi and David Friesem (Cambridge: MacDonald Institute Monographs, in press). Spikins, Penny, Gail Hitchens, and Andrew Needham. ‘Strangers in a Strange Land? Intimate Sociality and Emergent Creativity in Middle Palaeolithic Europe’. In The Diversity of Hunter-­Gatherer Pasts, edited by Graeme Warren and Bill Finlayson (Oxford: Oxbow, 2017), chapter 9. Spikins, Penny, Andy Needham, Barry Wright, Calvin Dytham, Maurizio Gatta, and Gail Hitchens. ‘Living to Fight Another Day: The Ecological and Evolutionary Significance of Neanderthal Healthcare’. Quaternary Science Reviews 217, (2019): 98–118, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.08.011. Steklis, Horst Dieter, and Richard D. Lane. ‘The Unique Human Capacity for Emotional Awareness: Psychological, Neuroanatomical, Comparative and Evolutionary

The loss of innocence in the deep past 181 perspectives’. In Emotions of Animals and Humans: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Shigeru Watanabe and Stan Kuczaj (Tokyo: Springer, 2012), 165–205. Stout, Dietrich. ‘Stone Toolmaking and the Evolution of Human Culture and Cognition’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 366, no. 1567 (2011): 1050–1059. Tan, Jingzhi, Dan Ariely, and Brian Hare. ‘Bonobos Respond Prosocially toward Members of Other Groups’. Scientific Reports 7, no. 1 (2017): 14733. Tan, Jingzhi, and Brian Hare. ‘Bonobos Share with Strangers’. PLoS One 8, no. 1 (2013): e51922. Thorpe, Nick. ‘The Palaeolithic Compassion Debate – Alternative Projections of Modern-­Day Disability into the Distant Past’. In Care in the Past: Archaeological and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Lindsay Powell and William Southwell-­Wright (Oxford: Oxbow, 2016), 93–110. Tilley, Lorna. ‘Care among the Neandertals: La Chapelle-­aux-­Saints 1 and La Ferrassie 1 (Case Study 2). In Theory and Practice in the Bioarchaeology of Care, edited by Lorna Tilley (Cham and New York: Springer International Publishing, 2015), 219–257. Trinkaus, Erik, and Sébastien Villotte. ‘External Auditory Exostoses and Hearing Loss in the Shanidar 1 Neandertal’. PLoS One 12, no. 10 (2017): e0186684. Von Rohr, Claudia Rudolf, Judith M. Burkart, and Carol P. van Schaik. ‘Evolutionary Precursors of Social Norms in Chimpanzees: A New Approach’. Biology & Philosophy 26, no. 1 (2011): 1–30. Von Rohr, Claudia Rudolf, Sonja E. Koski, Judith M. Burkart et al. ‘Impartial Third-­ Party Interventions in Captive Chimpanzees: A Reflection of Community Concern’. PLoS One 7, no. 3 (2012), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032494.

9 Searching for the soul of Homo The virtue of humility in deep evolutionary time Celia Deane-­Drummond Trying to understand the very earliest humans not just through their bones, but also by imagining what it was like to live in their inner worlds, is fascinating for theologians as well as evolutionary anthropologists, as it helps probe the deeper and perennial questions about what made us human. There is gradually accumulating evidence of long-­term and faithful compassion and, to some extent, what could be termed wisdom left behind in the hominin archaeological record. I will argue in this chapter that considering the question of humility is also fruitful in trying to reconstruct the social world of early humans. While it is more challenging to find indirect manifestations of humility or experiences of the transcendent, I believe that such characteristics can be reasonably inferred through an imaginative recollection of specific practices.1 I will deliberately engage with specific theological concepts of humility as a way of entering into the perception of human beings through a theological lens. I will explore the virtue of humility in the work of Thomas Aquinas as a heuristic tool in probing the dawn of consciousness of self in relation to others and as a necessary step towards effective second-­person personal and collective social relationships. I am defining humility in summary form as an accurate perception of self in relation to others, a preference for a valuation of the talents of others, and a willingness to restrain desires for self-­ aggrandizement in the interests of cooperative action. I suggest that humility helps to get closer to what could be termed a thick description of the inner world of human agents that is lost through more general evolutionary psychological discussions of moral evolution. I am linking humility with a traditional understanding of who we are as persons (namely, the soul) not in any exclusive sense, but in the sense that humility, or its lack, helps to define who we are as persons in community. Aquinas acknowledged humility as operating both in a way that enhances life in a close-­knit community and in the journey of the religious believer. I will suggest that humility promoted the kind of creative imagination that was required for religious belief to emerge in the earliest human communities. Humility as virtue is not necessarily exclusive to Homo sapiens, but is more broadly characteristic of the hominin lineage, beginning with complex

Searching for the soul of Homo 183 tool production, but also expressed in relationships with predators and domesticates in a multispecies commons. I will make five basic arguments in this chapter. First, I will argue that a focus on humility is relevant to evolutionary anthropological work that is attempting to discover the inner world of human beings and not just content with the descriptive task of naming material objects. I believe that careful reflection on how complex tools came to be made forces an admission that humility was needed in order for very early hominins to be successful in this task. Second, I suggest that contemporary arguments that have tried to debunk humility as important in the moral life are fundamentally flawed. Third, I maintain that a close attention to the way Aquinas discusses humility is illuminating for consideration of the rich texture of how humility operates in the moral life, more specifically in his case, the life of close-­knit monastic communities. It is also important to bear in mind that humility is never isolated as a characteristic, and in this I agree with Jan-­Olav Henriksen that humility accompanies other virtues, including wisdom.2 This has a bearing on how to consider the evolution of humility in human communities. Fourth, I argue that humility, in as much as it is about social regulation with others, necessarily must have become operative in multispecies community contexts of early human societies. Finally, I will suggest that the incredible discovery in 2017 of Homo naledi as coterminous with Homo sapiens, including similarities in complex burial practices, implies a more indirect form of humility and connectedness with others that desired continuation of the other’s presence even beyond death. The human capacity for contemplation on the social world and the receptivity to consider the possibility of an afterlife for close human companions, including the practices of ritualized burial, also demanded humility, perhaps even of the religiously infused type.

Why focus on humility? A refusal to be content with ‘hard’ descriptions of the observed material record alone in evolutionary anthropology is, of course, itself a leap of faith. But it is an area that evolutionary anthropologists and archaeologists are beginning to explore. Gradually, what seems like an imaginative label starts to stick and becomes a hermeneutical tool that presses for more questions and different lines of evidence. Even understanding early humans as the uniquely symbolic species carries its own interpretative freight, for there are assumptions that are made about what is occurring mentally that then gets expressed outwardly.3 Long-­term compassion towards others is distinctively human and appeared very early in the evolutionary record, perhaps as far back as Homo erectus.4 But might there be other distinctive dispositions that were also deep in time? If compassion is of primary importance, of secondary importance is the ability to navigate social and practical relationships successfully, and that includes the kind of self-­restraint required for humility. The beautiful handaxes, such as the 250,000-­year-­old West Tofts

184  Celia Deane-­Drummond handaxe crafted around a fossil scallop shell,5 show an aesthetic sense and perhaps also a greater sensitivity to how others might perceive them. It is also possible that the handaxe itself was viewed as something living: working with the material to elicit – and celebrate – what was dimly perceived in the material. Peter Hiscock has reviewed patterns of learning in toolmaking among early hominins.6 Given the considerable skill involved in toolmaking, he asks: why is so much effort put into this practice, even beyond that physically required for the actual practice of tool use, and into teaching others to do so as well? What was going on in the minds of these early hominins? Were these practices perhaps part of a complex social signalling system?7 The focus of current anthropological debate has been on the very early ‘tools’ of the Oldowan period around 2.6 million years ago and the handaxes of the Acheulian, 1.6–1.7 million years ago. The Oldowan tools also gradually became elaborated concurrent with the newer Acheulian. The handaxes of the Acheulian show incredibly high levels of symmetry that is technically extremely hard to achieve.8 Archaeologists have shown that the skill in making even the simplest lithic tools is likely to have demanded hundreds of hours of practice.9 Dietrich Stout suggests that: Discovery of optimal technologies might be facilitated by social scaffolding, explicit instruction or high-­ fidelity imitation of an expert model, but minimally requires focused attention, self-­monitoring and inhibition of automatic reactions during repetitious practice.10 Classic explanations that this marks the arrival of ‘man the toolmaker’, giving these hominins superiority in hunting success, is only a partial explanation, since it fails to explain why there is a change in morphology of the stone tools over time, given that all the morphologies were equally multifunctional. Elongated flakes or blades, for example, occurred intermittently over half a million years, and since the late Lower Palaeolithic over a period of 300,000 years, small back-­blunted flakes called microliths were in and out of circulation. The specific rocks used were apparently transported a considerable distance, as part of the resource mapping capabilities of early hominins. Hiscock believes that lithic crafts were integral to a costly signalling system of apprentice teaching and learning. The skill of knapping is not easily observed; hence, social learning combined with gestural language was likely to be significant. Apprentices likely learned by a combination of close observation of, imitation of, and instruction by skilled practitioners over many hours. Cognitive and physical capabilities along with social learning could then begin to be adopted for other tasks.11 The contemporary Langda community in Papua Provence, Indonesia also displays crafts of stone making.12 Toolmaking skills are developed in a social context of a supportive group and act as a source of pride and personal identity. Individual practice over many hours is encouraged because of its

Searching for the soul of Homo 185 social value, supported by instruction, demonstration, and assistance from those who are more experienced in what is termed a ‘social scaffold’ that promotes learning by individuals.13 The point is that the lithic niche that developed very early in human evolution was a crucial step in developing the distinctive human world that eventually gave rise to Homo sapiens sapiens. Along with physical skill and cognitive development associated with lithic crafts there is also some evidence of enhancement in personal qualities of self-­control and persistence and also the ability to imagine alternatives.14 As well as possessing a native practical wisdom in how to make such objects, those aspects of self-­restraint characteristic of humility are likely to have been involved. Jayne Wilkins, in her contribution to this volume, also agrees with this assessment, outlining as in Hiscock and Stout the intricate skill that is required for toolmaking, focusing particularly on the Middle Stone Age.15 Penny Spikins makes the intriguing observation that: These finely crafted tools demonstrate an emotional awareness hitherto not seen before, both of an understanding of how others feel and also an ability to overcome frustrations and temptations rather than just acting on impulse. The self control used to impose such a difficult form on stone taps into the same parts of the brain that control our frustrations over sharing food, standing our ground with dangerous predators or prey without running away, and one’s reliability as a mate who would stick around. It is a sign of someone able to handle difficult human emotions and be trustworthy.16 Spikins takes her arguments further in this volume17 and argues that gratitude, in particular, is important in the creative process, and that this is related to humility and other moral emotions.18 In classic theology, humility can connect with justice by moderating when justice becomes a show and is full of pride; in the course of justice, it is by humility that wrongdoing is pardoned. The parallels between gratitude and humility relate to the fact that the attitude towards others in both cases is one of positive regard; in the case of gratitude this applies even, for example, where motives appear to be mixed.19 Patience is of course required too, but I am focusing here on humility because it is primarily, like wisdom, a social and relational term, and because pride, which is the mirror image of humility, has been attributed in the Christian tradition to the sin of the first humans.20 The Fall of humanity did not arise because of a lack of patience, but from an ill-­found desire for aggrandizement, for becoming like God. Attention to humility and naming it as a moral virtue has not always been well received, stemming from resistance to its worth by many influential post-­Enlightenment writers, including Friedrich Nietzsche in the nineteenth century and David Hume in the eighteenth century. Hume described humility (along with celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-­denial, silence, solitude and the ‘whole train of monkish virtues’) as irrelevant for

186  Celia Deane-­Drummond the moral life and ‘every where rejected by men of sense’ since ‘they serve to no manner of purpose, neither advance man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society’; in addition, they ‘stupify the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper.’ He continues that such tendencies ‘place them in the catalogue of vices’.21 Authors such as Yuval Norah Harari characterize the achievements of human history, including the evolution of humanity, as a kind of anti-­humility, a deliberate and aggressive attempt by Homo deus to become divine, eventually collapsing traditional religious practices.22 Harari does not specifically reject humility, but fails to take it into consideration in speaking about what it means to become human. It is hardly surprising that in his gloomy ending, his newly minted Homo sapiens turned Homo deus is poised to lose control. He argues for compassion towards animals on the somewhat flimsy basis that perhaps we might no longer be the ones in control of our futures, so if we continue to treat animals without respect, the same might be meted out on us through our AI creations. Eventually such technological powers collapse into a Big Data control system that takes over the function of traditional religion. However, that lack of control is buried in the very structures that he sets up as integral to human history because his narrative assumes a type of genetic determinism and theocratic essentialism that leaves little room for a concrete place for human decision-­making in evolutionary history. Perhaps if he had told an alternate history, one that focused on a very different evolutionary narrative about human being and becoming that stressed our human abilities to construct niches in humility, wisdom, and compassion, then even the transhumanist agenda would surface in a different way. The assessment that humility is no longer relevant for the moral life has been challenged more recently by social and political theorists who recognize that humility, rightly understood, is still important for the social political sphere.23 For Mark Button, humility is an acknowledgement of the incompleteness of one’s own moral powers and recognition of contingency in the forms, laws, and institutions that structure social and political life.24 Mary Keys also rejects Hume’s blanket opposition to humility, finding it advantageous in promoting justice and peace in the contemporary social sphere, and retrieves the explicit religious elements from Thomas Aquinas that draw on the rule of Saint Benedict.25 The classic tradition understood humility to be about proper assessment of self in relation to others, which meant an acknowledgment of incompleteness of one’s powers, most particularly, when that power was compared with divine perfection. It is my contention that, as a social virtue, humility is also highly relevant at the dawn of humanity when a plurality of forms of social organization existed prior to a more settled, organized set of rules for societal living. Social plurality is consistent with the way sophisticated toolmaking and cognitive abilities seem to appear and then disappear in different geographical

Searching for the soul of Homo 187 regions as flickerings in the evolutionary record.26 Was patient paying attention to the material forms in all their aesthetic beauty as shown in the crafting of beautiful handaxes also a groping after the transcendent in a way that allowed for recognition of limitations of the self in relation to others and the transcendent Other? The social and political forms of life were simpler than they are today, but not necessarily easy to manage at an emotional and cognitive level. In fact, they might have been even more intense, with communities depending routinely on each other for their survival needs. The intimacy of the monastery, perhaps, is more akin to the workings of these very earliest intense human communities compared with the supposedly more sophisticated and complex political and social structures in which human societies are now immersed. I believe that Thomas’s arguments still have relevance, not least because he also considers carefully the possible objections to the place of humility in the moral life. Engagement with his thought helps distinguish between those kinds of nascent humility that are characteristic of social animals more broadly, and those forms of humility more specific to human communities. Aquinas considered animals other than humans to be inferior, but in the light of current knowledge it would be more correct just to point to gradations in human moral capacity for particularly complex social tasks, rather than any ontological superiority on the part of humans. Infused virtue, though, implies a transition into a different mental process, one acquired through reception of transcendent gift, rather than learning.

Lessons in humility from Thomas Aquinas Aquinas believed that the moral life, which meant right relationship of self to others, including God, required the exercise of right reason over our passions and desires. Self-­control does not in this context mean a lack of emotional attunement with self and others, but rather the ability to self-­ regulate accurately and with sensitivity to another’s emotional state. Self-­ control is therefore not the kind of repressive ‘stiff upper lip’ or emotional off-­switch sometimes attributed to Victorian Britain, but rather a self-­ awareness that is sufficiently conscious when personal emotional drives threaten to damage good relationships with others. Humility is important, therefore, in curtailing damaging forms of pride that also lead to a lack of trust in others.27 In fact, for Aquinas trust is, in some respects, more fundamental to the proper exercise of virtues than reason, since trust reaches out to what is beyond the human mind, even though human reason seems more certain to us.28 The ability to look to the transcendent, to that which is experienced as surpassing in some sense the human mind, eventually allows trust to flower into religious faith. That faith will be more prepared to commit to divine instructions compared with human reason since ‘what one hears from the infallible God’ seems to the believer more certain compared with ‘fallible

188  Celia Deane-­Drummond reason’, as the experience is one of being endowed gifts.29 This allows Aquinas to claim that: The gifts of understanding and knowledge are more perfect than the knowledge of faith in the point of their greater clearness, but not in regard to more certain adhesion: because the whole certitude of the gifts of understanding and knowledge arises from the certitude of faith, even as the certitude of knowledge of conclusions arises from the certitude of premises. But insofar as science, wisdom and understanding are intellectual virtues, they are based on the natural light of reason, which falls short of the certitude of God’s word, on which faith is founded.30 This dynamic interplay of the exercise of naturally endowed reason along with receptivity towards the divine is important in understanding how humility works as both an acquired and an infused virtue. Courage is that virtue that allows persistence in the face of the emotion of fear even when faced with physical dangers of various sorts, while humility is more about an honest admission of one’s own limitations.31 Magnanimity, which also means having greatness of spirit32 and aligned in some ways with courage, strives after great things, and that striving in someone of virtue is moderated by reason. Humility seems to be in some respects the other side of the coin to magnanimity, for while humility is more about contemplating one’s weaknesses and giving honour to others, magnanimity is self-­confident and builds on perceived gifts and strengths. Magnanimity allows a person to become great without succumbing to pride. Such persons are, by definition, held in high regard by others in the community. The ability to gain the respect of others through highly sophisticated technical skills in toolmaking is more likely to have been done by those who were magnanimous, since pride leads to a breakdown in social relationships rather than cementing and affirming them. Magnanimity focuses on an accurate assessment of the failure of others to express particular gifts, while humility is the opposite: it concentrates on the gifts of others and recognizes that in every person there are likely to be particular strengths that the self lacks. Neither humility nor magnanimity are intended to be in excess, as the action of right reason controls both tendencies.33 Magnanimity will press someone to keep going even if the going is tough, and so its function is ‘to strengthen the mind against despair, and urge it on in the pursuit of great things according to right reason’, but such striving also needs a restraining force to stop that drive getting out of hand, and that is one of the most important functions of humility.34 As noted earlier, toolmaking must inevitably have required a great deal of persistence by those who were beginning to learn the craft. Further, the combination of both imitative learning and emulative learning that Wilkins highlights implies a combination of a capacity for humility in imitative learning, where the model and goal presented

Searching for the soul of Homo 189 is internalized, and a capacity for both humility and magnanimity in emulative learning that involves both a copying of the model (in humility) as well as introducing new variations that are innovative in character (through magnanimity).35 Once these virtues are joined with religious belief, then there is a double deference to particular human gifts in both self and others as having their origin in God. While I am not arguing that early hominins living in the Pleistocene had any specific awareness of God as an independent divine agent, some sense of transcendent spiritual forces is not impossible. And such forces should not be thought of as in a dualistic relationship with the material world, but in some sense impregnating its very being. At least some other animals, especially the fauna that threatened humans, could also be specific and more obvious bearers of that transcendent sense, as many hunter-­gatherer societies affirm today.36 The core and cardinal virtue to which humility is aligned in Thomistic thought is that of temperance. Again, this should not be interpreted as being about the distain or denial of natural pleasures such as food and sex as related to human well-­being and for the perpetuation of the human race.37 Although Thomas allowed for such restraint in particular roles, including, for example, that in the priesthood or military service, he did not think of this as a good in itself. Rather, the virtue of temperance concerns sensitivity to shame and a sense of honour that respects the particular beauty of the practice of temperance and strives after it.38 In Thomas’s scheme, humility is one of the allied virtues of temperance. The allied virtues of temperance connect with inner feelings (continence), outward behaviour (humility), and use of external things (clemency). The sub-­virtue of continence helps to control inner feelings of desire, so our will is not overcome by them; that of humility helps to control inordinate tendencies for ‘being sanguine and pushful’; that of clemency helps to control feelings of outrage and the desire to punish.39 Sensitivity to shame that is a central aspect of temperance is perhaps one of the most universally accepted characteristics across different cultures, and, according to anthropologists such as Christopher Boehm, may be connected with the emergence of a specifically human conscience, understood as an inner moral compass.40 In different cultural contexts what counts as shameful acts is bound to vary, but the general characteristic of being prepared to recognize good in another and to refrain from pride – namely, the practice of humility – is, I would argue, highly adaptable to very different cultural and historical contexts. The power of humility in self-­debasement has its limits, however, such as when there is a denial of one’s distinction from other animals: this may be done sometimes well, for instance, when a man, considering his own failings, assumes the lowest place according to his

190  Celia Deane-­Drummond mode. . . . In this way humility is a virtue. Sometimes this may be ill-­done, for instance, when a man, not understanding his honor, compares himself to senseless beasts, and becomes like to them (Ps 48:13).41 While, as I will elaborate further, Aquinas failed to recognize what other social animals are capable of, and certainly did not consider them to be superior to humans in the manner I have indicated was likely in very early human history, the ability of such humans to recognize both their distinction from animals and how the human social world is caught up in a multispecies social commons is an important aspect of developing human moral awareness. So, hunting, for example, would only really be possible once the specific skills of prey were understood and appreciated. What must have eventually happened to predators as they contemplated humans as a potential meal was that humans gradually became better and better at outsmarting their predatory enemies.42 Those predators that remained a threat would have been perceived in a tense and uneasy relationship with human beings, just as hyenas, jaguars, tigers, and lions still are today where they are living in close proximity with indigenous human societies. Aquinas was also aware that in a monastic order, given the high reputation of those who were humble, there would be a strong temptation to a sham humility that has the outward show of self-­abasement, but is inwardly full of pride.43 The religious role of humility in being willing to submit to God also interested Aquinas.44 It is wrong, though, to suggest that humility is about self-­abasement, for ‘without prejudice to humility they may set the gifts they have received from God above those that others have appeared to receive from Him’.45 And it is this ability to see the good in others that one does not have that is the mark of true humility: ‘a man may esteem his neighbor to have some good which he lacks himself, or himself to have some evil which another has not: by reason of which, he may subject himself to him with humility’.46 The assumption of hidden worth in one’s neighbour brings a positive disposition towards that neighbour, rather than its opposite. Humility, for Aquinas, in the ordering of the virtues, comes after the theological, intellectual virtues and the virtue of justice, but before the moral virtues. It has the ability, then, to moderate a whole host of other virtues: ‘humility makes a man a good subject to ordinance of all kinds and in all matters, while every other virtue has this effect in some special matter.’47 By expelling pride, humility removes obstacles to receipt of divine grace, and so, in this sense, is the foundation of the spiritual life. This does not take away from the central role that charity (love) plays in the spiritual life: Thus humility is, as it were, a disposition to man’s untrammelled access to spiritual and divine goods. Accordingly as perfection is greater than disposition, so charity, and other virtues whereby man approaches God directly, are greater than humility.48

Searching for the soul of Homo 191 I am touching here on the religious aspects of humility that are, of course, difficult to discern in early human communities. For Aquinas, humility is not just learnt, it could also be infused through a process of divine imparting: Man arrives at humility in two ways. First and chiefly by a gift of grace, and in this way the inner man precedes the outward man. The other way is by human effort, whereby he first of all restrains the outward man, and afterwards succeeds in plucking out the inward root. It is according to this order that the degrees of humility are here enumerated.49 The stages of humility are mentioned by Anselm, but developed further in the rule of St. Benedict. It is pride, though, that illustrates what humility is through being its opposite.50 Pride also blocks wisdom.51 In sum, ‘humility observes the rule of right reason whereby a man has true self-­esteem’.52 The overall conclusion from this section is that a retrieval of a classical understanding of the virtue of humility and its relationship with other virtues can help tease out the kind of qualities and habits of mind that are important in a well-­functioning human community. In as much as humility is related to temperance, it is connected with self-­control, but it is a judicious use of that control that does not forfeit the urge of magnanimity to achieve great things. A proper place for pride in one’s achievements, therefore, goes hand in hand with self-­regulation that respects and honours the other in the learning process. So far, I have used examples from the upper Palaeolithic era when early humans started to make tools, alongside some examples from current hunter-­ gatherer societies. But are there other anthropological studies that illuminate the way humility might work in multispecies communities? And do other animals also display nascent humility? While such studies do not necessarily imply there is any direct lineage with respect to what eventually becomes human humility, what appears to us to be expressions of humility in other species may indicate the possibility of a very ancient evolutionary root.

Lessons in humility through minding others The purpose of this section is to further spell out the implications of the issues that Rebecca Rogers Ackerman raises in her chapter in this volume about the complexity of human evolution for considering complex human traits such as humility.53 The model of a reticulate, or intricate branching evolution, rather than a linear progressive trajectory implies that there were many other kinds with whom human societies bonded over many millennia of gradual changes. Although our cognitive capacity and indeed our ability to express humility is distinct for humans in its remarkable self-­reflexivity, that does not mean this appeared either all at once or that it was achieved through isolation from other species. How far and in what sense did early human beings distinguish themselves from other animals? In the minds of the earliest hominins, at least some animals may have been perceived as

192  Celia Deane-­Drummond superior or even to possess divine qualities. The ability to be self-­consciously aware of distinction between different animals – which ones to submit to and which ones to seek to dominate – would have been an important survival skill. In other words, early humans must have made some conscious choices as to which animals to bring into their worlds and which ones to leave out, a process that involves practical wisdom.54 Domestication is a complex process involving mutual trust and respect, and in this sense the ability to show humility as it dawns in the human community is more likely to be inclusive of other beings rather than exclusive to the human community in the way Aquinas supposes. Philosophers have started to experiment with interspecies ethics in a way that puts a new slant on cosmopolitan models of ethics, away from individual rights.55 This shifts attention away from individual moral virtues, to more collective senses of moral agency. The ability to read accurately another’s emotional and cognitive state and attitude towards self and others, also known as theory of mind, is part of the enlarging of the neocortical parts of the brain that took place in human evolution.56 Marcus Baynes-­ Rock portrays the kind of environments in which our human ancestors emerged as being socially and cognitively challenging, demanding a suite of characteristics such as cooperative problem-­ solving and recognition of third-­party relationships in predator and prey alike. In modern psychological tests for some of these tasks, dogs and hyenas outperform chimps.57 Human abilities that reflect a theory of mind include intentional communication, repairing failed communication, teaching, intentional persuasion, intentional deception, building shared goals and plans, sharing a focus of attention, and pretending, all of which involve envisaging and trying to influence the mental state of another. Those others were not just human others, but the environment as a whole was perceived as being populated with other minds. So: Our ancestors’ ability to apply mindedness to predators, prey, forests, and phenomena enabled them to navigate a complex niche of opportunities and challenges which extended human sociality beyond the group huddled around the campfire to a wide world of creatures and things, seen and unseen.58 According to ethnographic work by Rane Willerslev among the Yukagir hunters, in order to hunt successfully, hunters have to enter into the minds of their prey and anticipate their mental processes, but for the hunters themselves there is a risk of actually becoming transformed into the very creature that they are seeking.59 The process of being able to hold a double perspective, that is, enter into the mind of another while not succumbing to becoming that other, calls for mental reflexivity. Such phenomena are quite common in other ethnographic studies. Eduado Kohn, for example, describes how the Runa people regularly inhabit the minds of jaguars, envisaging them as having mental states very much like their own. Yet, the

Searching for the soul of Homo 193 somatic relationship to interspecies perception is not, in these societies, thought of in terms of a brain. Somatic consciousness comes through other body parts, in accordance with the particular prey-­predator relationship. For example, an agouti’s sternum and bile serve as organs of consciousness for dogs.60 The Ávila people believe that their ability to hunt is enhanced when they smoke the scrapings of stones in the deer’s stomach thought to be responsible for consciousness of predators, including humans. Others try to become more like jaguars by drinking jaguar bile, becoming a jaguar at their death. The soul, in such perceptions, is richly intersubjective, and, for Kuhn, semiotic. While appreciating the dynamism of this way of understanding the soul, Western societies at least would have difficulties in accepting the complete loss of distinction from others that such a semiotic model of the self implies. Yet, in some respects it is reminiscent of a total self-­emptying in humility of the kind that Christians believe is characteristic of the incarnation, of the Word of God become flesh in fragile human beings. Lindy Backues has made a comparison between that theologically rich term and ethnographic practice that tries to enter into the world of others in order to fully understand them.61 Such an approach need not be confined to human societies. In a novel approach to studies of hyena-­human relationships in Harar, Ethiopia, Baynes-­Rock tries something similar in his work among hyena communities.62 I suggest that just as humility is an important prerequisite for successful toolmaking, so mindedness towards these other creatures requires the ability to perceive accurately the goods, desires, and intentions of another, while recognizing one’s own distinction from them. Aquinas believed that perceiving oneself as exactly like an animal was a debasement of humility, and in one sense he was correct: inappropriate slippage into the minds of animals so that there is no awareness that this is a mental, self-­conscious act could have had fatal consequences. At the same time, Aquinas would have had no appreciation of the perception by hunter-­gatherers that prey had mental states in some sense comparable with their own. As Tim Ingold has pointed out, assuming that the constructions of prey as agents is some sort of metaphor is a capitulation to Western dualistic patterns of thought.63 This means, it seems to me, that in a real sense, our earliest ancestors were likely to have acted in deference and humility towards other predators. Indeed, if they failed to do so they were likely to have ended up as a meal.

Another lesson in humility: Homo naledi Lee Berger and John Hawks in this volume outline some remarkable findings about a newly discovered species of hominin, Homo naledi, that have only just come to light.64 The account is astonishing because in some respects it was so unexpected among evolutionary anthropologists, who assumed from morphological assessment that these fossils dated to around 1.5 million years ago. Direct dating of these fossils from the Dinaledi Chamber in

194  Celia Deane-­Drummond the Rising Star cave system in South Africa shows, instead, that they were deposited somewhere between 236 and 335 thousand years ago, thus in the later Middle Pleistocene, coincident with that of our own species, Homo sapiens. A remarkable number of specimens were found in the cave – 1,500 fossils representing 15 individuals. They are the largest collection to date of a single species of a close relative of our species. Although Acheulean and Middle Stone Age tools are usually associated with H. sapiens, it is also possible, on the available evidence at least, that H. naledi contributed to these remains. Exactly where H. naledi appears in the phylogenetic evolutionary tree is uncertain. The evidence points towards an ancient phylogenetic origin, most likely 900 thousand years ago, rather than a closer date to H. sapiens, as otherwise some of the morphological characteristics would be reversals to an earlier state. Or perhaps it was a result of hybridization between two hominin sub-­species? H. naledi shares many of the anatomical characteristics of both Homo sapiens and Homo erectus.65 Hence, it may be more accurate, as Ackermann suggests,66 to view all these different sub-­ species of Homo in a more closely reticulate relationship with each other. This discovery also upsets the view that gradually Homo lineages acquired bigger and bigger brains with associated cognitive capacities. H. naledi had relatively small brains, more like australopiths, the most ancient of human relatives, combined with a stature, lower limb, and foot anatomy of H. sapiens. The wrist, hand, and fingertip morphology of H. naledi share many of the same characteristics of Neanderthals and H. sapiens that are missing in other hominin species. It is reasonable to speculate that H. naledi was capable of making tools. Their small dentition also points to a higher quality diet that includes meat and plant resources. If that is the case, then, in spite of their relatively small brains, it was possible for H. naledi to engage in tool use, though so far there is no direct evidence for making this assumption. It is the mortuary behaviour of H. naledi that I think deserves special comment, since this practice is clearly documented by the way the bones have been deposited in the caves. The Lesedi Chamber, located deep inside the cave system, is only accessible by a very narrow chute. Berger and colleagues reject the idea that these were accidental death traps or that they were the result of inner movement by carnivores within the cave system: the condition of the fossil remains refutes both possibilities. It is also unlikely that H. sapiens were responsible for the deposition, since there were no markings on the bones that were the habitual practice of our species. Such discoveries about H. naledi immediately raise some intriguing questions about what could have been going on in the minds of these early hominins. Why, for example, did they choose to deliberately bury their dead through mortuary practices that must have been difficult and required a great deal of patience and even loving respect for the deceased? Was this the first dawning of an awareness of an afterlife, a sense that there is continuity

Searching for the soul of Homo 195 as well as discontinuity after death, a transcendent way of perceiving the world as well as simply a transactional one?67 Whatever the explanation, four issues stand out in the light of the discussion about humility. First, it is clear that those who undertook this practice perceived those who died in humble respect: they recognized qualities in them that they wanted to preserve and protect. Second, and more speculatively, there was a dawning of consciousness of another spiritual realm coterminous with our own, where humble submission to that energy and power drove specific mortuary practices. Such practices are preludes to a religious sense that eventually dawned in the human community. Third, H. naledi takes away the pride of H. sapiens as being the only species capable of highly sophisticated, including implicitly religious, activities. Finally, perhaps H. naledi also contributed to our own lineage in ways yet to be discovered through further research. Given the size of the neocortex, such research also implies that cortical size alone is not a prerequisite for sophisticated thinking, even though, of course, eventually H. sapiens survived and H. naledi did not.

Conclusions My overall argument is that far from being irrelevant, humility is extremely important for the correct functioning of human communities, especially the close-­knit societies that emerged at the dawn of human origins. There are, of course, unanswered questions that arise in considering such possibilities that are even more challenging compared with those raised for the evolution of compassion and wisdom. What kind of evidence could be brought to bear in supposing those humans that were held in high esteem were also those who preferred to prioritize the interests of others over their own? Was pride a problem in these early societies or not? Was there any evidence for hoarding scarce goods, for example? Were beautiful artefacts emblematic of a latent inclination towards the transcendent? Or perhaps an attitude of humility extended towards material objects as well as others in the community, including at least some chosen animal others? This chapter is intended to open up further conversation rather than foreclose it. While some of the answers to these questions will remain speculative, as further archaeological research is conducted, theologians can look forward to engagement with these discoveries as an integral part of mapping out the meaning of human identity and human flourishing.

Notes 1 The psychological definition of humility and its significance is covered helpfully by Jan-­Olav Henriksen, ‘An Animal in Need of Wisdom: Theological Anthropology and the Origins of Humility and Wisdom’, current volume. This chapter is more concerned with evolutionary aspects of humility and builds on Henriksen’s philosophical analysis. I discuss evolutionary aspects of wisdom elsewhere: see Celia Deane-­Drummond, ‘Practical Wisdom in the Making: A Theological

196  Celia Deane-­Drummond Approach to Early Hominin Evolution in Conversation with Jewish Philosophy’, in The Evolution of Human Wisdom edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Press, 2018). 2 Henriksen, ‘An Animal’. 3 These assumptions are discussed in Marc Kissel, ‘Becoming Wise: What Can Anthropologists Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom’, current volume; and Andrew Robinson ‘On the Origin of Symbols: Archaeology, Semiotics, and Self-­Transcendence’, current volume. 4 Penny A. Spikins, Holly E. Rutherford, and Andy P. Needham, ‘From Homininity to Humanity: Compassion from the Earliest Archaics to Modern Humans’, Time and Mind 3 (2010): 303–325; Celia Deane-­Drummond, ‘Empathy and the Evolution of Compassion: From Deep History to Infused Virtue’, Zygon 52, no.1 (2017): 258–278. Penny Spikins has suggested that in evolutionary history compassion started to extend beyond that of the human community towards their tools and other inanimate objects. Penny Spikins, How Compassion Made Us Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Tenderness, Trust and Morality (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 2015), 126–147. 5 Spikins, How Compassion, 203. 6 Peter Hiscock, ‘Learning in Lithic Landscapes: A Reconsideration of the Hominid “Toolmaking” Niche’, Biological Theory 9, no. 1 (2014): 27–41. For further discussion of the theological relevance of this practice, see Celia Deane-­Drummond, ‘Evolution: A Theology of Niche Construction for the Twenty-­First Century’, in Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-­Kaiser (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2018), 241–256. 7 Hiscock, ‘Learning in Lithic Landscapes’, 28. 8 Even creating the simplest lithic tools is likely to have demanded hundreds of hours of practice. Dietrich Stout, ‘Stone Toolmaking and the Evolution of Human Cognition’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Biological Sciences 366 (2011): 1050–1059. 9 Stout, ‘Stone Toolmaking’. It seems that these early hominins scavenged and recycled specimens discarded by others and the landscapes now filled with lithic artefacts are like a library of design and production processes. 10 Stout, ‘Stone Toolmaking’, 1057. 11 Kim Sterelny, The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012). 12 Deitrich Stout, ‘The Social and Cultural Context of Stone-­Knapping Skill Acquisition’, in Stone Knapping: The Necessary Conditions for a Uniquely Human Behaviour, edited by Valentine Roux and Brandine Bril (Cambridge, MA: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2005), 331–340. 13 It is also possible to go a step further and show that the same neural circuitry in sensory motor learning is also required for new roles, including abstract reasoning and eventually language. Vittorio Gellese and George Lakoff, ‘The Brains Concepts: The Role of the Sensory-­Motor System in Conceptual Knowledge’, Cognitive Neuropsychology 22, no. 3/4 (2005): 455–479. 14 Hiscock, ‘Learning in Lithic Landscapes’, 34–35. 15 Jayne Wilkins, ‘Archaeological Evidence for Human Social Learning and Sociality in the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa’, current volume. 16 Spikins, Compassion, 201. 17 Penny Spikins, ‘The Loss of Innocence in the Deep Past: Wisdom, Humility, and Grace within a Developing Understanding of the Emergence of Human Moral Emotions’, current volume.

Searching for the soul of Homo 197 18 In Thomas Aquinas’s schema, the distinctions between moral emotions are more finely elaborated. Thankfulness, or gratitude, has a primary affinity with the cardinal virtue of justice, rather than temperance, in that it is connected with the way we regard another person. But in his scheme, the explicitly theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity come first, then the intellectual virtues which affect governing reason, both speculative (wisdom, science, and understanding) and practical (practical wisdom and art), then justice, then humility, and finally the other moral virtues. Humility therefore sits next to justice, but its reach is broad, for ‘humility makes a man subject to the rule of reason in every field’. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Well Tempered Passion, vol. 44, edited by Thomas Gilby (London: Blackfriars, 1971), 2a2ae, Qu. 161. 19 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Virtues of Justice in the Human Community, vol. 41, edited by T.C. O’Brien (London: Blackfriars, 1971), 2a2ae, Qu. 106.3. 20 The traditional account of Adam and Eve needs some adjustment in the light of evolutionary biology if it is still to be meaningful today. I have attempted to show lines of continuity and discontinuity with the tradition in Celia Deane-­ Drummond, ‘In Adam All Die? Questions at the Boundary of Niche Construction, Community Evolution and Original Sin’, in Evolution and the Fall, edited by William Cavanaugh and James Smith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 23–47. 21 David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, critical ed., edited by Tom Beauchamp (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 9, 73 (Conclusion, lines 22–30). 22 Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (New York: Harper Collins, 2017). For a review, see Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes, ‘Review Article: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow’, Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 5, no. 1 (2018): 127–137. 23 One advantage of a retrieval of humility is its ability to deal successfully with ethics and pluralism in contemporary Western politics. Mark Button argues that humility, rightly construed as a relevant moral virtue in contemporary societies, is an outward regarding civic virtue, rather than an inward self-­referencing standard that is related to an external standard of the good. Mark Button, ‘A Monkish Kind of Virtue? For and Against Humility’, Political Theory 33, no. 6 (2005): 840–868. 24 Recognition of incompleteness implies that there is some knowledge at least of what would be ideal, so the separation may not be as sharp as Button implies. 25 Mary Keys, ‘Humility and Greatness of Soul’, Perspectives on Political Science 37, no. 4 (2008): 217–222. 26 Marc Kissel and Agustín Fuentes, ‘Semiosis in the Pleistocene’, Cambridge Archeological Journal 27, no. 3 (2017): 317–412; Curtis W. Marean, ‘An Evolutionary Anthropological Perspective on Modern Human Origins’, Annual Review of Anthropology 44 (2015): 533–556. 27 I prefer to use the term ‘trust’ here rather than faith, as that is more meaningful in the context of early human societies where religious propositions were not yet developed. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Faith, vol. 31, edited by T.C. O’Brien (London: Blackfriars, 1974), 2a2ae, Qu. 4.7; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Religion and Worship, vol. 39, edited by Kevin O’Rourke (London: Blackfriars, 1974), 2a2ae, 83.3. 28 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 4.8. Virtues mean in this context habitual dispositions of the mind that are acquired either through a natural process of learning, or infused through a divine gift of grace.

198  Celia Deane-­Drummond 29 This insight is important in understanding the power of religious faith even in contemporary societies. Harari finds it hard to understand why it is that so many highly educated and intelligent Americans still reject Darwinism and believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. He cites a Gallup poll of 2012 that claims that in the USA, 46% of those with a BA degree and 25% of those with graduate degrees adhere to the Bible alone, with only 29% crediting Darwin for an adequate explanation of the origin of our species. Clearly more information is never going to convince: the only sure way towards change is that within the religious beliefs themselves in a way that does not betray the original religious commitment. While Harari recognizes the power of religious faith, he assumes that liberal alternatives simply plagiarize on the originality of secular thought and so will never work to effect change. See Harari, Homo Deus, 103, 277–278. 30 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Volume 17, Secunda Secundae, 1–91, translated by Laurence Shapcote (Green Bay: Aquinas Institute, 2012), 2a2ae, Qu. 4.8. I prefer this translation for direct citations as it is a more accurate rendition of the original text. 31 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Courage, vol. 42, edited by Anthony Ross and P.G. Walsh (London: Blackfriars, 1965), 2a2ae, Qu. 123.1. 32 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 129.3. 33 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 129.3; Qu. 161.1; Qu. 161.4. 34 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Volume 18, Secunda Secundae, 92–189, translated by Laurence Shapcote, edited by John Mortensen and Enrique Alarcón (Lander: Aquinas Institute, 2012), 2a2ae Qu. 161.1. 35 Wilkins, ‘Archeological Evidence’. 36 Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think: Towards an Anthropology Beyond the Human (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013). 37 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Temperance, vol. 43, edited by Thomas Gilby (London: Blackfriars, 1967), 2a2ae, Qu. 142.1. 38 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 143. 39 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 143.1. 40 Christopher Boehm, Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism and Shame (New York: Basic Books/Perseus, 2012). Boehm prefers to use the term shame as that which expresses inner feelings about one’s behaviour in relation to others. He comments that ‘ “shame words” do appear everywhere’ among hunter-­ gatherer and tribal peoples (Boehm, Moral Origins, 20). He also believes shame to be a foundational element in the evolution of human conscience. While his own definition of what is meant by conscience is not consistent with philosophical or theological definitions, the general idea that conscience is related to an inner moral compass is a reasonable approximation when considering its evolutionary origins. Boehm believes that Darwin’s definition of conscience as simply related to moral self-­control is too narrow; rather, for him, it enables an accurate prediction of how our particular actions will be viewed by our peers, and thus ‘calculate[s] what we can get away with socially’ (Boehm, Moral Origins, 175). What he seems to be doing here is reaching for a broader sense of how two different impulses are moderated, and this is precisely what Thomas does when discussing combinations of seemingly opposing virtues such as magnanimity and humility. 41 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 161.1. 42 Marcus Baynes-­Rock comments on the fact that many social predators have high neocortical ratios, and one of the distinctive marks of wisdom in our ancestors was their ability to outwit the predatory lions, hyenas, and dogs. Marcus Baynes-­Rock, ‘In the Minds of Others’, in The Evolution of Human Wisdom, edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes (Lanham: Lexington Press, 2017), 47–67. 43 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 161.1.

Searching for the soul of Homo 199 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 161.2. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 161.3. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 161.3. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 161.5. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 161.5. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 161.6. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 162.1. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 162.3. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, Qu. 162.3. Rebecca Ackermann, ‘The Emergence of Complexity and Novelty in the Human Fossil Record’, current volume. 54 Baynes-­Rock, ‘In the Mind of Others’. 55 Cynthia Willett, Interspecies Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). 56 How far and to what extent a theory of mind applies to other animals is less clear, but it is more likely that the earliest humans presumed that they were more like us than researchers do today. In other words, they read the actions and reactions of animals as having similarities to human ways of thinking about the world. That ability to enter into the world of other animals was a critical survival skill. 57 Baynes-­Rock, ‘In the Mind of Others’. 58 Baynes-­Rock, ‘In the Mind of Others’. 59 Rane Willerslev, Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). 60 Kohn, How Forests Think, 107. 61 Lindy Backues, ‘Humility: A Christian Impulse as Fruitful Motif for Anthropological Theory and Practice’, in On Knowing Humanity: Insights from Theology for Anthropology, edited by Eloise Menses and David Bronkema (New York: Routledge, 2017), 101–136. 62 Marcus Baynes-­Rock, Among the Bone Eaters (Philadelphia: Penn State University Press, 2015). 63 Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (London: Routledge, 2011), 44. 64 Lee Berger and John Hawks, ‘On Homo naledi and its Significance in Evolutionary Anthropology’, current volume; Lee Berger et al., ‘Homo naledi and Pleistocene Hominin Evolution in Subequatorial Africa’, Short Report, eLife (March 2018): 1–19. 65 DNA evidence would clear up some of the ambiguities in lineage, but attempts to extract DNA from Homo naledi have so far failed, Berger et al., ‘Homo naledi and Pleistocene’, 8. 66 Ackermann, ‘Emergence of Complexity’. 67 Maurice Bloch, ‘Why Religion is Nothing Special but is Central’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363, no. 1499 (2008): 2055–2061. Bloch downplays the experience of religion in assuming the explanatory power of emergence theories, but his admission of distinctly human transcendental practices is important.

Glossary social scaffold:  a pattern of social relationships in an educational context between teacher and learner, such that the teacher demonstrates how to do an activity and then steps back and allows the learner to practice, with intervention as needed.

200  Celia Deane-­Drummond transhumanist:  someone who adheres to the philosophy of transhumanism, defined as an approach to futuristic human evolution achieved by technological rather than natural biological processes. magnanimity:  the classic virtue described as a striving after great things, often presented as a companion virtue to that of humility. temperance:  a classic virtue associated with sensitivity to a sense of shame and a sense of honour, with sub-­virtues allied to temperance being that in relation to inner feelings in continence, outward behaviour in humility, and external things in clemency.

Bibliography Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Courage, 2a2ae, vol. 42, edited by Anthony Ross and P.G. Walsh (London: Blackfriars, 1965). Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Faith, 2a2ae, vol. 31, edited by T.C. O’Brien (London: Blackfriars, 1974). Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Religion and Worship, 2a2ae 80–91, vol. 39, edited by Kevin O’Rourke (London: Blackfriars, 1974). Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Temperance, 2a2ae, vol. 43, edited by Thomas Gilby (London: Blackfriars, 1967). Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Virtues of Justice in the Human Community, 2a2ae, vol. 41, edited by T.C. O’Brien (London: Blackfriars, 1971). Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Volume 17, Secunda Secundae, 1–91, translated by Laurence Shapcote (Green Bay: Aquinas Institute, 2012). Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Volume 18, Secunda Secundae, 92–189, translated by Laurence Shapcote, edited by John Mortensen and Enrique Alarcón (Lander: Aquinas Institute, 2012). Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Well Tempered Passion, 2a2ae, vol. 44, edited by Thomas Gilby (London: Blackfriars, 1971). Backues, Lindy. ‘Humility: A Christian Impulse as Fruitful Motif F=for Anthropological Theory and Practice’. In On Knowing Humanity: Insights from Theology for Anthropology, edited by Eloise Menses and David Bronkema (New York: Routledge, 2017), 101–136. Baynes Rock, Marcus. Among the Bone Eaters (Philadelphia: Penn State University Press, 2015). Baynes-­Rock, Marcus. ‘In the Minds of Others’. In The Evolution of Human Wisdom, edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes (Lanham: Lexington Press, 2017), 47–67. Berger, Lee, John Hawks, Paul H.G.M. Dirks, Marina Elliott, and Eric M Roberts. ‘Homo naledi and Pleistocene Hominin Evolution in Subequatorial Africa’. Short Report, eLife (March 2018): 1–19. Bloch, Maurice. ‘Why Religion is Nothing Special but is Central’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363, no. 1499 (2008): 2055–2061. Boehm, Christopher. Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism and Shame (New York: Basic Books/Perseus, 2012). Button, Mark. ‘A Monkish Kind of Virtue? For and Against Humility’. Political Theory 33, no. 6 (2005): 840–868.

Searching for the soul of Homo 201 Deane-­Drummond, Celia. ‘In Adam All Die? Questions at the Boundary of Niche Construction, Community Evolution and Original Sin’. In Evolution and the Fall, edited by William Cavanaugh and James Smith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 23–47. Deane-­Drummond, Celia. ‘Empathy and the Evolution of Compassion: From Deep History to Infused Virtue’. Zygon 52, no.1 (2017): 258–278. Deane-­Drummond, Celia. ‘Evolution: A Theology of Niche Construction for the Twenty First Century’. In Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-­Kaiser (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2018), 241–256. Deane-­ Drummond, Celia. ‘Practical Wisdom in the Making: A Theological Approach to Early Hominin Evolution in Conversation with Jewish Philosophy’. In The Evolution of Human Wisdom, edited by Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Press, 2018), 167–190. Drummond, Celia, and Agustín Fuentes. ‘Review Article: Homo Deus: Deane-­ A Brief History of Tomorrow’. Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 5, no. 1 (2018): 127–137. Gellese, Vittorio, and George Lakoff. ‘The Brains Concepts: The Role of the Sensory-­ Motor System in Conceptual Knowledge’. Cognitive Neuropsychology 22, no. 3/4 (2005): 455–479. Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (New York: Harper Collins, 2017). Hiscock, Peter. ‘Learning in Lithic Landscapes: A Reconsideration of the Hominid “Toolmaking” Niche’. Biological Theory 9, no. 1 (2014): 27–41. Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, critical ed., edited by Tom L. Beauchamp (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Ingold, Tim. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (London: Routledge, 2011). Keys, Mary. ‘Humility and Greatness of Soul’. Perspectives on Political Science 37, no. 4 (2008): 217–222. Kissel, Marc, and Agustin Fuentes. ‘Semiosis in the Pleistocene’. Cambridge Archeological Journal 27, no. 3 (2017): 317–412. Kohn, Eduardo. How Forests Think: Towards an Anthropology Beyond the Human (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013). Marean, Curtis W. ‘An Evolutionary Anthropological Perspective on Modern Human Origins’. Annual Review of Anthropology 44 (2015): 533–556. Spikins, Penny. How Compassion Made Us Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Tenderness, Trust and Morality (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 2015). Spikins Penny, Holly E. Rutherford, and Andy P. Needham. ‘From Homininity to Humanity: Compassion from the Earliest Archaics to Modern Humans’. Time and Mind 3 (2010): 303–325. Sterelny, Kim. The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012). Stout, Deitrich. ‘The Social and Cultural Context of Stone-­Knapping Skill Acquisition’. In Stone Knapping: The Necessary Conditions for a Uniquely Human Behaviour, edited by Valentine Roux and Brandine Bril (Cambridge, MA: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2005), 331–340.

202  Celia Deane-­Drummond Stout, Dietrich. ‘Stone Toolmaking and the Evolution of Human Cognition’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Biological Sciences 366 (2011): 1050–1059. Willerslev, Rane. Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). Willett, Cynthia. Interspecies Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

Part IV

Grace Introductory commentary Celia Deane-­Drummond and Agustín Fuentes This closing section brings to the surface crucial issues in the dialogue between theologians and evolutionary anthropologists on wisdom, humility, and grace. In theological spheres grace is common parlance, and despite debates about its meaning, its importance is presupposed, much as a term such as fitness would be for a biologist. In an anthropological sense, grace is best envisioned as part of the semiotic landscape in which theologians work out the significance of the experience of God for the human condition. The point is that for a theologian grace is commonly described in universal terms, while for an evolutionary anthropologist the engagement with such a topic is bound to be culturally specific. Karen Kilby and Matthew Ashley’s opening chapter on grace in the thought of Karl Rahner raises some important challenges along with opportunities for dialogue. Rahner, unlike many theologians of his time, was interested in evolutionary theories, and human evolution in particular. He resisted aspects of the traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, while insisting on other aspects, such as the importance of monogenism and human uniqueness. He was also both traditional and controversial on matters related to grace. Traditional Roman Catholic teaching on grace pairs grace with human nature and understands it as an elevation of our natural, though wounded, condition, arising as a result of the fall of humanity into sin. The stress is on the gift of God in grace. Protestant tradition is more likely to stress the work of grace as a remedy for sin and an understanding of human nature as totally corrupted by the fall of humanity. Rahner, in so far as he has a more positive perception of humanity, fits more readily alongside an affirmation of humanity in its natural condition. He rejects, however, any quasi magical understanding of the work of grace in human life, insisting first that for every human being, believer or not, a universal apprehension of God is not just possible, but part of what makes us human. That apprehension takes the form of an infinite horizon that may or may not be consciously acknowledged. Through that horizon, the finite world becomes understood. Anthropologists would certainly agree that the capacity for such belief is a core aspect of humanity, but generally would not follow Rahner’s certainty of the underlying causes for such a reality. For

204  Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes Rahner, it is humanity’s apprehending connectivity with God that forms the basic structure of human acts. Moreover, the offer of grace is universal, which means it is not so much undeserved gift, but God’s presence apprehended by the soul as God’s self-­communication. This in-­depth experience of God is what traditional theologians have termed uncreated (rather than created) grace, since it is less about the transformation of the human person, and more about a sense of God’s indwelling presence. Such a presence is always on offer, whether recognized or not; thus, like the apprehension of God, one can see its potential as a universal experience. The authors acknowledge that given Rahner’s claim that such an all-­encompassing presence of God is operational regardless of specific acknowledgment of belief, it raises the difficult question of how one might understand and assess such an experience in empirical terms without recourse to a particular set of faith traditions and theologies. However, this only applies if Rahner’s schema is accepted at face value. If, instead, his work on grace is understood as a particular way of interpreting religious experience, then alternative forms of dialogue come to the surface. Oliver Davies’ chapter comes from the opposite end of the spectrum of theological interpretations of grace. Instead of taking one scholar’s work and analysing it in depth in the way characteristic of Kilby and Ashley’s chapter, Davies tries to develop a theological understanding of grace within the evolutionary process, one that a broader arena of scholarship might discern. Unlike the qualms raised by Kilby and Ashley on the fruitfulness of theologians entering into dialogue with evolutionary anthropology, Davies insists that it is easy to see why theologians should accommodate evolution. The difficulty that he raises is why evolutionary anthropologists should want to take theology seriously. His way around this is not to go into the depth of a specific tradition’s claim, but instead to argue that transcendental claims do not have to be accepted as such, but must be seen as part of theological analysis. He asserts that scientific discoveries offer rich resources which can shape Christian theology in a way that allows it to embed itself in current cosmology, rather than cosmologies of previous centuries. In other words, he argues in his chapter that theology needs to update its task by engaging the discoveries of scientific work deliberately and systematically. Davies acknowledges, with Kilby and Ashley, that grace is hard to understand for those trained in a scientific milieu. So, rather than insist on using this language, he opts for a related concept of freedom, which is easier to incorporate. Both grace and freedom have characteristics that draw humanity forward in new ways. And it is the drawing out in cosmological history that Davies tackles next, beginning with cosmic entanglement and then moving to the emergence of life. For Davies, this ‘big picture’ perspective helps provide the context for understanding human meaning, including religious meaning. The combination of humanity’s responsiveness to the world and its shaping of the world through the mind is like an inhaling and exhaling where both brain and body are fully immersed. Gone is any notion of a

Grace 205 dualism of mind and body; rather, the social cognition system is fully embedded in an archaic curvature that is then superseded by a linguistic curvature and eventually a reflexive curvature. For Davies, the linguistic turn allows genuine human freedom to develop, while the reflective turn allows deeper reflection on how to use that freedom. And that concept of freedom, suggests Davies, is what Christians call grace. In this manner, Davies offers not an invitation to evolutionary anthropologists to engage with the theological conceptualizations of grace, but rather an acknowledgement that theologians can connect to aspects of contemporary human evolutionary studies and revise the language and framing of grace by placing it in dialogue with more familiar elements within the landscape of anthropological approaches. The contrast between Kilby and Ashley’s perspective and Davies’ perspective is rather too obvious to mention. One is focused on a particular tradition and finds in that tradition the rich texture of what grace means and how it can be understood in human religious experience. The other rejects the language of grace in favour of a much broader understanding of the work of human emergence in a large-­scale cosmological account of what it means to be human. If the former keeps theology to a degree apart from evolutionary anthropology, the latter attempts to merges the two together in a synthetic whole. Who is correct? Our position would be to opt for a different tack altogether and trace the emergence of religious belief as understood in evolutionary terms as a way of trying to understand and foreshadow the more distinctive theological experience of grace in a particular tradition. Jon Marks offers a fitting conclusion by approaching this issue indirectly in his chapter on the basic lines of continuity and discontinuity in human evolutionary history. We are not simply continuous with our nearest primate ancestors, even if there are aspects that are deeply conserved. The lines of continuity between humans and other apes include abilities to be rational, utilitarian, and problem-­solvers. Human distinctiveness lies in its semiotic quality and ability to accumulate more and more sophisticated cultural practices; which Davies also notes in his chapter. But it is fatherhood that Marks flags for special attention, as fathers exist in kinship relationships, whereas other primates understand themselves as biologically related, rather than related through kin. Kinship is imaginatively constructed in human societies through a diversity of relationships which may or may not be biological. Humans make kin. Marks is reluctant to use the term ‘morality’ for other primates, since in primate societies decisions are made about what is or is not or what might be the case, rather than whether something should or should not take place. In other words, the assumption is that there is a higher order level of reflexivity in human societies, a point that Davies also comments on in his chapter. The moral systems in human societies have three layers: a social layer that is learned and practiced, a cultural layer that is locally specific, and a linguistic layer that provides rules and abstractions and is symbolic in form. The third layer helps to define moral boundaries and identities via a particularly complicated and dynamic suite of semiotic,

206  Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes historical, institutional, political, and even imagined patterns and processes. Apes do not have the ability to create and maintain such boundaries and social imaginaries.1 Of course, the tricky issue in this case is how far these different social layers interact or intersect with each other, and the particular socio-­political contexts in which more emotively charged tendencies might be predominant in terms of motivation, but are covered by other layers. For example, there may be a claim to have a religious reason for an action, when further analysis suggests the underlying motivation is political. Or, there may be a rationale given for an action that looks perfectly logical or reasonable, when the underlying motivation is what Aquinas refers to as the moral passions. Such discussions on reason and emotion go back to the roots of morality ever since the debate between Kant and Hume. The analysis of how far humility, grace, and wisdom might be understood from the perspective of evolutionary anthropology in the last section of Marks’ chapter serves to corral important themes in the book at large. Humility in ape societies, if it can be called that, arises out of fear of the consequences of not being submissive or the understanding of the outcomes of interacting with others gained through experience. This is different from a deliberate diminishment of one’s capacities, which would seem to go against basic assumptions of Darwinian selection. When it comes to analysis using hunter-­gatherer societies, Marks is sceptical here, too. In this case, humility would be normative, so could not be counted as a virtue. However, we suggest that just because a virtue is habitual in a given community, this does not necessarily mean it is easy to do or second nature, even if the consequences are severe. Even the most egalitarian human communities have rules, expectations, and structures that challenge each individual’s own desires and perspectives. The inner motivations towards pride will always be there to a degree, even if they are suppressed in egalitarian societies through the strong cultural norms that are in place. Marks tries to portray grace as goodness for its own sake, rather than through the lens of freedom, as does Davies. Something like grace could not, through any stretch of the imagination, be envisaged for apes, at least as a self-­conscious experience. However, from a theological perspective the work of grace is a work of God, which means that grace could theoretically be inclusive of other social beings. There are stories in the Bible, for example, of other animals listening and responding to God. The theological tradition does not deny its possibility, but now this is back to Kilby and Ashley’s point, that it cannot be assessed in empirical terms. Marks makes the intriguing suggestion that wisdom is not necessarily about a utilitarian requirement but allows an imagined environment for the mythological past or possible futures along with obligations to other people in a social environment. Such a suggestion brings to the surface the rich possibilities for thinking through wisdom from different angles. Indeed, the book as a whole could be understood, at least in part, as an exercise in wisdom, trying to trace as best we can different ways of perceiving the world and finding lines of both continuity and divergence between

Grace 207 and across disciplines. We hope the readers of this volume will not only agree with that message, but see this as a starting point in a wider and larger conversation about what makes human beings not separate from the world, but quite distinct in it.

Note 1 Drawing on Charles Taylor’s renowned concept of social imaginaries. See, Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003).

10 What difference does grace make? An exploration of the concept of grace in the theological anthropology of Karl Rahner Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley Is grace a concept that can be put to use in a dialogue between evolutionary anthropology and theology?1 Consideration of the theology of grace brings us right to the edge, we would suggest, of the possibility of a useful dialogue. The aim of this chapter is to think a little about the nature of this edge. After a brief and schematic survey of the place of grace in western Christian theology in general, we will test the limits of interdisciplinary dialogue by introducing, and reflecting on, the theology of grace of one particular thinker, Karl Rahner (1904–1984), one of the major Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. Grace plays an important role in all Christian theology.2 It is understood as a gift of God, freely given, undeserved. And it is fairly universally held to be bound up with salvation: salvation can be understood in various ways,3 but however it is understood, it is almost always held to be only possible through God’s grace. But though grace is important across the board in Christian thought, it plays a slightly different role in Catholic theology than it does in classical Protestant thinking. Grace is almost always construed contrastively. Grace is thought to confer a ‘more’, but then it matters a great deal how you answer the question: ‘more with regard to what?’ A great deal of Protestant thought is shaped by paring grace with sin: sin is the problem to which grace is the solution. So a Protestant ‘anthropology’, a Protestant way of thinking about human beings, very often envisages the person as centrally a dialectic between sin and grace – it uses these two contrasting categories as key in interpreting our experience. (This is the pattern structuring the familiar ‘Amazing Grace’ hymn.) In Catholic thought, on the other hand, grace is typically paired not with sin but with nature. ‘Nature’, however, it must be added, is a term of art in theology. It does not in this context signify the (non-­human) natural world, but rather the whole world the way God created it – or, since most theologians do not limit the concept of creation to something that happened at a particular moment, it would be better to say that nature signifies the world the way God creates and holds it in being in an ongoing way. It is worth noticing that in this

210  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley usage nature actually includes culture rather than standing in contrast to it – part of what God creates is human beings, and human beings are (presumably) animals who create cultures. Whereas the typical Protestant contrast of grace with sin is a contrast, one might say, of good with bad, the typical Catholic contrast of nature with grace is a contrast of good with better. Sin, or more generally the sense that things are not as they should be, still plays a certain role, but it is less central. Nature is ‘wounded’, one would say in traditional Catholic theology, by sin, but it is not destroyed; though flawed, it remains – since created by God – good. And, most significantly, even if nature were not wounded, there would still be a role for grace. Grace is a further gift, taking nature in some sense beyond itself; and even given the presence of sin, grace heals nature by ‘elevating’ it and not simply by returning it to a state without sin. This, then, is the general pattern common to a lot of Catholic theology. But Catholic theology is not a united and monolithic affair, and so a more helpful way to put it might be to say that this is the framework within which Catholic theologians engage in debate with one another. Everyone agrees that nature is good, and that grace ‘does not destroy nature but perfects it’,4 but then they disagree about how beyond this to imagine the nature/grace relationship. The field within which these disagreements have been played out for the past few centuries within Catholic theology was mapped by the Catholic definition of the role of grace given at the Council of Trent (1545–1563) in response to the Protestant reformers.5 Three principles of this mapping are important for our purposes. First, Trent confirmed the assertion noted previously, that human nature, while wounded by sin, is still whole and good. Nature is still capable of exercising its basic powers and activities (including those moral and intellectual acts that are involved in being a Christian), even though this exercise will be impeded to some degree by the presence of sin. Second, it asserted that grace is not ‘owed’ to the creature by God (something with which Protestants would agree); it is an unowed further gift, subsequent to, but distinguishable from, the gift of being created at all. Third, the bishops and theologians at Trent took aim at what they took to be the Protestant position that a part of the gift of faith is a firm conviction that one is saved now (which is to say, that one can have some experiential confirmation that one is within the ambit of grace). Against this, Trent did agree that the gift of faith (itself a grace) brings the conviction that in general the grace of God, merited by Christ’s sacrifice, is more than sufficient to heal sin and elevate human nature to beatitude. However, in each particular case, all that one can expect is to be able to hope that this is true for oneself. One needs therefore to work out, ‘in fear and trembling’ during this life, one’s salvation, by overcoming one’s sinful habits and performing works of love and service towards one another, which (always assisted by grace) will merit beatitude in the next life.6 Karl Rahner’s theology, particularly on the difference grace makes in human experience and action, was shaped in reaction against one particular

What difference does grace make? 211 way of heeding these three principles. This was the way taken by Neo-­ Scholasticism, a general approach to theology dominant in the Catholic world between the first and the second Vatican Councils – so, more or less between 1870 and 1965.7 It imagined nature and grace to operate in two different domains that are cleanly distinguished from one another, so much so that the effects of grace do not really register within the domain of nature. To see why Neo-­Scholasticism saw this position to be the theological articulation of Trent’s definitions, a slight detour into the Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophical anthropology that undergirds it is necessary. In broad strokes, for Aristotle (and for Thomas, who drew on him) a living being is ‘happy’, that is, experiences a satisfying sense of fulfilment, when it successfully exercises those powers that are essential to it. ‘Successful’, in this context, means in accordance with the end or purpose that a given power naturally intends. Birds are happy when they fly; fish are happy when they swim, and so on. Human beings are happy when they exercise those powers distinctive to their common human nature. For Aristotle and for Thomas, these are the powers of reason and free will. Human beings, then, are happy (or fulfilled) when they use their reason to understand the world correctly and when they use their freedom (will) to act in accordance with the rational structure of the world. For the Neo-­Scholastic theology of grace this meant that if human nature is still essentially intact despite the presence of sin (that is, the first of the three Tridentine principles we identified before) then it can still exercise those powers essential to it, and can still experience the happiness that this exercise brings. To be sure, grace is necessary to assist nature in performing virtuous actions more consistently than it would otherwise be able to do given the wounds of sin.8 What is crucial for our purposes, however, is that on this account, grace would not make a difference in how the act itself was experienced, or for the happiness that arose out of doing it. To claim that it did make a difference, the Neo-­Scholastics argued, would imply that there was something deficient in the natural act for which grace was making up. This would mean, in turn, that there was something deficient about nature, as God created it (and which had not been destroyed, but only weakened, by sin). Yet if this were so, God really would ‘owe’ the creature this grace. If I give my daughter a smartphone that is a good thing; but if I do not also give a data plan, the phone is deficient. If I were subsequently to give her a data plan, this would not be an unowed gift; rather, I would be giving something that I owed as part of the original gift. So too, if nature requires something additional to function fully, then a good God would owe the creature this addendum. To provide it would not be a gift; it would not be grace, as Trent had defined, following the second of the principles summarized previously. Moreover, if one could identify in one’s experience the presence of grace because the act ‘felt different’, to put it rather crudely, then one would have grounds for a confidence that one is on the road to salvation, i.e. a confidence that Trent had ruled out with its proscription of ‘the vain confidence of the heretics’.

212  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley Grace did have an effect, to be sure: the most important effect of all, since it makes our final salvation possible. Grace allows the human act to achieve a purpose far beyond its own reach: beatitude; union with God in the next life. But this achievement is not ‘felt’ in the natural act per se. The technical language for this was that a graced act had a ‘dual finality’. It realized two outcomes: first, the natural goal proper to the act, and with it the happiness and fulfilment that comes when any creature exercises its natural powers successfully; and second, merit which a just God would reward with eternal life.9 But these two outcomes, or finalities, were strictly separate. In short, if someone tells the truth under the impulse of grace, it would ‘feel’ no different than if that person had done so without grace. Both acts, as natural, would be experienced in the same way. The difference is not a difference that shows up in experience. The importance of this theology of grace for our theme is that grace is not, on this view, a part of human experience. It does not leave any traces in our experience of the world and, a fortiori, in the responses to that experience which, in some cases, are left behind as artefacts for anthropologists to study. If this be the case, the question of whether grace might function as a locus of dialogue between theology and anthropology is settled quite definitely – and in the negative. There would be nothing that could be adduced in human experience, past or present, which could both be recognized by the theologian as indicating the presence of grace and also leave a trace in experience, or in human activity, which could be studied by the anthropologist. Rahner, however, rejected this theology of grace, particularly on the question of whether there can be an ‘experience of grace’. He argued that this theology did not adequately attend to Scripture, and that it did not really correspond (as the Neo-­Scholastics claimed) to the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Moreover, he found it unsatisfactory because it could not do justice to the experience of discernment, as described by Ignatius of Loyola (Ignatius founded the religious order – the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the ‘Jesuits’ – to which Rahner belonged). Ignatius assumed (as did most traditions in Christian spirituality) that God’s presence in grace could be discerned by careful attention to experience, and that in so discerning one could make decisions and order one’s life in order to cooperate with that presence.10 For these and other reasons, Rahner laboured to work out a position in which grace does affect experience, and profoundly.11 In fact, for him the offer of grace, at least, is universal, and for those who respond, grace becomes ingredient to all experience. This might seem promising for the dialogue we consider here. Yet, in rejecting the Neo-­Scholastic formulation of the theology of grace, he did not reject the concerns of remaining faithful to the Catholic tradition – Trent in particular – that led Neo-­Scholasticism to formulate it. As a result, as we shall see, the advances in possibilities for a dialogue between theology and anthropology regarding grace may not be as productive as might first be hoped. Before turning to assess how, and to what degree, Rahner’s theology of grace might offer an advance, it will be worth getting a clearer sense of Rahner’s counterproposal

What difference does grace make? 213 to the Neo-­Scholastic system by situating his concept of grace within his broader ‘theological anthropology’.

God and humanity As will become clear, it is an abstraction to talk about human nature while bracketing the reality of grace.12 Moreover, a dialogue with anthropology requires an account of human experience as transformed by grace. Nonetheless, it can be helpful to start with a discussion of human nature without this further elevation. Being related to God is absolutely fundamental, on Rahner’s account, to who and what we are. It is not just that God, ‘in the beginning’, created us, or even that God constantly sustains us, together with the rest of creation, in being. On Rahner’s account, we are, whether we realize it or not, always already related to God in a further way, and this relatedness is absolutely essential to us. It is so deeply built into us, so critical in making us what we are, that nothing we do would be possible without it. The relationship to God is so much a part of our structure, if Rahner is to be believed, that it is not possible to properly describe what it is to love, or what it is to will or even to think, in the perfectly ordinary, human way, without bringing God into the description.13 Rahner develops this claim in the most detail in connection with knowing. He begins with what he takes to be the most basic and simple kind of knowing, when a person recognizes something for what it is and forms a judgment such as, ‘this is a chair.’ In every such basic intellectual act, Rahner maintains, in every act of knowing a particular, limited object in the world, the knower also has a certain awareness of the unlimited, of ‘infinite Being’, and at the same time, of God. The easiest way to get a sense for what Rahner means by this slightly startling claim is to attend to the various images he relies on, images of how this awareness (or whatever it is) of God is related to our knowing of particular items in the world. He sometimes, first of all, uses an image of movement. Rahner describes the mind as reaching out beyond any given object, any particular item in the world – a chair or a table – towards infinite being and therefore God. Furthermore, he says, it is only in the process of this reaching out that the particular object can be grasped in the first place. The mind has a dynamism, a fundamental drive, beyond any and every finite object, and even beyond the entire collection of finite objects, which we call the cosmos, towards the infinity of being and God, and this dynamism is a ‘condition of the possibility’ of knowledge – without such a drive towards the infinite the finite could not be known.14 To get some purchase on these images of movement and dynamism, it might be helpful to consider the process of climbing a mountain. Imagine Edmund Hillary working his way up Mount Everest. On the one hand, Hillary moves towards the peak; on the other hand, he takes individual steps. The two things are of course inseparable: Hillary takes steps because

214  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley of the desire to get to the top, and the movement towards the summit happens only in his steps. Now suppose that Mount Everest is in fact infinitely high, so that though each step is a movement towards the peak, nevertheless with each step Hillary remains at the same infinite distance from it. Then it would be possible to say something similar to what Rahner wants to say: in every finite act, with every step, there is a dynamism, a fundamental drive, towards the infinite goal, and on the other hand, it is only because of the infinite goal, only because Hillary’s eyes are set on the top, that the finite acts, the individual steps, can take place. Just as moving towards the mountain’s peak is not something that occurs in addition to putting one foot in front of the other, so the mind’s dynamism towards infinite being and God always takes place in the act of knowing particular objects in the world. And just as it is the basic desire to get to the top that makes the climber take individual steps, so it is that Rahner says that the mind’s basic dynamism towards God is what makes possible its knowledge of finite objects. At certain points this analogy breaks down. Climbers are usually set on getting to the top in a very explicit, fully conscious way. If you had asked Edmund Hillary what he was doing, he would have told you in no uncertain terms. The same cannot be said of the dynamism towards God: this takes place on such a deep level, by Rahner’s account, that though it shapes and indeed makes possible all that we do, a person may not be explicitly conscious of it. In fact, it is impossible ever to be fully reflectively aware of it. Another problem with the analogy is that it suggests a kind of progress – step by step the climber moves ever higher – and this is not part of what Rahner is trying to put across with his talk of movement and dynamism. He is describing what he takes to be the basic structure of any of our acts, not something that accumulates over a lifetime. A second, more straightforward image that Rahner sometimes uses to point to the relationship between our awareness of God and our knowledge of everyday things is that of light. We need light to see, and when we look at a book, we also at the same time have a certain awareness of the light, which allows us to see it. Our awareness of infinite being and of God can be thought of along the lines of a light which, in illuminating particular objects, makes them knowable. As light enables us to see, so the awareness of God, the mind’s reaching out towards God, enables us to know. And just as we do not see the light in the same way as we see the book – the book is what we see, the light is that by which we see – so though we have a kind of awareness of God, we never have a knowledge of God akin to our knowledge of objects. Rahner’s favourite image, the one to which he returns most frequently, is that of a horizon. We typically orient ourselves with respect to specific objects (where they are; how far away they are; their relative positions with respect to one another) because they show up against the horizon. One reason for disorientation or vertigo in space is that there is no horizon.15 Thus,

What difference does grace make? 215 the horizon is an essential element of experience, although we seldom advert to it as such. Rahner presses the analogy that we always know particular objects against and within the infinite horizon of Being and therefore of God. One might equally use the language of foreground and background here. Particular finite objects – chairs and tables and eggs – are in the foreground of our knowing, but in the background – the background which can itself never become the foreground – is our awareness of infinite Being and of God. In one sense, then, Rahner’s basic picture of the human being looks to be quite an optimistic one, theologically speaking: everyone is at all times having to do with God, tacitly aware of God. But in another way the picture is not quite so positive, since it is also true that no one ever experiences God, or is aware of God in the way in which we experience or are aware of anything or anyone else. This is a point on which Rahner insists again and again: God is never known in the way that objects are known. The infinity towards which the mind moves is never grasped in the same way as are the objects which become knowable in this movement. The light is never known directly, but only in its illumination of particular, concrete objects. The light is only known as that which lights up what we see before us. The ever-­present mystery of our existence can never be penetrated and grasped; it can never be solved, so that it ceases to be a mystery. The horizon is never known itself as an object, for every knowing of an object occurs against the background of the horizon. The horizon, as Rahner sometimes puts it, always recedes – if we try to grasp it, to talk about it, to think about it directly, we are necessarily using words and concepts which are really only appropriate for objects. If we try to grasp the horizon, if we try to speak of it or to focus our vision on it, we find that what we have in fact got is again an object, something that is itself only known against a horizon that has escaped our articulation. The horizon of our knowing cannot itself become an object within the horizon. God, in short, is never known as one thing among others. God cannot ever be for us ‘a member of the larger household of all reality’.16 Rahner suggests indeed that atheists are perfectly right in denying the existence of God if it is this sort of God, a God who can exist side by side with the things in the world, that they think they are denying.17 So, there is a sense in which what Rahner gives with one hand he takes away with the other. In one sense we always have God, in another sense we never do. God is always present but never grasped, always there but never as something we can get into focus, always experienced but never pinned down.

Grace Rahner understands grace to be, most fundamentally, God’s self-­ communication;18 he thinks it is encountered on the same level of our

216  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley existence as the apprehension of God just described; and he thinks it is encountered universally. We will briefly expand on each of these points in turn.19 First of all, according to Rahner, grace is, most fundamentally, God’s ‘self-­ communication’. What he intends by this can most easily be seen by way of contrast. Often believers use the word ‘grace’ in connection with some particular help or particular gift from God. With the help of God’s grace, someone might say, I was able to give up this or that bad habit. One may hope that if a difficult situation arises one will be given the grace to know how to respond properly. One may hope that God will be gracious and forgive one’s sins. Rahner would say that all these are legitimate ways to speak about grace, but that they all stem from something more basic and more profound. The most important thing that God gives in grace is not this or that particular gift, but God’s very self, and Rahner terms this God’s ‘self-­ communication’. From this one central gift flow the other more particular things which can also, in a secondary sense, be described by the word grace. A result of the fact that God gives God’s self to people and dwells in them, in other words, is that they are gradually transformed. To return to the comparison with Neo-­Scholasticism, with his insistence on the centrality of the notion of self-­communication, Rahner wants to reverse the way of thinking which prevailed in that theology. Neo-­Scholastic theology grouped graces that help us by healing the wounds of sin and enabling us to perform good works under the category of ‘created grace’. It is true that the ultimate aim of a graced life is what was often called the beatific vision, which is an intimate vision of God that, in fact, is tantamount to a sharing in God’s own Trinitarian life. This reality, just as much a gift and a grace, was named ‘uncreated grace’. But, with some variation, Neo-­ Scholastics mainly understood ‘created grace’ as an essential aid to perform actions and become the kinds of persons who merit uncreated grace in the next life. That is, the actions performed under the influence of created grace, and the changes they bring about in us, gradually transform us into the kinds of people for whom it is fitting to be given the beatific vision (that is, “uncreated grace”). Rahner disagrees. In his assessment, the more biblical view is that created grace flows from uncreated grace.20 The spirit of God dwells in a person, and as a result, ‘as a consequence and a manifestation’ of this divine self-­communication, she is transformed concretely and in particular ways.21 God transforms a person by giving himself to her, rather than giving himself to her because he has transformed her. This difference in ordering corresponds to a difference in emphasis. The tendency of Neo-­Scholastic theology was to see uncreated grace, God’s communication of himself to the soul, as secondary, at least when it comes to our earthly existence, and so to concentrate its attention almost exclusively on created grace. To reverse the ordering is, by contrast, to place uncreated grace, God’s self-­communication, at the centre of the picture from the very outset. What is new, then, is not the distinction between particular (created)

What difference does grace make? 217 gifts and God’s giving of God’s self, but the centrality which Rahner gives to the latter. And he would say that even this is not in fact new, but a return to something closer to the outlook of biblical and early Christian thinkers. A second distinctive feature of Rahner’s understanding of grace has to do with where he locates grace, with where he understands grace to be offered and perhaps received. God’s self-­communication occurs most fundamentally, Rahner thinks, on the level of transcendental experience. That is to say, in that region of our experience where we always go beyond and transcend all particular finite objects, on that level where we always have, whether we realize it or not, an awareness of God, there grace is offered and either accepted or rejected. Rahner is led to this position by the two elements of his response to Neo-­Scholasticism that we have already considered: on the one hand, he wants to say that grace is experienced; and on the other hand, to be true to the second and third principles of a Tridentine theology of grace given previously, he needs to say that by its nature grace cannot be experienced as one experience among others. First, then, it is important for Rahner to be able to insist that grace actually is experienced. As we have seen, he was unhappy with the understanding prevalent in the regnant Neo-­Scholastic theology of the first half of the twentieth century, according to which grace occurred, one might say, behind the believer’s back. With the assertion of a dual finality of a graced act – one finality that is experienced (the natural) and the other (graced) achieving its purpose outside of human experience – the crucial importance of grace (which, after all, any theologian must maintain) too easily became a very theoretical matter, something which in the day-­to-­day living of life made no impact. So grace must be able to be experienced – it must really affect people in the here and now. On the other hand, by shifting the priority to ‘uncreated grace’, according to which grace is actually God’s giving of God’s self, Rahner is able to assert that grace cannot be experienced as one thing among many others, as a particular experience we might have amongst, and on the same level as, all our other experiences, for God is not one object among others, not a ‘member of the larger household of all reality’. So grace must enter into our experience, but it cannot do so as one experience on a par with others. The only alternative, as Rahner saw it, is that it must be experienced on the transcendental level, never directly but always in and through all our other experiences, always in the background, always part of the general texture of our experience rather than one of the outstanding features of it. How, then, might this work? How exactly can grace be experienced on a transcendental level? As we have seen, on Rahner’s account it is part of our basic structure always to be related to God in all our dealings with the things of the world. This basic structure cannot itself be described as grace, for this is built into our very nature as human beings, and grace must be a gift, something which is not owed to human beings, something which goes

218  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley beyond their basic nature. So Rahner describes grace as a kind of change in our transcendence: even without grace we would have been aware of God, but not in the same way. God’s self-­communication to us has the effect of altering our relationship to our horizon, to the ‘mystery’ which surrounds us. How precisely is it altered? Here Rahner becomes elusive, and his language a little slippery: God becomes for us, he says, not just the infinitely distant goal of all our striving, but the goal which draws near, which gives itself. Whatever drawing near and self-­giving may mean, they do not, Rahner insists, mean that God becomes another object in the world which we can control. The God who gives himself in grace remains a mystery: grace is ‘the grace of the nearness of the abiding mystery: it makes God accessible in the form of the holy mystery and presents him thus as the incomprehensible’.22 Without ceasing to be God, in other words, and therefore ungraspable and incomprehensible, God somehow draws near and offers himself to us. We might get a little bit more purchase on what Rahner means by observing that he often talks about the experience of grace using the notion of ‘formal object’, drawn from scholastic (and even Neo-­Scholastic) epistemology. We can distinguish our experience of different objects (these are called ‘material objects’) from the way we experience them. We experience objects in different modalities. As an example, take colour. We do not experience ‘colour’ per se, as an object. Neither do we experience a particular colour, say ‘red’, as an object. We experience red sweaters: or sweaters (material object) as coloured (formal object). ‘Colour’ characterizes a feature of our experience which can only be thematized by reflection on our experience of specific objects. It is, in a sense, in the background. Following the analogy, Rahner will assert that with God’s gift of God’s very self to us, our experience changes – it gains a new formal object. We are now able to experience the world (including ourselves) as charged with God’s presence, as infinitely loved by God. Yet this is not the experience of a particular object, or region of objects in the world. It is still the experience of the same world, but ‘in colour’ rather than in ‘black and white’. Here the metaphor limps. Perhaps it was Gerard Manley Hopkins, the poet and fellow Jesuit, who captured this as only a poet could: ‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God’.23 Grace, then, is to be understood most fundamentally as God’s self-­ communication to us, and as such it is to be understood as occurring at the level of our transcendental experience, and even there as a ‘formal object’ of that experience. The third important feature of Rahner’s account of grace is its universality. According to Rahner, grace is not offered to some of us some of the time, but to all of us all of the time. The alteration in our relationship to our horizon, the drawing near of the goal of all our striving, is not something that flickers in and out, so that on good days God draws near and on others remains aloof. And it is not something which is given to some and withheld from others. It is a constant feature of all human beings’ experience, though it is a feature which can be resisted: ‘grace . . . always

What difference does grace make? 219 surrounds man, even the sinner and the unbeliever, as the inescapable setting of his existence’.24 The distinction, then, between what we are like by nature and what we are like by grace turns out to be only a theoretical one, for one never finds a human being in a state of pure nature.25 Our experience is always already, in Rahner’s account, affected by grace. We have a tendency to assume that to be a real gift, grace must somehow also be limited – its ‘gift character’ or un-­owedness is shown in that some are given it; others not. But Rahner thinks there is no really good reason for this assumption: it is quite conceivable that the whole spiritual life of man is constantly affected by grace. It is not a rare and sporadic event just because grace is unmerited. Theology has been too long and too often bedevilled by the unavowed supposition that grace would be no longer grace if it were too generously distributed by the love of God!26 Grace, then, always surrounds people and always affects them. But this is not to say that all stand in exactly the same situation with regard to grace, for there remains the question of the response one makes to the offer of grace. We have a fundamental freedom either to accept God’s self-­communication or to reject it. If we reject it, however, we do not make it go away, but instead we live in permanent contradiction with it. Our experience is always modulated by the offer of grace, which gives us a new formal object, a new horizon, whether we accept that offer or not. We are all always surrounded by grace, then, but we may not all be equally in what is traditionally called a ‘state of grace’. To say it again, ‘pure nature’ is only an abstraction. There are not some people who operate according to the economy of human nature, and who experience the world and their actions in it in one way, and another group of people who are incorporated into the economy of grace, and experience and act in the world in a different way. Besides other reasons for adopting it, this position can help Rahner avoid the accusation that if he describes grace as modulating our ‘natural’ experience to the better, then it becomes something owed us rather than a gift (the worry that led some Neo-­Scholastics to remove grace from human experience altogether). In his account, we simply do not know what purely natural experience might be, to which we might then make a comparison of graced experience and find that it is ‘better’, ‘more fulfilled’. All human experience is graced. While we can, and must, imagine the possibility of a world in which human nature operated without grace, and we must assert that it would be self-­sufficient and ‘happy’ by the measure of that nature, we have no real way of describing what they would be like, since we live in a world that was from the very beginning shaped by the freely willed intention of God’s part to give himself into the world. To sum up, then, the response to grace – the acceptance or rejection of it – is something that goes on at a very deep level. It is empirically, if not

220  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley logically, inherent to every natural act we perform. It is not one deliberate decision to be made among others, but the most fundamental decision that shapes all that a person does. And it is a decision that the person may be unaware of, and that one may make without even having heard of the concept of grace. So far we have been describing grace from the perspective of individuals, but it is also possible to articulate the meaning of grace, in Rahner’s view, from the point of view of the divine self-­communication to the world as a whole. One can think of all this, that is to say, as a single decision to communicate God’s self to the world, which is worked out through the human race as a whole and each individual separately. If grace is seen in this context, it begins to become possible to set out how Rahner understands Christ to come into the picture. But that is an aspect of Rahner’s thought that is probably not necessary to go into for our purposes here.

Grace, the saints, and the anthropologists A key thing to notice about grace, in the account we have just outlined, is that it is not one element in a human life amongst others. God does not drop by on particular days in our life, or zap us with some special thing at special times. All human experience is graced, or at least marked by the offer of grace. But this means, it would seem, that grace is not the sort of thing which one could spot, empirically. It would not seem to mark one kind of human activity as distinguished from another. Even in some alternate universe where we had lots and lots of detailed empirical data about our evolutionary ancestors, and other hominid species who may have lived alongside them, we would not be able to say, ‘Oh, there is where you can see that grace is at work’.27 Just as most theologians have for some time rejected an appeal to the ‘God of the gaps’ – God whose existence can be proven and whose nature can be understood by reference to holes in current scientific knowledge – so it seems we cannot (if we follow Rahner’s view at least) think in terms of a ‘grace of the gaps’. We will never be able to make the case for the impossibility of some particular human development if it were not for the presence of grace. Have we then, really, advanced far beyond the Neo-­Scholastic position? Must we end on such a negative note? Are we, perhaps, setting the bar for the (anthropological) usefulness of a theological concept too high by supposing that it would need to be translatable in a precise way into something empirically and concretely recognizable? Perhaps there is yet a little bit more to be said. One feature of Rahner’s understanding of grace is that while he supposes grace is always present as offer, he does not presume either that it is always accepted, or that, even if it is accepted on some fundamental level, it is always equally visible in its presence, or visible in the same way for every

What difference does grace make? 221 individual. Those who follow Rahner’s theology of grace might, then, in spite of the commitment to the universal presence of the offer of grace, nevertheless point to specific moments in their experience, or in what they observe of others – to particular choices, actions, or reactions – and think ‘there the grace of God was at work’.28 How might we think about this? Rahner gives some clues in various essays on the experience of grace, of the Holy Spirit, or of God. In these essays he will often point to experiences in which the transcendental element is so close to the surface, so close to capturing our attention, over and against the concrete, empirical content (or material object) of the experience, that we have grounds to say that we can discern that grace is indeed at work. Think back to the notion of formal object. While we never experience ‘colour’, per se, there are certain experiences in which the compelling power or attractiveness of being coloured is so present to us that we almost forget that we are looking at coloured objects and are taken simply with the reality of colour. A beautiful sunset, an image of a nebula from the Hubble Telescope, or a painting (Jackson Pollock’s ‘Number 8’, for instance, but one might also think of the remarkable use of colour and light in Rembrandt’s paintings) may bring us very close to grasping what the experience of colour itself might be, or certainly help us attend to the way our experience of objects is deeply shaped by the formal object of ‘colour’ even if we never experience it in itself. Might the same be said of certain human experiences when it comes to ‘grace’ as a formal object of all our experience? Rahner suggested it could be, in an early essay entitled ‘Reflections on the Experience of Grace’: Have we ever kept quiet, even though we wanted to defend ourselves when we had been unfairly treated? Have we ever forgiven someone even though we got no thanks for it and our silent forgiveness was taken for granted? Have we ever obeyed, not because we had to and because otherwise things would have become unpleasant for us, but simply on account of that mysterious, silent, incomprehensible being we call God and his will? Have we ever sacrificed something without receiving any thanks or recognition for it, and even without a feeling of inner satisfaction? Have we ever been absolutely lonely? Have we ever decided on some course of action purely by the innermost judgement of our conscience, deep down where one can no longer tell or explain it to anyone, where one is quite alone and knows that one is taking a decision which no one else can take in one’s place and for which one will have to answer for all eternity?29 In the light of the foregoing discussion we suggest that these kinds of experience are ones in which the ‘natural foreground’ of desires, aversions, and other motivations seem so inadequate for explaining our conviction and sense of fulfilment in embracing this experience or action, that explaining this conviction and fulfilment requires appeal to that further, transformed

222  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley horizon of our transcendentality, to the difference made by virtue of a newly possible formal object of our experience, by our being taken up in God’s own life. Rahner’s list is, to be sure, a bit on the depressing side; and he certainly does not mean by it that experiences of deep joy are not also experiences of grace. It is just that in the latter it is more difficult to attend to the element of grace. Yet, for some people, Rahner suggests, this element of experience becomes palpable in all experiences – the most joyful and the most humdrum and banal, or even the most painful and shattering.30 These people, according to Rahner, are the saints. In the way an experienced wine connoisseur can access dimensions of the experience of tasting wine lost on most of us, the saints have ‘got the taste of the spirit’. He goes on: While ordinary men regard such experiences merely as disagreeable although not quite unavoidable interruptions of their normal life – in which the spirit is merely the seasoning and garnish of a different life, but not real life itself – the man of the spirit and saint have got the taste of the pure spirit. The spirit is, as it were, drunk by them pure. This also explains their strange life, their poverty, their desire for humiliations, their yearning for death, their readiness to suffer, their secret desire for martyrdom. . . . Not as if they did not know that grace can also sanctify everyday and reasonable activities and transform them into a step towards God. . . . But they really know that man as spirit – precisely in real existence and not merely in theory – should really live on the border between God and the world, time and eternity, and they always try to make sure that they are really doing this.31 So, Rahner suggests, it is in the saint (and he would not deny that there are saints, in this sense, outside of Christianity) that the tacit awareness of grace has come closest to becoming an experience of grace per se. As the experience of lit objects can come close to being an experience of light, as the experience of objects figured against a horizon can come close to being an experience of that vast horizon itself, and as the experience of coloured objects can come very close to being an experience of colour, so too graced experience (in which, in principle the graced and natural can never be crisply distinguished) can come close to being an experience of grace – and it is the saint who is most able to approach (perhaps only asymptotically), regularly and consistently this eruption of the experience of grace from out of graced experience.32 Even here, though, it is not as if this delivers to us a domain of experience that can be precisely delineated – ‘this is grace and that is not’. And, of course, it will be possible for psychologists to exercise a sort of methodological atheism, to reject the appeal to anything transcendent or supernatural, to treat saints as objects for empirical investigation and explanation like any other. Nevertheless, perhaps here with the saints, the ‘religious geniuses’,

What difference does grace make? 223 we draw near to something in human culture which raises questions about that which is beyond nature – something that could at least call forth different hypotheses for explaining what makes their life at once the most inexplicable, while also, in so many cases, the most everyday and ordinary. These different approaches and hypotheses could ground a further dialogue between theologians and anthropologists. This approach might offer us a broader paradigm within which to think about human life and behaviour, whereby there is both a sense of that which is ‘natural’ to the species, and then moments of transcendence, moments where the natural is exceeded or broken through.33 One might of course reach for the more familiar language of statistics here and simply think of a distribution of behaviours and its ‘outliers’. But nothing commits us a priori to giving ultimate status to the thought patterns of statistics, useful though they are in some contexts. The theologian might argue that something in our own experience is better captured by the notion that we live with a sense of the ordinary, the natural, but also, often within those very experience, discern some more, as of a free gift, as of grace, when we or others somehow go beyond our nature. And if something like this nature/grace pattern illuminates our current experience better than concepts of statistical distribution, one might argue, should there be any reason to rule it out when framing our reconstruction of the pre-­historical?

Notes 1 We are grateful to Celia Deane-­Drummond, Agustín Fuentes, and all the organizers and participants in the Wisdom, Humility and Grace in Deep Time symposium at the University of Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa for their stimulus in writing this paper, and to Karen Kilby’s research assistant, Joshua Mobley, for his help in an earlier phase of this chapter’s drafting. Portions of this chapter draw on Karen Kilby’s SPCK Introduction to Karl Rahner (London: SPCK, 2007); cross-­referencing to the relevant chapters of that book will be provided. 2 What follows is not a sociological exploration of how average Christians – or Catholics or Protestants – tend to see grace, but an attempt to lay out how grace is understood in formal theological work within these traditions. The two things are of course connected, but in complex ways that are beyond the scope of this paper to consider. 3 Some of the contenders are ‘liberation’, ‘the beatific vision’, ‘ultimate union with God’, ‘complete human fulfilment’, or simply ‘whatever it is that is our final goal’. 4 This is a phrase Thomas Aquinas uses quite frequently. Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1.1.8; 1.62.5, www.newadvent.org/summa/1001.htm#article8. 5 For a comprehensive and readable recent account of Trent, see John O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). The relevant decrees are the Decree Concerning Original Sin (1546) and the Decree Concerning Justification (1547). For a translation of these decrees from the Latin, see John H. Leith, ed., Creeds of the Churches: A Reader in Christian Doctrine from the Bible to the Present, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1982), 405–424.

224  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley 6 In language typical of the polemical spirit of the age, this chapter of Trent was entitled, ‘Against the vain confidence of the heretics.” See Leith, Creeds of the Churches, 413. 7 We take this account of the Neo-­Scholastic position on grace from Gerald A. McCool, Nineteenth-­Century Scholasticism: The Search for a Unitary Method (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989), 7f., 196–201. See also Gerald A. McCool, From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989), 200–208. For Rahner’s specific reaction against the Neo-­Scholastic theology of grace, which he learned in his theology studies, see Philip Endean, Karl Rahner and Ignatian Spirituality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 35–41. 8 These little graced ‘pushes’ were grouped under the category of ‘created grace’ (for instance, the created grace of an inspiring poem or of a challenging homily), a category to which we will return shortly. 9 Even though, as Trent insisted, we can only have hope in the face of this justice of God’s because of God’s gift of grace, and not because of our own exercise of our powers. 10 For this reason, as Philip Endean correctly notes, Rahner’s theology of grace is closely linked to his theology of spiritual (or mystical) experience. See Endean, Karl Rahner and Ignatian Spirituality. 11 He lists some of the reasons for which he believes that the ‘run of the mill’ Neo-­ Scholastic approach can and should be revisited in Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 4, translated by Kevin Smyth (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1966), 169–174 (‘Nature and Grace’). 12 This section draws heavily on Kilby, SPCK Introduction, ch. 1. 13 One might ask how widely ‘humanity’ is meant here, and in what follows. Rahner’s position suggests that if we suppose a hominid such as Homo naledi to have been self-­conscious (which the H. naledi burial methods tend to suggest) then all the following analysis would apply to them.   For him, the key feature of being human is self-­transcendence that brings a certain reflexivity and self-­consciousness (as will be described momentarily). See his brief remarks in Karl Rahner, Hominisation: The Evolutionary Origin of Man as a Theological Problem (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), 102–109. 14 Readers may hear the overtones of Immanuel Kant in this language of ‘the condition of the possibility’. Rahner’s relationship to Kant is interesting, in that he borrows some of the apparatus of Kant’s thought, but turns it towards quite different conclusions than those at which Kant arrives. For Kant, when we attend to the conditions of the possibility of experience, we realize that God is in principle not something we could experience and are forced into a kind of agnosticism; for Rahner, when we turn our attention in the same direction, we realize that experience itself would not be available without a prior orientation to God. 15 Anyone who watched Alfonso Cuarón’s film Gravity (Warner Brothers, 2013), about the misadventures of two astronauts cast adrift by the destruction of their space station, will have been able to experience at one remove what it is like to experience reality ‘without a horizon’. 16 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, translated by William Dych (New York: Herder and Herder, 1982), 63. 17 For a similar argument, developed more fully, see Denys Turner, ‘How to Be an Atheist’, New Blackfriars 83, no. 977–978 (July/August 2002): 317–335. 18 His views change over time; this is the mature version. 19 Portions of this section are drawn from Kilby, SPCK Introduction, ch. 2.

What difference does grace make? 225 20 See, for example, Paul’s description in Romans 5:5: ‘God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us’. It is God that is given to us in grace. 21 Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 1, translated with an introduction by Cornelius Ernst (New York: Crossroad 1982), 322. 22 Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 4, 56. 23 Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works, edited by Catherine Phillips (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 128. 24 Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 4, 181. 25 It is, to be sure, an important one, once again because of Trent, and the second of the three previously discussed principles in particular. We must distinguish between a gift-­ character that comes from being created and a further gift-­ character of being the potential recipients of God’s self-­communication. One might say that empirically all of us are given both gifts; but logically, the one is distinct from the other. 26 Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 4, 180. 27 This is why, in the essay on hominization mentioned earlier, Rahner contends that the transition from an animal, or group of animals, not characterized by (graced) transcendence to one that is, is not within the realm of empirical detection or verification. See Rahner, Hominisation, 106–107. Even in an imaginary universe in which God decided to create (itself, a great gift), without giving the further gift of God’s own self-­communication, the transition to transcendence would not be empirically detectable. 28 For a careful exploration of the particular kinds of experience in which Rahner thought the working of grace could be detected, see Shannon Craigo-­Snell, Silence, Love, and Death: Saying Yes to God in the Theology of Karl Rahner (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008). 29 Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 3, translated by Karl-­H. and Boniface Kruger (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 87 (‘Reflections on the Experience of Grace’). 30 In this, Rahner was working out his way of talking of ‘finding God in all things’, and ‘being a contemplative in action’, which were spiritual mottos of his religious order. 31 Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 3, 88 (‘Reflections on the Experience of Grace’). When Rahner writes ‘man of spirit’ in this essay, by spirit he really just means what we described earlier as the human dynamism evident in every act of knowing and choosing, human transcendentality, as it were. 32 If there were space for a fuller discussion of Rahner’s understanding of the saints, it would be important to explore his interest, in other writings, on the role of joy in the lives of the saints. 33 Though this patterning of the relationship of grace to nature may remind readers of recent discussions of ‘emergence’, it does not, I think, quite map onto them. Exploring the difference, however, is beyond the scope of this essay.

Glossary beatitude/beatific vision:  the direct communication of God to an individual, typically understood as the eternal state of those saved. created grace:  gifts from God that elevate human nature towards salvation. formal object:  in Scholastic epistemology, an aspect of an object perceived along with the object, but distinguishable from it. For example, the colour of a sweater.

226  Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley material object:  in Scholastic epistemology, the thing perceived, i.e. a sweater (of any colour). Neo-­Scholasticism:  general approach to theology dominant in Catholicism between the first and second Vatican councils, roughly 1870–1965. Characterized by a strong emphasis on the theology and philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and the tradition of his interpretation. theological anthropology:  a theological understanding of what it means to be human. Tridentine:  theology associated with the Council of Trent (1545–1563), convened in response to the Protestant Reformation. uncreated grace:  the gift of God’s own presence, God’s self.

Bibliography Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, 2nd rev. ed., translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns, Oates & Washburne, Ltd., 1920–1941), online version produced by Kevin Knight, available at www.newadvent.org/summa/index.html. Craigo-­Snell, Shannon. Silence, Love, and Death: Saying Yes to God in the Theology of Karl Rahner (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008). Dych, William. Karl Rahner (London: Continuum, 2000). Endean, Philip. Karl Rahner and Ignatian Spirituality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works, edited by Catherine Phillips (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Kilby, Karen. Karl Rahner: Theology and Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2004). Kilby, Karen. SPCK Introduction to Karl Rahner (London: SPCK, 2007). Leith, John H., ed. Creeds of the Churches: A Reader in Christian Doctrine from the Bible to the Present, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1982). Lennan, Richard. The Ecclesiology of Karl Rahner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). McCool, Gerald A. From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989). McCool, Gerald A. Nineteenth-­Century Scholasticism: The Search for a Unitary Method (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989). O’Donovan, Lee, ed. A World of Grace: An Introduction to the Themes and Foundations of Karl Rahner’s Theology (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1995). O’Malley, John. Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith, translated by William Dych (New York: Herder and Herder, 1982). Rahner, Karl. Hearer of the Word, translated by Joseph Donceel (New York: Continuum, 1994). Rahner, Karl. Hominisation: The Evolutionary Origin of Man as a Theological Problem (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965). Rahner, Karl. The Practice of Faith: A Handbook of Contemporary Spirituality, edited by Karl Lehmann and Karl Raffelt (New York: Crossroad, 1986).

What difference does grace make? 227 Rahner, Karl. Spirit in the World, translated by William Dych (New York: Continuum, 1994). Rahner, Karl. Theological Investigations, vol. 1, translated with an introduction by Cornelius Ernst (New York: Crossroad, 1982). Rahner, Karl. Theological Investigations, vol. 3, translated by Karl-­H. and Boniface Kruger (New York: Crossroad, 1982). Rahner, Karl. Theological Investigations, vol. 4, translated by Kevin Smyth (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1966). Turner, Denys. ‘How to Be an Atheist’. New Blackfriars 83, no. 977–978 (July/ August 2002): 317–335. Vorgrimler, Herbert. Understanding Karl Rahner: An Introduction to His Life and Thought (New York: Crossroad, 1986).

11 Grace in evolution Oliver Davies

In transdisciplinary terms, it can seem that there is no more challenging dialogue than that between theology and evolutionary science. It is easy to see why theologians may feel the need to accommodate evolution, but it is less clear why evolutionary scientists should reciprocate. But in fact, contemporary findings suggest that there are grounds for the view that each discipline presupposes the same centre of attention. These are the historical and environmental processes of human becoming in evolution and, in theology, an intense inquiry into the limits and possibilities of human becoming as received and understood within Christianity. It is important to note that the ‘transcendental’ claims which deeply shape modern Christian theology do not have to be accepted a priori in this investigation.1 The relevance of Christianity here resides in the proven capacities of Christian religion to shape highly diverse societies over two millennia. It is this possibly unparalleled phenomenon (or ‘achievement’) of Christianity’s hyper-­production of community, in terms of historical concreteness, which makes this dialogue between evolutionary science and theology both interesting and necessary. From a theological perspective then, it will be important that we set aside the language of ‘transcendentalism’ (the ‘transcendent-­immanent’ binary). This term was first used in 1839 and its historical origins may lie in the highly innovative theology of Ulrich Zwingli when, some 300 years earlier, Zwingli began to understand the challenges posed by reductive materialism and its progeny, a powerful, science-­based dualism. In its place, Zwingli advocated a turn to human subjectivity and a recodification of the relation between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit, in which the role of the latter is to set the former free from matter.2 However deeply grounded the ‘transcendent-­ immanent’ binary may be in modern theology, it remains bound up with certain early modern scientific perspectives on the world which have been entirely dissolved by new scientific insights and perspectives. Our theological predicament is that we remain deeply shaped, in ways we may scarcely be aware, by arguments in the past. The questions which have animated theology from the sixteenth century, in ways of which we may scarcely be aware, have concerned how we can replace traditional – scriptural/ medieval – cosmology as the intellectual context for faith with new

Grace in evolution 229 frameworks based upon subjectivity or culture. In contrast, the future-­ orientated issues of our own day concern the challenge of reintegrating Christianity into our own contemporary cosmologies, which are altogether more hospitable to this task. This does not amount to rehearsing cosmologies from the past, or indeed their theologies. It concerns rather learning from them in ways which will allow theology to become once again authentically cosmological. Importantly, the emphasis here does not lie upon constructivism and our ingenious capacity to design a cosmology which ‘fits’. Rather, our motivation must be the simple recognition that science today appears to offer us far-­reaching cosmological resources for potentially developing realist frameworks for contemporary theologies to a degree not seen before. In this chapter, it is proposed that the pre-­modern concept of ‘grace’ can fruitfully be explored in parallel with ‘freedom’. The former offers an outrightly theological description of something that is fundamental to the human, while the latter sits within a naturalistic discourse, which is explored here in terms of a straightforward account of human evolution. We shall argue that today both ‘grace’ and ‘freedom’ can indeed be understood to describe something which is fundamental to the human and to our experience of being human, and we shall argue that this allows a third possibility, which incorporates features of both, to come into view. In short, we argue that contemporary scientific advances in the area of evolution and cosmology are making a new kind of theology possible: one which potentially redefines the boundaries in the dialogue between theology and science, allowing each to come closer to the other.

‘Grace’ and ‘freedom’ According to Thomas Aquinas, gratia speaks to us of free gift, virtue and fullness, as well as gratitude for something graciously or unconditionally given.3 Grace is not itself a virtue, but is rather the root of both faith and the virtues.4 It is in our essence rather than in the power of the soul. Grace is free and, like goodness, it attracts us.5 Freedom likewise is used in varied contexts to mean different things. But there is also consistency here: that we are ‘free’ suggests we have the power of choosing among different options and can exercise responsibility. We are answerable for what we say and do. We experience both limit and freedom from limit. And freedom, like grace, attracts us. It too inheres within us and is not easily objectified except in its ‘fruits’ or instantiations. The key question here is to what extent the theological term ‘grace’ overlaps with the experience we have of being ‘free’ as modern human beings. If freedom with its power of choice, its answerability, and its experience of limit and the overcoming of limit is a characteristic of behaviourally modern human beings, then freedom must itself be bound up with the processes of becoming that we call evolution. The question then is the following: what kind of

230  Oliver Davies light does the word ‘grace’ and the word ‘freedom’ cast on our experience of being alive in this universe today?

Cosmology Quantum field theory began with Max Planck’s experiment on the structure of light in 1900. This was followed in 1905 by further critical insights into the speed of light by Albert Einstein and the special theory of relativity. It was discovered that reality behaves very differently at the micro level than it does at the classical level at which we live. At the fundamental level of reality, according to the classical form of quantum mechanics, entities exist in a state of ‘superposition’, which means that they are in both a wave and a particle state at the same time. It is the action of the observer which causes the ‘collapse of the wave function’, by which matter-­energy ceases to be both a wave and a particle, becoming a real particle at a particular place. At this level it is only when the observer asks where the particle is (by seeking to measure it) that nature gives its answer. Prior to the collapse of the wave function through the observer, reality remains only probabilistic and in potential. It is not possible to predict on the basis of the wave function where the particle will appear. Nor is it understood how the instantaneous transition from wave to particle occurs.6 Notoriously, quantum field theory presents us with deeply complex and counter-­intuitive structures, even though it has often been described as the most empirically tested and successful of all scientific theories.7 Celebrated experiments by Albert Einstein in 1935 and by John Bell in 1964 established that once particles have collided and have exchanged or ‘processed’ information, they nevertheless remained in an ‘entangled’ state with one another. Information communicated to one particle is instantly received by the other, even though they are so far apart that it is not possible for any communication to pass between them at the speed of light. Since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, the phenomenon of entanglement suggests that reality at the quantum level is ‘non-­local’: the world is not constituted in space and time but in the ‘non-­local’ unity that is deeper than space and time.8 We should note also the fact that it is only because the human capacity for mathematical calculation gives cognitive access to the deepest structures of the universe that we are able to grasp something of this ‘ultimate’ unity of the universe we find ourselves in. The suggestion is that the mathematical mind can penetrate reality at a depth which lies beneath the causal matrix itself: the human mind can access interconnected reality at a point that is prior to space and time. As Henry Stapp and others have argued, the quantum level of reality appears to escape causality and so, from one perspective at least, can be described as ‘free’.9 The possible connection between the pre-­causal ‘freedom’ of quantum effects and our own personal sense of freedom, through conscious self-­awareness and our power of choice, has long been recognized,

Grace in evolution 231 although it has often been regarded as speculative. In recent years, however, the argument for the possibility of a quantum basis to consciousness has gathered momentum. There are four influential schools today which suggest that this may be the case, or at least point to this as a possibility. Advocates of Integrated Information Theory suggest that self-­awareness, in which ‘every experience exists intrinsically and is structured, specific, unitary and definite’, is itself ‘identical with’ integrated information systems.10 The work over decades of Sir Roger Penrose, Stuart Hameroff, and, more recently, Anirban Bandyopadhyay point to the extensive harmonization of microtubules as a possible quantum ground of consciousness.11 Thirdly, recent research in quantum biology has shown widespread quantum effects in the organization of life. Jim Al-­Khalili, Johnjoe McFadden, and others have argued that the quantum harmonization of ion channels in the electro-­ magnetic field may be linked with action potential.12 Fourthly, there has also been a focus from within mathematical psychology on the potential role of quantum connectivity in decision-­making, since the mathematical structures of the mind in decision-­making bear a resemblance to the paradoxical structures of sub-­atomic particles.13 The human mind can simultaneously hold together mutually exclusive understandings, repeating the wave-­ particle dualism which is at the centre of fundamental material reality. Such research signals the possibility that consciousness itself may be shown to be a function of a far-­reaching quantum interconnectedness in the human brain. We have to consider also that qubits or ‘quantum entanglements’ are being used in the generation of a ‘quantum computer’ revolution whereby a relatively small number of entangled particles can be harnessed to do computations of unparalleled speed. There are contrasts of scale between the thousands of entangled particles which are on the horizon of quantum computing and the 13 trillion potential neural connections of the human brain. But it is evident that future computer technologies will further draw upon the quantum structures of the universe (‘hacking into the way the universe computes’, in Seth Lloyd’s phrase14). There may be a corollary to this in that the identification of quantum processes as underlying human consciousness leaves open the possibility that at its deepest levels the universe may, in a sense, be thinking in us.

Evolutionary anthropology We have to begin here with the consideration that life and quantum realities may be linked. To quote Al-­Khalili and McFadden, ‘Life could not have survived and evolved on earth if it hadn’t, billions of years ago, “discovered” the trick of encoding information in the quantum realm’.15 Physics presents us with an important background then, but any inquiry into ‘freedom’ and ‘grace’ needs to focus on the ‘porosity’ and openness of the human in and to the world which we can associate with our rich cultural and existential life. We need to look beyond physics to signs of a ‘thicker’, more human

232  Oliver Davies participation in the world, while retaining the knowledge that this will – in all likelihood – be predicated upon the fundamental structures of reality itself, as these exist within and beyond the brain, shaping what it is to be a modern human being. The first ‘archaic’ curvature This and the following two sections are based upon the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, especially human niche construction, as laid out by Agustín Fuentes at the outset of this volume.16 The construction of the human niche entails increasing levels of the internalization of the environment within the human person on the one hand, and an increasing penetration of the human mind into the environment, on the other. This is a primary movement of ‘inhalation and exhalation’. The former manifests as the imaginative internalization of external stones as tools, for instance, while the latter entails art, travel, and again processes of imagining something not yet seen. We can still see the same rhythms endlessly reproduced today in our media, in terms of ‘cyborgs’ and ‘space-­travel’. Both are bound up with our inherent potential for distinctively human creativity.17 In the first place, we need to point here to the so-­called ‘social cognition system’. This is the ancient and powerful sociality of the human body, recently laid bare by neuroscience, which manifests both as observable ‘body language’ but also as pre-­ thematic (pre-­ conscious) informational exchange of astonishing speeds and density. If the human brain can be called ‘the most complex system so far encountered anywhere in the universe’, then two human brains extensively interacting may be taken to point to an ‘event-­horizon’ of unparalleled, interactive complexity.18 The ‘social cognition system’ has been shown to be the default system of every human body today, reflecting our long history as an exceptionally altruistic social species, as presented in this volume by Penny Spikins.19 One of its characteristics is that the pre-­thematic ‘social cognition system’ appears to be grounded in a set of responses which are so ancient and fundamental that they can be described as ‘world’ as much as they can be described as ‘interaction’ and ‘encounter’ between two persons. This has been well summarized in the following terms: When we interact with another person, our brains and bodies are no longer isolated, but immersed in an environment with the other person, in which we become a coupled unit through a continuous moment-­to-­ moment mutual adaptation of our own actions and the actions of the other.20 These multiple reflex interactions occur at speeds well below the threshold of conscious perception, but communicate as a sense of ‘rapport’.21 As ‘complex, multi-­layered, self-­organizing’, they sit within the early motor

Grace in evolution 233 system, involving sets of mutual responses ranging from eye movement, facial expression, posture, and gesture to the synchrony of brain waves, breathing, and pulse: a subtle and pervasive ‘alignment of behaviour’ which includes ‘synergies, co-­ordination and phase attraction’.22 The ‘enactivist’ school of social neuroscience draws our attention to the extent to which in this ‘self-­organizing’ system the world can be said to enact itself in the phenomenon of jointly activated social cognition systems: When I see the other’s action or gesture, I see (I immediately perceive) the meaning in the action or gesture; and when I am in a process of interacting with the other, my own actions and reactions help to constitute that meaning. I not only see, but I resonate with (or against), and react to the joy or the anger, or the intention that is in the face or in the posture or in the gesture or action of the other.23 Our ‘social cognition system’ has been called our ‘participatory sense-­ making’ of the human other.24 It is a species-­wide system in which the evaluative protocols of one are densely exposed to the evaluative protocols of the other. As a ‘self-­organizing’ material system of unparalleled informational exchange and density, it has been the means whereby human beings have closely bonded for millions of years, and still do bond through ‘body language’ and embodied social interaction. What is striking, however, is the extent to which this is a radically open and inclusive system (as we see in the young child). At its core it shows very high levels of reflexivity, affectivity, empathy, and evaluation (allowing us to estimate what kind of person it is we are talking to and whether we are getting on). But these powerfully evaluative functions are themselves pre-­thematic (non-­self aware), and so we know them as feelings or intuitions about the other. In contrast to this pre-­thematic engagement with its unconditional inclusivity, the engagement of our self-­awareness will often reflect more selfish considerations and also, of course, calculated forms of prejudice.25 From an evolutionary perspective then, we can see the human ‘social cognition system’ as an ancient and immersive system which has constituted the primary mode of our participative belonging within our environment: as a social environment constituted by the internalization of the faces and bodies of others. But we have to balance this system with a different kind of penetration into the environment, which we can associate with extensive tool manufacture and use. In early Oldovan and then Acheulian technologies, the human imagination penetrated stones, identifying possible alternatives of shape: the tool and the improved tool.26 Inventive toolmaking and tool use on a large scale, together with our social nature, in combination, reflect and enhance our powers of imagining and constitute a distinctive feature in our lineage. We can call this our first, or ‘archaic’, curvature.

234  Oliver Davies The second ‘linguistic’ curvature Of course, all creatures make themselves at home in their ‘niche’, but as genus Homo, we appear to have done this in unusually intensive ways. The combination of an ever deeper penetration into the world through immersive, interfacial relations on the one hand, and through technologies on the other, set us on a particularly dynamic evolutionary trajectory. This ‘archaic’ or first curvature then leads to a second or ‘linguistic’ curvature which is associated with the production of advanced language. Advanced language proceeded from an immersive outflow into the environment and a parallel internalization of the material properties of words by the mind, through which, over time, environment became anatomy. Thus the internalization of the sound and shape of words, in parallel with the internalization of tools, became a new and more powerful mode of being in the world. Words gave us a new power of understanding the world, through reference and joint attention, but also through the development of advanced mathematics. Words constituted a new depth of our ‘porosity’ in and to the world: the human mind can filter and control the world through words, but it is also through words, and their material properties, that the world floods into us through cognition, performance, and the arts.27 At the interface of self and world, words are both tool and voice, both rhythm and imagination, both inside and outside. The context for this second, ‘linguistic’ curvature, in parallel with the advent of behaviourally modern human beings, can specifically be linked with features characteristic of human populations some tens of thousands of years ago. With ‘domestication by 15–10,000, and early cities by 5,000 years ago’, as Fuentes records, we see the emergence of characteristically modern human behaviours, such as mathematical computation, the beginnings of complex ritual and religion, as well as previously unseen occurrences of systematic group violence (massacres of population groups). The last of these is arguably the product of a new power of naming the other as ‘non-­human’.28 We can also include here, in the early Neolithic, the first widespread appearances of representations of the human face.29 This suggests a new power of objectification of the most fundamental orientation of all: the immersive reality of our human interfacial relations. This second level of curvature is associated with the internalization of thousands of arbitrary material signs by which advanced modern language was formed and, with that, advanced linguistic consciousness. It is easy to forget that every word we use in our advanced languages today is encoded in its physical properties and its meanings within the human brain in strongly interconnected networks. Each is internalized from the environment, according to its material properties of sound and shape, and is an arbitrary, symbolic representation of conceptual meanings which are themselves also encoded in the ‘semantic system’ of the human brain.30 Practices of ‘learning’, or the internalization of so many words and phrases, which

Grace in evolution 235 can dominate our lives through and beyond our early years, effect a material change within us and they have been compared with the ‘extended’ and ‘supersized mind’ theories of AI.31 This second ‘curvature’ of the human mind into the material world is not purely an extension of the first, however. Rather we should think of the ‘linguistic curvature’ as being itself the creative product of the ‘archaic’ one. Arguably the sustained ‘ratcheting effect’ of the two different orientations in the world – interfacial orientation and hand-­world tool use in combination – generated a new system which itself represents enhanced creativity. And in fact, as we shall see later, the occurrence of the more advanced forms of social learning, which are associated with advanced language, are sporadic or spontaneous, and do not fit easily into a straightforwardly progressive model. Advanced language is an autonomous system characterized by its creativity then, where creativity in this case signals spontaneity and freedom, and with freedom, the power of choice. According to Saussurean linguistics, each utterance (parole) requires a choice between a range of potential linguistic possibilities (langue). We can choose our words from all the possible words we might have used, and so allow ourselves to be held to account for them. The third ‘reflexive’ curvature In its creativity then, the second ‘linguistic’ curvature, which brings us the freedom of choice associated with advanced language, and contains within itself a further ‘reflexive’ curvature which specifically concerns how we use our linguistic freedom.32 We can use it to choose one word or another, or to reason deliberatively, coming to judgment about what we shall do or what we shall believe. The productivity of language is evident in its shaping of our power to act and in its shaping of our world (cf. tool use). But advanced language also inevitably separates us from the world. The internalization of words serves to ‘press minds like ours from the biological flux’ and powers a new, higher framework of integrated self-­reflexion.33 But this power of objectification comes at a price. In the orientation of their self-­awareness, the observer and actor are both somehow ‘outside’ the world which they observe or in which they choose to act. The second, ‘linguistic’ curvature of mind into world which gives us self-­awareness and awareness of the world around us means that we are also always at a distance from the world, separated from it precisely by the distance that comes from our power of choice. But this second curvature contains the possibility of a third. Since in every instance words are themselves material form, there always exists the possibility that, should I choose to do so, I can also highlight the materiality of the sign at the point of utterance, through rhyme, chant, song, or, in written form, through calligraphy. At one level, this points to Roman Jakobson’s theory of ‘poeticity’, by which my choice of words will reflect at least in

236  Oliver Davies part the physical properties of surrounding words, as in the production of a rhyming text.34 But it may also appear in quite different and more directly social ways, as when I consent to ‘going with the flow’ when I sing, chant, or dance with others, or lose myself in the calligraphic reproduction of words. In religious contexts, people consent to praying repetitively in ways that allow the sound or rhythm of the words to be emphasized. The key factor to note then is that what is aimed at here is not the predominantly referential function of words which serve to name, establishing order and control. Rather, what comes to the fore is a quite different, more ancient, often repetitive function of words based upon the materiality of the signs which all of us share. Since advanced linguistic consciousness is what we are as subjects, the freedom we have to emphasize the materiality of words, beyond their power of reference, is effectively the celebrating of our human embodiment together. It is through the material form of our words, as sound or shape, that our advanced linguistic mind is most directly in the body. The dense linguistic architecture which gives us our advanced linguistic consciousness is itself the product of processes of internalization, by analogy with the way that the human brain ‘internalizes’ the stone held in the hand so that it becomes a highly effective tool. Words then are ‘social tools’, and when we directly emphasize their materiality, by freely foregrounding their sounds and shapes, the human mind indirectly finds its way back into our human embodiment, in a free communitarian act. What we are calling here the ‘third curvature’, which is the deeper entry of mind into the body, generates a sense of ‘freedom in’ (which is to say, ‘freedom in materiality’) and it is closely bound up with the production of community. ‘Freedom in’ is principally constituted in our encounter with the human other – in the shared celebration of our materiality – as mind. It is not surprising, therefore, that this third, ‘reflexive’ curvature should be closely associated with the intensive forms of community that we know as religions. The celebratory group performance of the materiality of the sign in ritual constitutes a shared, non-­local state of openness of mind – or ‘porosity’ – to the reality of the material world. It points both to the unity of mind and body which occurs in that moment, and also to the ‘togetherness’ of one body with others, in a rhythmic or synchronized harmonization. We know today that this synchrony repeats the deepest nature of embodiment as harmonious system, underlying the phenomenon of consciousness. The intense, synchronic informational exchange systems of our human social cognition system reach far back in time. These denote our fundamentally participative belonging in the world, which remains the case in whatever way our more recent advanced linguistic consciousness may construe the nature of the world and how we are within it. Even the most scientifically astringent and committed example of modern Homo faber is fundamentally in the world through the massively

Grace in evolution 237 complex and dense exchange of information which constitutes the basis of our proximate sociality. Here we see the very core of human niche construction. Our internalization of the human other creates deep, pre-­ linguistic community which we carry with us through life, returning to our loved ones to refresh ourselves at its spring. This other self – we can call it Homo socius – has its own way of reasoning (‘social’ or ‘relational reasoning’) and its own form of life. Moreover, it also has its own kind of freedom. Freedom in: freedom which is within our participative belonging in the world. There is, of course, only one self, but it is a self who is profoundly shaped by two quite different evolutionary strategies: the interfacial social on the one hand who builds community (‘multiplying the human resource’) and the toolmaker and user who controls and shapes the environment in habitable and sustainable ways on the other. Jayne Wilkins has drawn our attention to the importance not of technological advances or new behaviours in human evolution, but rather to the distinctive role and nature of different kinds of social learning, exercised specifically in the making of sophisticated tools. She states: While there are anatomical changes that mark the speciation of Homo sapiens, the first appearance of our species is not associated with major technological or behavioural changes. Instead, the archaeological record documents spatially and temporally discontinuous variation in social learning mechanisms and sociality.35 This leaves us with a striking image of Homo socius and Homo faber in deep continuity with one another, precisely at the point of the production of tools. These two strategies – of sociality and technology – have combined in our evolution: together they are niche construction. Whether they still combine, and how this question can be addressed, is the topic of another day. Each of the three ‘curvatures’ outlined here marks a new stage in human access to the environment, entailing behavioural and anatomical processes which furthered our niche construction. We can identify this niche construction with our belonging in the world. With the production of advanced language, through the internalization of material signs, the momentum of this evolution has shown itself to be one which enhances our human freedom. Religions, and Christianity among them, implicitly foreground this freedom in the shaping of their moral imperatives. The concept of freedom is at the heart of Christianity, and Christians will want to call this ‘grace’. But the freedom which comes into view through our evolutionary history seems to lie deeper than these distinctions. Just how ‘deep’ can our freedom be? Arguably, it is our capacity to be free in this world which marks the point of our deepest humanity. We can call it ‘freedom’, or we can call it ‘grace’; but neither excludes the other.

238  Oliver Davies

Notes 1 On the nineteenth-­century origins of this term, see Johannes Zachhuber, ‘Transcendence and Immanence’, in The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth Century Christian Theology, edited by Daniel Whistler (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 164–181. 2 Oliver Davies, ‘Spirit, Body and Letter’, in The Spirit and the Letter: A Christian Tradition and Its Late Modern Reversal, edited by Paul Fiddes and Günter Bader (London: T&T Clark Continuum, 2013), 179–194. 3 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Latin and English, edited by T. Gilby and T. C. O’Brian (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode; New York: McGraw Hill, 1964–74), I – II, q. 110, art 1, response. 4 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, art.3, reply to objection 3. 5 For an extended discussion of ‘grace’ and ‘nature’ in the context of Karl Rahner, see Karen Kilby and J. Matthew Ashley, ‘What Difference Does Grace Make? An Exploration of the Concept of Grace in the Theological Anthropology of Karl Rahner’, current volume. 6 Alexander Wendt, Quantum Mind and Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 43–57; Shimon Malin, Nature Loves to Hide: Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality, a Western Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 111–119. 7 Henry P. Stapp, Quantum Theory and Free Will, 2nd ed. (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017), 43. 8 Niels Bohr, ‘Can Quantum-­Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?’ Physical Review 48, no. 8 (1935): 696–702; John S. Bell, ‘On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox’, Physics Physique Fizika 1, no. 3 (1964): 195–200. 9 Henry P. Stapp, Quantum Theory. 10 G. Tononi et al., ‘Integrated Information Theory: From Consciousness to Its Physical Substrate’, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17, no. 7 (2016): 450–461. 11 S. Hameroff and R. Penrose, ‘Consciousness in the Universe: A Review of the “Orch or” Theory’, Physics of Life Reviews 11, no. 1 (2014): 39–78; Subrata Ghosh, Satyajit Sahu, and Anirban Bandyopadhyay, ‘Evidence of Massive Global Synchronization and the Consciousness: Comment on “Consciousness in the Universe: A Review of the Orch or Theory” by Hameroff and Penrose’, Physics of Life Reviews 11, no. 1 (2014): 83–84. 12 Jim Al-­Khalili and Johnjoe Mcfadden, Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology (London: Transworld Publishers, 2014), 231–265. 13 James M. Yearsley and Jerome R. Busemeyer, ‘Quantum Cognition and Decision Theories: A Tutorial’, Journal of Mathematical Psychology 74 (2016): 99–116. See also E.M. Pothos and J.R. Busemeyer, ‘Can Quantum Probability Provide a New Direction for Cognitive Modeling?’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36, no. 3 (2013): 255–274. 14 See Closer to Truth interviews on ‘Does Information Create the Cosmos?’ www. closertotruth.com/series/does-­information-­create-­the-­cosmos (accessed 11 September 2019). See also Seth Lloyd, Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos, kindle ed. (London: Random House, 2007). 15 Al-­Khalili and McFadden, Life on the Edge, 229. 16 I am adapting the term ‘gravity’ here from the title of Simone Weil’s short work, ‘Gravity and Grace’, in which she states: ‘Grace is the law of the descending movement. To lower oneself is to rise in the domain of moral gravity. Moral gravity makes us fall towards the heights’. See Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace (London and New York: Ark Paperbacks, 1987), 1–4.

Grace in evolution 239 17 Agustín Fuentes, The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional (New York: Penguin Random House, 2017). 18 Adam Zeman, A Portrait of the Brain (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 1. 19 Rogier B. Mars, Franz-­Xaver Neubert, MaryAnn P. Noonan, Jerome Sallet, Ivan Toni, and Matthew F.S. Rushworth, ‘On the Relationship between the “Default Mode Network” and the “Social Brain” ’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6 (2012): 1–9; Wanqing Li, Xiaoqin Mai, and Chao Liu, ‘The Default Mode Network and Social Understanding of Others: What do Brain Connectivity Studies Tell us’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 (2014): 1–15; P.A. Spikins, H.E. Rutherford, and A.P. Needham, ‘From Hominity to Humanity: Compassion from the Earliest Archaic to Modern Humans’, Time and Mind 3 (2010): 303– 325. See also Shihui Han, The Sociocultural Brain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 20 I. Konvalinka and A. Roepstorff, ‘The Two-­Brain Approach: How Can Mutually Interacting Brains Teach Us Something About Social Interaction?’ Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6, no. 215 (2012): 2. 21 Linda Tickle-­Degnen and Robert Rosenthal, ‘The Nature of Rapport and Its Nonverbal Correlates’, Psychological Inquiry 1, no. 4 (1990): 285–293. 22 Enrique Di Paolo and Hanna de Jaegher, ‘The Interactive Brain Hypothesis’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6, no. 163 (2012): 1–16; L. Schilbach et al., ‘Toward a Second-­Person Neuroscience’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36, no. 4 (2013): 393–414. 23 Shaun Gallagher, ‘Understanding Others: Embodied Social Cognition’, in Handbook of Cognitive Science: An Embodied Approach, edited by Paco Calvo and Toni Gomila (San Diego: Elsevier, 2008), 449. 24 Di Paolo and Jaegher, ‘The Interactive Brain Hypothesis’, 2. 25 Chris D. Frith and Uta Frith, ‘Implicit and Explicit Processes in Social Cognition’, Neuron 60, no. 3 (2008): 503–510. 26 D. Stout and T. Chaminade, ‘Stone Tools, Language and the Brain in Human Evolution’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 367, no. 1585 (2012): 75–87. 27 Rowans D. Williams, The Edge of Words (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2014). See also Alan Barnard, Social Anthropology and Human Origins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 90–110; and, in this volume, Andrew Robinson, ‘On the Origin of Symbols: Archaeology, Semiotics and Self-­ Transcendence’, current volume. 28 Vittorio Gallese, New Scientist 221, no. 2952 (2014): 1. See also Nam C. Kim and Marc Kissel, Emergent Warfare in our Evolutionary Past (Routledge: London and New York, 2018). 29 Ian Kuijt, ‘The Regeneration of Life’, Current Anthropology 49, no. 2 (2008): 171–197. 30 Alexander G. Huth et al., ‘Natural Speech Reveals the Semantic Maps That Tile Human Cerebral Cortex’, Nature 532, no. 7600 (2016): 453–458. See also Robinson, ‘On the Origin of Symbols’. 31 Andy Clark, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action and Cognitive Extension (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 32 On niche construction and language, see Chris Sinha, ‘Language and Other Artifacts: Socio-­Cultural Dynamics of Niche Construction’, Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015): 1601; see also Oliver Davies, ‘Niche Construction, Social Cognition, and Language: Hypothesizing the Human as the Production of Place’, Culture and Brain 4, no. 2 (2016): 87–112. 33 Clark, Supersizing the Mind, 53–60.

240  Oliver Davies 34 Roman Jakobson, ‘Linguistics and Poetics’, in Selected Writings III: Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1981), 18–51. 35 See Jayne Wilkins, ‘Archaeological Evidence for Human Social Learning and Sociality in the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa’, current volume. See also Marc Kissel, and Agustín Fuentes, ‘ “Behavioral Modernity” as a Process, not an Event, in the Human Niche’, Time and Mind 11, no. 2 (2018): 163–183.

Glossary curvature:  a neologism adapted from Simone Weil’s understanding of ‘gravity’ as something which combines depth with height. The more deeply we enter our environment, through niche construction, the greater our power of conceptualization. Extended Evolutionary Synthesis:  a new evolutionary theory which includes the principle that organisms modify the environment they belong to through niche construction. grace:  in Thomistic discourse, grace is like a gift freely given and is a quality anchored in the soul rather than in the powers of the soul. Homo socius:  as a partner to Homo faber, Homo socius appears in Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (Penguin Books, 1966), 69. The Latin term ‘socius’ means ‘friend’ or ‘companion’. qubit:  a qubit or quantum bit is the basic unit of quantum information. A qubit is a two-­state quantum mechanical effect in which opposite effects simultaneously occur (as in the spin up and spin down of an electron). social or relational reasoning:  this refers to reasoning which internalizes the perspective of the other and so escapes instrumentalization. It characteristically accepts and works with the complexity of the world – as this comes to meet us in other human beings – rather than reducing the complexity of the world as in instrumental reasoning. transcendence and immanence:  Karl Hermann Scheidler wrote an article for the General Encyclopaedia for the Sciences and the Arts in 1839 in which this term was first used in a binary sense to reflect the transcendentalism of modern German philosophy. But it also reflected the paradox that modern theistic religion requires a transcendence which presupposes but goes beyond immanence.

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Grace in evolution 241 Bell, John S. ‘On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox’. Physics Physique Fizika 1, no. 3 (1964): 195–200. Berger, Peter, and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966). Bohr, Niels. ‘Can Quantum-­Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?’ Physical Review 48, no. 8 (1935): 696–702. Clark, Andy. Supersizing the Mind. Embodiment, Action and Cognitive Extension (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). Davies, Oliver. ‘Niche Construction, Social Cognition, and Language: Hypothesizing the Human as the Production of Place’. Culture and Brain 4, no. 2 (2016): 87–112. Davies, Oliver. ‘Spirit, Body and Letter’. In The Spirit and the Letter: A Christian Tradition and Its Late Modern Reversal, edited by Paul Fiddes and Günter Bader (London: T&T Clark Continuum, 2013), 179–194. Di Paolo, Enrique, and Hanna de Jaegher. ‘The Interactive Brain Hypothesis’. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6, no. 163 (2012): 1–16. Einstein, A., B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen. ‘Can Quantum-­Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?’ Physical Review 47, no. 10 (1935): 777–780. Ernst, Cornelius. The Theology of Grace (Notre Dame, IN: Fides Publishers, 1974). Frith, Chris D., and Uta Frith. ‘Implicit and Explicit Processes in Social Cognition’. Neuron 60, no. 3 (2008): 503–510. Fuentes, Agustín. The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional (New York: Penguin Random House, 2017). Gallagher, Shaun. ‘Understanding Others: Embodied Social Cognition’. In Handbook of Cognitive Science: An Embodied Approach, edited by Paco Calvo and Toni Gomila (San Diego: Elsevier, 2008), 439–452. Gallese, Vittorio. New Scientist 221, no. 2952 (2014): 1. Ghosh, Subrata, Satyajit Sahu, and Anirban Bandyopadhyay. ‘Evidence of Massive Global Synchronization and the Consciousness: Comment on “Consciousness in the Universe: A Review of the Orch or Theory” by Hameroff and Penrose’. Physics of Life Reviews 11, no. 1 (2014): 83–84. Hameroff, S., and R. Penrose. ‘Consciousness in the Universe: A Review of the “Orch or” Theory’. Physics of Life Reviews 11, no.1 (2014): 39–78. Han, Shihui. The Sociocultural Brain: A Cultural Neuroscience Approach to Human Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Huth, Alexander G. et al. ‘Natural Speech Reveals the Semantic Maps That Tile Human Cerebral Cortex’. Nature 532, no. 7600 (2016): 453–458. Jakobson, Roman. ‘Linguistics and Poetics’. In Selected Writings III: Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1981), 18–51. Kim, Nam C., and Marc Kissel. Emergent Warfare in out Evolutionary Past (Routledge: London and New York, 2018). Kissel, Marc, and Agustín Fuentes. ‘ “Behavioral Modernity” as a Process, not an Event, in the Human Niche’. Time and Mind 11, no. 2 (2018): 163–183. Konvalinka, I., and A. Roepstorff. ‘The Two-­Brain Approach: How Can Mutually Interacting Brains Teach Us Something About Social Interaction?’ Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6, no. 215 (2012): 1–10. Kuijt, Ian. ‘The Regeneration of Life’. Current Anthropology 49, no. 2 (2008): 171–197.

242  Oliver Davies Li, Wanqing, Xiaoqin Mai, and Chao Liu. ‘The Default Mode Network and Social Understanding of Others: What do Brain Connectivity Studies Tell US’. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 (2014): 1–15. Lloyd, Seth. Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos, kindle ed. (London: Random House, 2007). Malin, Shimon. Nature Loves to Hide: Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality, a Western Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Mars, Rogier B., Franz-­Xaver Neubert, MaryAnn P. Noonan, Jerome Sallet, Ivan Toni, and Matthew F.S. Rushworth. ‘On the Relationship between the “Default Mode Network” and the “Social Brain” ’. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6 (2012): 1–9. Pothos, E.M., and J.R. Busemeyer. ‘Can Quantum Probability Provide a New Direction for Cognitive Modeling?’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36, no. 3 (2013): 255–274. Schilbach, L. et al. ‘Toward a Second-­Person Neuroscience’. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36, no. 4 (2013): 393–414. Sinha, Chris. ‘Language and Other Artifacts: Socio-­Cultural Dynamics of Niche Construction’. Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015): 1601. Spikins, P.A., H.E. Rutherford, and A.P. Needham. ‘From Hominity to Humanity: Compassion from the Earliest Archaic to Modern Humans’. Time and Mind 3 (2010): 303–325. Stapp, Henry P. Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, 2nd ed. (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-­Verlag, 2004). Stapp, Henry P. Quantum Theory and Free Will (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017). Stout, D., and T. Chaminade. ‘Stone Tools, Language and the Brain in Human Evolution’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 367, no. 1585 (2012): 75–87. Tickle-­Degnen, Linda, and Robert Rosenthal. ‘The Nature of Rapport and Its Nonverbal Correlates’. Psychological Inquiry 1, no. 4 (1990): 285–293. Tononi, G. et al. ‘Integrated Information Theory: From Consciousness to Its Physical Substrate’. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17, no. 7 (2016): 450–461. Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace (London and New York: Ark Paperbacks, 1987). Wendt, Alexander. Quantum Mind and Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Wheeler, John Archibald. ‘Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links’. In Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information, edited by W. Zurek (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 2009), 3–28. Williams Rowan D. The Edge of Words (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2014). Yearsley, James M., and Jerome R. Busemeyer. ‘Quantum Cognition and Decision Theories: A Tutorial’. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 74 (2016): 99–116. Zachhuber, Johannes. ‘Transcendence and Immanence’. In The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth Century Christian Theology, edited by Daniel Whistler (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 164–181. Zeman, Adam. A Portrait of the Brain (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009).

12 Continuities and discontinuities in human evolution Jonathan Marks

Introduction My recent interests lie in the qualities of the scientific narratives that we construct about who we are (human nature and diversity) and where we come from (human origins).1 While humans are simultaneously both continuous with the apes and discontinuous from the apes, reflecting the ‘descent with modification’ of which Darwin wrote, these continuities and discontinuities have different value. In science, the continuities are more commonly emphasized, which may serve to reinforce our ape ancestry against an imaginary creationist interlocutor.2 Significantly, however, mid-­twentieth century evolutionary biologists had ridiculed this reductive approach as ‘nothing-­ butism’ – as in ‘we are nothing but made-­over apes’.3 Thus, to represent this viewpoint – that we are just apes – as the viewpoint of science is quite problematic. The statement that we are just apes is not so much a statement on behalf of science, but a statement on behalf of reductionism – in particular, the reductionism that privileges genetic relationships over all others. After all, while we have recognizable aspects of ape ancestry in the structure of our shoulders and sacral vertebrae, our bodies are anatomically easily distinguished from the apes by simply knowing what to look for. But since genetic similarity is more readily quantifiable than anatomical, mental, or ecological similarities, it is straightforward to privilege the genetic relationships simply because they establish a small numerical difference between human and chimpanzee. And yet those quantitative genetic relationships may be absurd: by precisely the same calculation of base-­for-­base DNA similarity that makes us over 98% genetically identical to a chimpanzee, we are statistically constrained to be over 25% genetically identical to the banana that the chimpanzee is eating. The noteworthiness of the 98% similarity to a chimpanzee is actually just a consequence of (1) our familiarity with ape bodies, (2) our unfamiliarity with DNA comparisons, and (3) the cultural basis of comparisons.4 Conversely, our discontinuities may be of greater value to theologians, identifying an image of God in aspects of our particularly human condition.5 This may lead to a constriction of interest, however, to focus on those

244  Jonathan Marks unique human mental properties that seem most admirable. Valgus knees, adducted halluces, small canine teeth, an adolescent growth spurt, or a forehead are less relevant to the study of the imago Dei, while nevertheless representing diagnostic elements of our particular evolutionary lineage. Recently, a biblical scholar has proposed that the anatomical absence in the human lineage of an os baculum, or mammalian penis bone, is encoded in the Genesis story of Adam’s rib.6 This seems to presuppose that people of the Near Eastern Bronze Age were looking at the human body with the naturalistic eye of an early, if somewhat imperfect, comparative anatomist – which does not seem likely. A human body is always first and foremost a semiotic object.

Evolution as the production of difference Discussions of human evolution can emphasize either continuity or discontinuity, when in fact both are present, for Darwinian evolution is ‘descent with modification’ and necessarily incorporates both elements. In Table  12.1, I juxtapose several terms and concepts used to emphasize human uniqueness, or conversely, to emphasize human continuity with the apes. Consider first ‘culture’, coined as a scientific term in the nineteenth century and developed in the twentieth century, to refer to the diverse lifeways practiced by human groups.7 While nevertheless infamous for its polysemy,8 culture began as a concept that connoted perfectibility and civilization, and evolved into a concept that connoted comparable, but unrankable, diversity. The entire history of the scientific use of the term is post-­Darwinian, so there has never been a serious question of culture being a divine endowment, as opposed to some sort of emergent evolved property. Indeed, it was coined in opposition to biologically deterministic models of human thought and behaviour, not against our connection to the other species. Thus, in the (sloppy) modern usage, culture refers to local, portable human niches, encoded in the symbolic structures of language, and constituting imaginary systems of rules, obligations, conventions, taboos, rituals, and aesthetics, as well as real technologies and shared histories.9

Table 12.1 Comparing humans to apes may lead to differentially valuing difference (left) or similarity (right). Discontinuity

Continuity

Culture (anthropology) Kinship (fatherhood) Morality Marriage Symbolism Language

Culture (ethology) Kinship (maternity) Altruism Mating/pair-­bonding Rationality (Problem-­solving) Communication

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 245 Some ethologists, however, inspired by the ultra-­Darwinian rhetoric of sociobiology, redefined culture in terms of one of its properties – nongenetic transmission – and proceeded, quite reasonably, to identify that in many other species.10 Japanese researchers had been broadening the usage of the English term for some time.11 For the sociobiologists, the argument that other species have culture because they learn behaviours highlights the continuity of human behaviour to other species. Reconceptualizing culture as a lower common denominator, then, served both to locate the study of human behaviour institutionally within the more general study of animal behaviour,12 and also stood as a rebuke to the creationists in a frustrating social and intellectual war. Nevertheless, since humans really do act differently from other species, biologists were subsequently obliged to seek new labels to denote what ‘culture’ marks to anthropologists, now as ‘euculture’ or ‘cumulative culture’. Eventually some biologists have begun to mark human behaviour by coming around to plain old ‘culture’ again.13 A second example is kinship, the first serious research field program in anthropology, following the discovery that people classify and interact with their relatives in strange, arbitrary, and seemingly unnatural ways. As James Frazer noted long ago, ‘The awe and dread with which the untutored savage regards his mother-­in-­law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology’.14 Human kinship systems negotiate among several variables in constructing and maintaining a cognitive system to govern social relationships: parentage, marriage, residence, generation, and childcare responsibilities, not to mention adoption, absorption, and ad hoc responses to social and political circumstances. No one ever doubted that our human systems of kinship emerged from ape social behaviour,15 but there was also no way to confuse ape relations with the ‘mutuality of being’16 that describes human kinship. Homologous behaviours and relationships in nonhuman primates are necessarily restricted to interactions between mothers and offspring, among offspring and resident males, and within matrilines, while other similarities to what is encompassed by human kinship are at best subtle. This is because human kinship fundamentally invents and incorporates fatherhood, which is hardly detectable in nonhuman primate society.17 Consequently, while there is certainly continuity between primate ‘kinship’ and human ‘kinship’, when applying the same label to both, we run the risk of missing the significant discontinuities and non-­homologies.18 In other words, primates have biological relatives which they may or may not recognize as kin, and humans have kinship, which may or may not designate biological relatives. Third, morality – the distinction between right and wrong, and the injunction to do what is right – is difficult to identify outside of our species, not least of all because of the great variety of conceptions of what constitutes right and wrong. This variety is understood in the modern age to be the result of historical processes, producing cultural differences. Like other primates, apes learn how to behave around others, and come to know what

246  Jonathan Marks they can get away with.19 And if culture is simply learned behaviours, then they are cultural. But morality is hardly reducible to such learned behaviours; morality involves the imposition of a symbolic normative duality upon the universe. Morality transforms a fuzzy world of ‘is’, ‘is not’, and ‘might be’ into a clearer world of ‘should’ and ‘should not’. Anthropologists tend to use ‘morality’ in a somewhat wider sense than philosophers and theologians have traditionally done, and indeed have tended to examine morality under ‘comparative legal systems’, and not under ‘comparative religious systems’. In its reciprocal goals to familiarize the exotic and to exoticize the familiar, anthropology has tended to highlight three broad aspects of moral systems. First, they are learned, practiced, and taught over the course of human development, and thus are fundamentally social.20 Second, they are locally specific, and thus are fundamentally cultural.21 And third, moral systems consist of rules and abstractions, and are thus fundamentally linguistic and symbolic.22 To connect it to ape behaviour, one has to broaden the scope of morality further still, to incorporate any act that enhances someone else’s fitness at the expense of one’s own; that is to say, altruism.23 Although paradoxical, while any act that reduces one’s fitness is definitionally maladaptive and should not last long in evolutionary time, we understand the conditions under which altruism could evolve and stably persist. These are kin selection, group selection, and reciprocal altruism (see next paragraph), with scholarly disagreements about the relative merits and conditional applications of each. The paradox is: how could altruism evolve, if the state of nature is a perpetual struggle for existence, in which the fittest survive? Making yourself less fit means making your lineage ultimately less prolific. Why, then, help another? For in doing so, you merely hasten your own extinction. This is certainly a paradox. But has it anything to do with morality? I suspect not. In the first place, the reduction to altruism conflates the moral human mentality with the content of the moral system itself. After all, is altruism necessarily moral? There are certainly popular political discourses in modern America that define helping others as an immoral act. Secondly, a moral act is performed for no reason other than that it is the right thing to do. One can certainly rationalize that rightness by recourse to myths about their origin, or to the social, spiritual, and judicial consequences of acting otherwise. But learning right from wrong and doing what is right is not something one does for a reason, that is to say, like avoiding the consumption of poisonous berries. It is something that one just does, because we think we ought to be doing what our ancestors told us to do, and what defines us as different from our immoral neighbours. Moral codes constitute symbolic fences that help us define cultural boundaries and identities.24 If ape societies possess anything homologous, it has proven difficult to identify.25 A fourth example is marriage. Simply among the apes, there is a considerable breadth of male-­female social relations. Gibbons are generally

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 247 pair-­bonded; orangutans are generally solitary. Gorillas live in groups with a single adult male or several adult males, along with females and offspring; and chimpanzees live in larger fluid communities, with many adult males and females. It is certainly tempting to make analogies between the socio-­ sexual systems we see in other Hominoidea and in other Homo sapiens. But in humans, the basic social unit is the family, which may be variably constituted, but which is most fundamentally a legal unit.26 That is to say, it is a formally recognized union between two families creating mutual relationships and obligations between them. The connections between in-­laws are embodied in children, the legitimized offspring of the two families. Relationships that are fundamentally about sexuality in the apes27 become discourses of legality in humans. That is to say, apes mate, but do not marry. Humans both mate and marry, and even the most cursory familiarity with human behaviour shows what a great mistake it is to confuse the two. Human marriage patterns incorporate monogamy (one spouse), polygamy (one husband, multiple wives), polyandry (one wife, multiple husbands), and many variations which are sensitive to political and economic conditions. Where the Old Testament takes polygamy as normative, the New Testament takes monogamy as normative, reflecting the passage of several centuries of political history in the Near East. Consequently, one can choose to focus on the commonalities between human and ape socio-­sexual relations, or on the profound differences; but a complete picture would have to recognize both. Fifth, how do our minds work? The brain of a human is three times the size of a chimpanzee’s. Might this mean that a human thought is three times as profound, or three times as accurate, or that humans have three times as many thoughts as chimpanzees? Or might it mean that human thoughts may differ not quantitatively from chimpanzee thoughts, but qualitatively? Epistemologically, this is largely unanswerable since our ability to access a chimpanzee’s mind is very restricted.28 Some aspects of human thought are clearly continuous with ape thought. The rationality that allows humans to be peerless problem-­solvers can be glimpsed in the problem-­solving capabilities of apes.29 On the other hand, human thought is classically described as symbolic. That is to say, it seems to be rooted in the local, arbitrary assignment of meaning to sounds, things, acts, and relationships that forms the foundation of a semiotic matrix in which we exist, and which seems to have no counterpart in the life of an ape.30 It is intimately connected to the unique human mode of communication. To the extent that the apes can reveal aspects of symbolic thought, it is at best rudimentary, and only detectable (at least, arguably) after intense training, while nevertheless developing spontaneously in a young human. To emphasize our continuity with the apes, we may focus on the rational, utilitarian, problem-­solving function of the human mind; to emphasize our discontinuity, we may focus on its semiotic function.31

248  Jonathan Marks Finally, we come to the most obvious discontinuity between human and ape: our form of communication. However much we may wish to generalize communication across primate species, the fact always remains that we are the ones talking about it, and they are not.32 To the extent that certain ape calls and vocalizations are certainly contextually meaningful, their range is very constricted, which is why attempts to teach apes to speak have failed.33 Human communication involves the assignment of arbitrary, local meaning to sounds (phonemes), to combinations of sounds (lexemes/ words), to combinations of words (syntax/grammar), and to the pragmatics associated with the utterance (volume, tone, inflection, expression). It is critical to note that, in parallel with the distinction between (cognitive) language and (vocal) speech,34 we are studying the products of the coevolution of human symbolic thought processes along with the productive vocal mechanics. Apes not only have smaller brains, thinking differently, but they also have different tongues, teeth, jaws, lips, and larynxes, making different kinds of sounds to express those different kinds of thoughts. Some of the physical neuromuscular changes are subtle, yet crucial: for example, apes vocalize while inhaling or exhaling, yet humans speak only while exhaling. Indeed, the paradox of ape language studies is that we know far more about the limited capacity of apes to adopt a human mode of communication than we know about how they actually communicate amongst themselves, which involves a wider range of communicative systems (for example, tactile and olfactory, which play a more restricted role in human communication). While nobody doubts that human language evolved out of ape communication, we have difficulty in modelling it because we do not know what a partial human language would be like.35 The greatest distinction seems to be the extent to which human thought and communication are imbued with meanings set by arbitrary local conventions. This appears to be a very effective way of communicating, but requires a heavy investment in anatomy (large head, small canine teeth), physiology (reshaped tongue, lowered larynx), and life history (prolonged immaturity) that have produced considerable differences from their ape homologues. In sum, arguing on behalf of continuity or discontinuity between humans and apes is sterile, for both patterns are present; yet emphasizing one over the other has rhetorical value.

Humility, wisdom, and grace as discontinuities In considering the evolutionary origins of humility, wisdom, and grace, then, we must ask both about the ape substrate from which they arose and their distinctively human qualities. Merely applying familiar human labels – such as ‘war’36 or ‘rape’37– to other species results in facile comparisons that have been the bane of primate studies for decades. ‘Infanticide’, for example, is known in many species – particularly in langur monkeys, chimpanzees, and people – nevertheless differing dramatically in context and role among the three

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 249 species.38 The fact that the same label can be applied in all three cases, referencing the deliberate deaths of babies, is quite misleading for an understanding of their different evolutionary roots, rather like applying the same word to the ‘wings’ of a sparrow and a bumblebee, or the ‘legs’ of a spider and a zebra. To speculate on the origins of humility, wisdom, and grace, I will try to articulate them in a secularized form as expressions of human thought and behaviour, and then speculate on what aspects of primate thought and behaviour might be considered homologous or antecedent. Humility involves some form of self-­abasement, assuming (perhaps transiently) a position lower in a social hierarchy than one is entitled to assume. In a personal encounter, humility symbolically connotes respect, again assuming a social position lower than one is entitled to. One expects humility/respect from children, students, employees, favour seekers, petitioners, and penitents. What this presupposes, obviously, is a linear social hierarchy, with appropriate and recognizable standards of behaviour to communicate the humble and respectful demeanour. Linked to a communicative function, humility is entangled in the semiotic matrix of human language. What do apes have which may remind us of humility? They have submissive behaviour; that is to say, primates can identify a potentially dangerous social interaction and take steps to avoid it. This may entail averting the gaze, getting up and leaving, grooming, sex, or other stereotypical behaviours. It is easy to underestimate the complexity of primate social hierarchies. What they possess is an immediacy to the consequences of not displaying submissive behaviour; that is to say, a primate who does not display submissive behaviour will quickly get into a fight with a primate who is likely bigger and stronger. The humility humans express in the presence of a priestess or duchess (who probably cannot beat them up) is thus somewhat different. Indeed, if status and reproductive success are correlated, as they may be in primates, then humility would constitute a quintessentially un-­Darwinian act – diminishing one’s status rather than enhancing it. The symbolic social hierarchies that are so familiar to us are probably ephemera in human evolution, since we associate them with the consequences of food production in the last 12,000 or so years. Prior to food production, foraging peoples moved around far more and did not accumulate much, since it would simply be more to transport. With food production and a sedentary life came storage, accumulation, division of labour, and haves and have-­nots. (In this sense, modern anthropological thought is heir to the premodern insights of Jean-­Jacques Rousseau.) To the extent that status differences exist among hunter-­gatherers, it is either sexually based (known foragers vary quite extensively in their gender relations), age-­based, or transient. There may also be strong sanctions against non-­egalitarian behaviours. In a famous anecdote, anthropologist Richard Lee was finishing a year of fieldwork with the !Kung San hunter-­ gatherers in southern Africa, and decided to express his gratitude to the

250  Jonathan Marks village with the parting gift of a large ox for Christmas. On presentation, however, Lee’s gift went entirely unappreciated, indeed scorned, much to the chagrin of the young anthropologist. He eventually came to understand the gift as unrequitable, and therefore as upsetting to an egalitarian social order sustained by reciprocity. Their derision of his gift was a cultural mechanism by which egalitarian peoples could stably sustain the social order. Humility – being more than simple politeness or respect – thus presupposes inequality, and inequality presupposes food production, a historical development which took place separately in different parts of the world, but with similar social consequences.39 Humility would seem to have very limited meaning in a truly egalitarian society; it would be a norm, rather than a virtue. As his San informant explained to Richard Lee, ‘We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way we cool his heart and make him gentle’.40 Grace, even a secularized version of it – which might incorporate elements of benevolence, charity, and serendipity – is difficult to see in apes because, presumably, its key aspect is that the act arises spontaneously, and not out of a calculation. In the primates we can see altruism and cooperation, yet these are not understood as virtues, but rather as strategies. To a biologist, as noted previously, altruism refers to an act that helps another’s fitness at the expense of one’s own. Since it lowers one’s own fitness by definition, such an act cannot evolve directly by natural selection, which is a fitness-­maximizing algorithm.41 Such altruism can only evolve in three ways: kin selection (by helping genetic relatives at one’s expense, copies of one’s genes may proliferate even without lineal offspring); reciprocation (a secure knowledge that any quid has a pro quo would sustain a short-­term, fitness-­reducing act); and group selection (with foresight or coercive mechanisms, fitness-­reducing acts could be maintained for the good of the group, although most species lack the coercive mechanisms and foresight). What the interpretations of altruistic behaviour in other species lack is the recognizably human moral virtue of goodness for its own sake; of doing something simply because it is the right thing to do. That is to say, a kindness not for the sake of one’s genes, nor for the sake of future expectations, but for no instrumental fitness-­related reason at all – just to be nice. Does this require the evolution of human psychological properties, such as empathy or a ‘theory of mind’? While we have empirical difficulties establishing the existence of internal mental properties, there is no doubt that the human mind produced two different and novel environments, previously uninhabited. The first is the imagined environment, of mythological pasts and possible futures. The second is the social environment, of obligations and responsibilities to other people. The evolution of imagination and kinship were of course related to the development of human symbolic thought and language. There does indeed appear to be something social and genial, distinctly different between the ape mind and human mind, that is readily illustrated with

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 251 a well-­known thought experiment. It is relatively easy to imagine a scenario in which several hundred airline passengers wait patiently, board peacefully, and sit quietly for many hours, then wait until each row ahead of them empties before disembarking. To anyone minimally familiar with chimpanzee behaviour, it is impossible to imagine such a planeful of chimpanzees. Humans evolved to have a more prosocial (i.e. ‘nice’) mind than an ape’s. This evolutionary novelty is expressed most fundamentally in the toleration of a human mother towards others interested in her infant.42 Where an ape mother squats silently to give birth and is hardly incapacitated, a human mother experiences childbirth quite differently. To pass such a large-­brained baby through the birth canal, the skull bones slide, the infant rotates, and someone else generally has to be around.43 To a chimp mother, anyone else touching the new baby is perceived as a threat; but to a human mother they are a lifesaver. Humans consequently had to evolve to be nicer than chimps – more tolerant, more cooperative, less threatened – and this might reasonably be taken as an evolutionary substrate upon which to theorize grace. We might go even further and observe that assisting in birth is an unusual ape trait, and so is assisting in death. A symbolling human mind might readily construct a symmetry between birth and death, and enact parallel social rituals of the one opposite social rituals of the other. On either end of a human life, however, are cooperation, symbol, and ritual. Where an ape mother eats the placenta directly after giving birth, a human universally treats it ritualistically, not naturalistically. (The recent fad for consuming the placenta is unknown in our species outside of the modern industrial world.) The social nature of human birth and death, I suggest, established social preconditions – cooperation and restraint in groups, and symbolic bonds between people – within which one might conceptualize an origin of grace. Wisdom likewise expresses a discontinuity from the apes as well as a form of continuity.44 For humans, wisdom connotes a state of enlightenment, attained through insight, experience, and a bit of formal training. Hardly anyone doubts the sentience of apes these days, but by the same token, hardly anyone thinks of a chimpanzee as enlightened, or even as capable of enlightenment. A chimp cannot be wise, then, but we have no difficulty in thinking of a chimpanzee as intelligent. Intelligence solves problems through the acquisition and application of knowledge; chimpanzees are quite good at that. Wisdom, on the other hand, is a less immediately utilitarian mental state, once again connoting a mastery of the meaning or moral value of knowledge. Wisdom is sense-­making. One helpful way to theorize wisdom is as the authors of Genesis apparently did: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.45

252  Jonathan Marks Here the knowledge of good and evil – that is to say, morality – is ultimately what makes one wise, and is indeed what distinguishes us from other species. If we locate wisdom in the foundations of morality, its unique nature becomes more evident, for humans live in a universe of imaginary rules that are binding upon no other species. Rules make human behaviour predictable and stable. They are locally variable, and their violation may evoke a range of reactions spanning psychological remorse, corporal punishment, and divine retribution. But the complex imaginary universe of rules and obligations produces real-­world conflicts, ranging from daily and mundane to extraordinary and dangerous. What do we do to help us navigate the conflicts? We seek the advice of someone wise for guidance – someone possessing (in this sense) wisdom. Someone who knows the rules, and what is expected, and what should be done. Human evolution has involved the evolution of rule-­governed behaviour.46 These rules are largely arbitrary, since they vary so widely from place to place, and yet they cohere to form functional working systems. We have seen rules, or codes for proper performance, evolve in three significant domains over the course of human evolution. First, codes for speech, the proper production of meaningful sounds.47 Second, codes for aggression, which accompanied the development of weaponry.48 Third, codes for sexuality, which accompanied the evolution of a peculiar human life history pattern, fundamentally characterized by the development of stable, long-­term social relationships between opposite-­sex siblings into adulthood.49 These social relationships are governed by complex rules in all societies, which are largely tangential to genetic relations.50 The ability to manoeuver through these relationships successfully makes one a functioning member of a human society. Other species have to deal with older and younger group members, sexual partners, half-­ siblings, mothers, and higher-­or lower-­ ranking group members. But they do not have to make sense of fathers, spouses, evil spirits, angels, demons, family feuds, exes, step-­parents, possible suitors, clients, in-­laws, dead ancestors, unborn descendants, and the like – or to successfully navigate this sea of largely imaginary and often conflicting statuses and obligations. To do that requires mental abilities not found outside of our species. And to do it well requires especially highly trained non-­ape mental abilities – in a word, wisdom.

Wisdom through kinship Kinship is a subject that receives very little treatment in palaeoanthropology for the simple reason that it does not fossilize, and palaeoanthropologists are generally reluctant to grapple with issues that defy empirical treatment, and are thus effectively metaphysical. The attention it has received recently tends to focus on the reconstruction of group size and the primordial human social form.51 My interest, rather, lies in the formation and distinction of

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 253 particular critical human relationships. The non-­ naturalistic aspects of human kinship help to construct an imaginary world of obligations and expectations that come to constitute a human’s social universe which, like language, must be learned.52 The mastery of this knowledge makes you a successful adult – a socialized human. This knowledge is not comparable to the knowledge an ape possesses, and may be an entry to thinking about wisdom. Human kinship is unusual specifically in the degree to which it defies naturalistic logic; it is more symbolic than genetic. For example, the term ‘cousin’ does not translate well cross-­culturally; in many cultures the child of your mother’s brother is considered to be a quite different relation than the child of your mother’s sister. One might be an incestuous coupling, and the other a blessed union (like Charles and Emma Darwin). It is consequently difficult to consider cousins as a naturalistic category subject to evolutionary forces when it is quite unstable across time and space, because it defines a symbolic relationship more than a naturalistic one. In primates, the term ‘kinship’ generally denotes relations among half-­ siblings and maternal descent. Even in pair-­bonded primate species, there is generally little in the way of consistent paternal relationships. At the heart of human kinship is something distinct from pair-­bonding in that it is contractual, rather than instinctual: namely, marriage. Since marriage comes to fulfil many distinct roles in human societies – involving responsibilities and expectations about sexuality, residence, child-­rearing, companionship, love, inheritance, legal status, and in-­laws – and their relative importance may vary widely, thus producing a wide array of volatile ethnographic forms, it is vain to argue from the origin of marriage to its current statuses. The origin of marriage was, most reasonably, the establishment of reciprocal expectations between the families of a man and a woman. In exchange for the assistance required to rear slower-­maturing children than ape females have, with such large heads as to incapacitate a mother during birth, a male might now no longer be obliged to compete so hard to breed as apes do. Such arrangements need not have been monogamous, exclusive, or lifelong. What is significant about them is that (1) they were agreements; and (2) they afford a rational solution to the problem caused by the big-­headed, slow-­maturing infant. They would also serve to mitigate classical primate male-­male competition for mates, thus reducing classical patterns of sexual dimorphism (in body size and canine teeth). Novel forms of sexual competition presumably led to the unique forms of sexual dimorphism that we see in humans (primarily in aspects of body composition, hair, the pelvis, and parts of the skull). In parallel with the spousal bond, another social relationship different from that of apes emerges, also as an ultimate consequence of the evolution of human life histories, drawing out the period of physical, mental, and social immaturity. Nonhuman primate society is characterized by the dispersal of one or both sexes into different social groups at puberty, rendering it

254  Jonathan Marks unlikely for opposite-­sex siblings to grow up together and remain in contact as adults. Humans, by contrast, commonly have opposite-­sex siblings grow up together. A sibling was always there as a genetic relationship, but humans transform it into a social relationship. The immediate rational necessity is to get them to refrain from sexual activity with each other.53 What restrains us from inappropriate sexuality – the incest taboo – is our understanding of what we are and are not supposed to do. Thus, here in kinship, we may glimpse the roots of morality. The symbolic act is the construction of a broad brother-­sister relationship that inverts the constructed husband-­wife relationship. Where a sibling is part of your birth family, a spouse is part of your new, adult family. Where a sibling is a normatively non-­sexual relationship, a spouse is a normatively sexual relationship. Where siblings are connected through ancestors, spouses are connected through descendants. Where a sibling’s relation is a fact of birth, a spouse’s relation is a fact of law. Consequently, while you cannot dissociate from a sibling, there are generally ways to reverse or invalidate a spouse. As human kinship is based on the relationships of spouses and siblings, and the normative behavioural conventions associated with those relationships, it follows that there must be a system of rules to be internalized and followed, to define the reciprocal expectations for a spouse or sibling: economic, sexual, residential, etc. Learning the rules of conduct, like learning the rules of speech, is not necessarily conscious, but one cannot survive as a human being anywhere without it. It is the inherent predictability of human behaviour that makes human social life possible: the confidence that my neighbours will not bite my face off if I let my guard down. Obviously, there are many cultural variations on spouses and siblings, so I have tried to keep the generalizations broad; the crucial fact is that neither relationship exists in the apes. Human evolution involves the establishment and elaboration of these two relationships. And they are governed by the complementary production of proscriptive rules, forbidding certain things and prescriptive rules, demanding certain things.

A tale of coevolution By about 5 million years ago, there were apes in Africa who were bipedal and had small, non-­sexually dimorphic canine teeth. That is to say, they were capable of some form of walking and talking. I suspect that they also were able to point (i.e. to extend their index finger and imagine a line connecting its tip to something else, over there), and thus to think, in a basic sense, symbolically. Those primates then entered a complex coevolutionary loop composed of three different domains (Figure 12.1). The first is the organic, or classically biological, domain of changes in genes, bodies, and brains. Our ancestors’ brains will change and expand, and their jaws will get smaller and weaker. Their tongues will perform more effectively in pronouncing, and more poorly in panting, a more traditional

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 255

Figure 12.1  Coevolving systems in human evolution.

primate role. Their skin will develop more sweat glands for evaporative cooling, and their body hair will become wispier to facilitate this new mode of heat dissipation. The thumb will lengthen and the arms will shorten. Some changes will be adaptive, like the ones just mentioned, while others may have little or no adaptive significance, such as fusing two small chromosomes to form human chromosome #2, or the development of nasal cartilage, or the loss of the os baculum. The second is the extrasomatic, or classically technological domain, of tools and images and other human-­produced artefacts, whose evolution is largely independent of the genes of their makers. This will become the primary manner in which our ancestors come to construct their own niches, by coming to think of their environment as raw materials, and thus being able to manufacture their own means of survival wherever they find themselves. While we expect our ancient ancestors to have been at least as technologically competent as chimpanzees, using sticks or leaves for some purpose at hand, their breakthrough seems to have come with the interest and capacity to produce a hard, sharp edge, yielding the ability to cut things, from vines to gazelle steaks, more than 3 million years ago. The third domain is the social, of humans in groups, again phenomenologically distinct from both the tools and the gene pools. While there has been interest in the expanded size of human social groups, it is, again, more specifically their unusual organization that concerns me here. We noted the new relationships of spouse and sibling; one that has received a bit more attention is grandmother. While ape females essentially breed until they die, human females do not; consequently the evolution of menopause may have

256  Jonathan Marks provided the young mother with the assistance that she requires54 from her own, non-­reproducing mother – an alternative to spouse. Grandmother’s Darwinian role has been more widely explored than her symbolic role, however. To a cogitating, imagining primate, three generations might well imply a lineage: ancestors before grandmother, and descendants after me. And thus may be brought into existence the dead and the unborn. Lineage problematizes death, but it can do so only because of what psychologists sometimes call a theory of mind: the ability to put yourself mentally in someone else’s place. The mental process may arguably be found outside our species today, but any human grandchild must learn that her relationship with mother is equivalent to mother’s relationship with grandmother, but different from her own relationship with grandmother. Thus, the ability to put oneself in another’s place allows us to imagine a succession of increasingly remote ancestors, creating descent groups to help establish identity in the living world. Apes display evidence of being aware of death.55 But as a fact worth contemplating, death seems to be more meaningful to the contemplative human mind. Our scientific narratives tend to imagine the contemplation of death as a consequence of witnessing Og being gored by an aurochs in the Pleistocene. Nevertheless, the reified facts of kinship – in this case, lineage – rationally problematize death in various ways only available to a symbolizing mind. Notably, a lineage transcends death; it was there before you, and will be there after you. Indeed, where is grandmother’s grandmother, and her grandmother? And what is to become of the lovely hand axe Uncle Og made just before that aurochs gored him? With material culture comes the transmission of material culture, after all. The 400,000-­year-­old prehuman skeletons at the Spanish site of Sima de los Huesos may represent the first documented attempt by our ancestors to send some folks off to the nether world with something nice, in this case, a nice red hand axe.56 The interactions among these three coevolving spheres – organic, extrasomatic, and social – came to produce the major features of human evolution. Finally, although the social life of early people was cultural, in the sense of being symbolic, linguistic, historical, and technological, we rarely conceptualize it as being culturally diverse. That is to say, we enthusiastically explain culture, but rarely try to explain cultures. And yet one of the basic features of human groups is their construction of an identity for their members by differentiation from other human groups, in language, personal grooming, and general beliefs; that is, once again, as cultures.

Conclusion It is reasonable to think of secular versions of humility, grace, and wisdom as having arisen from familiar primate mental and behavioural states after being altered by the emerging semiotic matrix of human cultural thought.

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 257 And it is also reasonable to understand these states as cultural forms, since it is axiomatic in anthropology that different aspects of culture are interconnected, such as domestic disputes, religious rituals, and ecology.57 Kinship is central to human life, in ways that transcend primate life, for kinship is fundamentally imagined rules. It need not have empirical basis or material extension. In this sense wisdom is like kinship, a cultural construction, useful for manoeuvring successfully in a culturally constructed niche, in which knowledge that does not directly assist one in surviving and breeding is nevertheless desired and cultivated. Like kinship, wisdom involves forms and properties of knowledge that are not immediately utilitarian or adaptive; its gradual emergence in human evolution was intellectual, emotional, social, and ultimately useful, while being nevertheless largely fictive. Wisdom may thus be rooted in the same basic human mental and social properties as kinship. And finally, the basis of human economic systems is similarly in the realm of rules, obligations, and trust.58 Pre-­modern economic systems work not because actors strive to maximize personal gain and are equilibrated by an invisible hand, but because actors know what is expected of them and are apprehensive of the shame, dishonour, punishment, or ostracism that would otherwise befall them if expectations about justice and fairness are not met. Rules are there to be followed, rationalized, reconciled to one another, and skirted when necessary, with attendant risks. Humility, grace, and wisdom may well have been crucial to the social processes by which traditional economic systems came to function.

Notes 1 I thank Agustín Fuentes, Celia Deane-­Drummond, and the other participants at the 2017 symposium at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study, especially Karen Kilby and Oliver Davies, for their comments on this chapter. I also thank Peta Katz and Karen Strier for helpful discussions. 2 For example, Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee (New York: HarperCollins, 1992). 3 Julian S. Huxley, Touchstone for Ethics (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947); and George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949). 4 Jonathan Marks, What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 5 J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006); and Joshua M. Moritz, ‘The Search for Adam Revisited: Evolution, Biblical Literalism, and the Question of Human Uniqueness’, Theology and Science 9, no. 4 (2011): 367–377. 6 Ziony Zevit, What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). 7 Adam Kuper, Culture: The Anthropologists’ Account (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 8 Alfred L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, ‘Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions’, Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University 47, no. 1 (1944): 223.

258  Jonathan Marks 9 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973). 10 John Tyler Bonner, The Evolution of Culture in Animals (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). 11 Kinji Imanishi, ‘Social Organization of Subhuman Primates in Their Natural Habitat’, Current Anthropology 1 (1960): 393–407. 12 Robert Sussman and Linda Sussman, ‘Off Human Nature and on Human Culture’, in Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature, edited by Agustín Fuentes and Aku Visala (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), 58–69. 13 Mark Pagel, Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012); and Kevin N. Laland, Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017). 14 James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1900), 288. 15 Marshall D. Sahlins, ‘The Social Life of Monkeys, Apes and Primitive Man’, Human Biology 31, no. 1 (1959): 54–73. 16 Marshall D. Sahlins, What Kinship Is – and Is Not (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 5. 17 Eduardo Fernandez-­Duque, Claudia R. Valeggia, and Sally P. Mendoza, ‘The Biology of Paternal Care in Human and Nonhuman Primates’, Annual Review of Anthropology 38 (2009): 115–130. 18 Karen B. Strier, ‘Sociality Among Kin and Nonkin in Nonhuman Primate Groups’, in The Origins and Nature of Sociality, edited by R.W. Sussman and A.R. Chapman (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 191–214; and Karen B. Strier, Primate Behavioral Ecology, 5th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2016). 19 Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982). 20 Emile Durkheim, De la Division du Travail Social (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1893). 21 Bronislaw Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1926). 22 Jarrett Zigon, Morality: An Anthropological Perspective (New York: Berg, 2008). 23 Christopher Boehm, Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame (New York: Basic Books, 2012). 24 Richard Shweder, ‘Relativism and Universalism’, in A Companion to Moral Anthropology, edited by Didier Fassin (New York: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2012), 85–102. 25 M. Tomasello, A Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). 26 Robin Fox, Kinship and Marriage: An Anthropological Perspective (London: Penguin, 1967). 27 Solly Zuckerman, The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes (London: Routledge, 1932). 28 D. Povinelli, Folk Physics for Apes: The Chimpanzee’s Theory of How the World Works (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 29 Wolfgang Köhler, The Mentality of Apes (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925). 30 Andrew Robinson, ‘On the Origin of Symbols: Archaeology, Semiotics, and Self-­ Transcendence’, current volume. 31 M. Tomasello, A Natural History of Human Thinking (Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). 32 Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth, How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth, ‘Why Animals Don’t Have Language’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Delivered at Cambridge

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 259 University, 10–12 March 1997), http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/ato-­z/c/Cheney98.pdf. 33 Gregory Radick, The Simian Tongue: The Long Debate about Animal Language (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 34 F. de Saussure, Cours De Linguistique Générale (Paris: Payot, 1916). 35 Marc Hauser, Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch, ‘The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?’, Science 298 (2002): 1569–1579. 36 Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996). 37 Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000). 38 Glenn Hausfater and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, eds., Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives (New York: Aldine, 1984). 39 Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus, The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013); and Siobhán M. Mattison, Eric A. Smith, Mary K. Shenk, and Ethan E. Cochrane, ‘The Evolution of Inequality’, Evolutionary Anthropology 25, no. 4 (2016): 184–199. 40 Richard B. Lee, ‘Eating Christmas in the Kalahari’, Natural History (December 1969): 14–22, 60–64. 41 George C. Williams, Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966). 42 Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). 43 Wenda R. Trevathan and Karen R. Rosenberg, Costly and Cute: Helpless Infants and Human Evolution (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2016). 44 Marc Kissel, ‘What Can Anthropologists Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom’, current volume. 45 Genesis 3:6 46 Penny Spikins, ‘The Loss of Innocence in the Deep Past: Wisdom, Humility, and Grace Within a Developing Understanding of the Emergence of Human Moral Emotions’, current volume. 47 Daniel L. Everett, Language: The Cultural Tool (New York: Pantheon, 2012). 48 Travis R. Pickering, Rough and Tumble: Aggression, Hunting, and Human Evolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013). 49 Edward Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Vol. I (London: Macmillan, 1906); Lars Rodseth, Richard Wrangham, Alisa Harrigan, and Barbara Smuts, ‘The Human Community as a Primate Society [and Comments]’, Current Anthropology 32, no. 3 (1991): 221–254. 50 Meyer Fortes, Rules and the Emergence of Society, Occasional Paper #39 (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1983). 51 Nicholas J. Allen, Hilary Callan, Robin Dunbar, and Wendy James, eds., Early Human Kinship: From Sex to Social Reproduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008); Alan Barnard, ‘Unity Versus Interdisciplinarity: A Future for Anthropology’, Current Anthropology 57, no. S13 (2016): S145–S53. 52 Jonathan Marks, ‘A Tale of Ex-­Apes Whence Wisdom?’ Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3, no. 2 (2016): 152–174. 53 Bernard Chapais, Primeval Kinship (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 54 Kristen Hawkes, J.F. O’Connell, Nicholas Blurton Jones, H. Alvarez, and Eric L. Charnov, ‘Grandmothering, Menopause, and the Evolution of Human Life

260  Jonathan Marks Histories’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 95 (1998): 1336–1339. 55 Barbara J. King, How Animals Grieve (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). 56 Agustín Fuentes, ‘Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution’, American Anthropologist 117 (2015): 302–315. 57 R. Rappaport, Pigs for the Ancestors (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966). 58 David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (New York: Melville House, 2011).

Glossary adducted hallux:  a big toe aligned with the other toes (as in humans), rather than opposable and used for grasping (as in apes). fitness:  the relative likelihood of being represented in future generations. grace:  feelings of transcendence or happiness associated with the recognition that something good and unanticipated has occurred. homologous: features in different species whose relationship is that of descent from a feature in a common ancestor (like the forelimbs of birds and horses), rather than having arisen separately and being fundamentally different from one another while nevertheless sharing a common word (like the ‘wings’ of birds and insects). humility:  feelings or acts which suggest a lower social position than one might otherwise expect. Pleistocene:  the geological era beginning about 2.6 million years ago, roughly coincident with the emergence of the genus Homo from Australopithecus, and encompassing the entirety of the biological evolution of the genus Homo, except for the last 12,000 years (Holocene). valgus knee:  when bipedal, the joint faces forward (as in humans), rather than out to the side (as in apes). wisdom:  the successful ultimate product of maturity, experience, knowledge, and reflection.

Bibliography Allen, Nicholas J., Hilary Callan, Robin Dunbar, and Wendy James, eds. Early Human Kinship: From Sex to Social Reproduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008). Barnard, Alan. ‘Unity Versus Interdisciplinarity: A Future for Anthropology’. Current Anthropology 57, no. S13 (2016): S145–S53. Boehm, Christopher. Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame (New York: Basic Books, 2012). Bonner, John Tyler. The Evolution of Culture in Animals (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). Chapais, Bernard. Primeval Kinship (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). Cheney, Dorothy L., and Robert M. Seyfarth. How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 261 Cheney, Dorothy L., and Robert M. Seyfarth. ‘Why Animals Don’t Have Language’. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Delivered at Cambridge University, 10–12 March  1997), http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-­to-­z/c/Cheney98.pdf. de Saussure, F. Cours De Linguistique Générale (Paris: Payot, 1916). de Waal, Frans. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982). Diamond, Jared. The Third Chimpanzee (New York: HarperCollins, 1992). Durkheim, Emile. De la Division du Travail Social (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1893). Everett, Daniel L. Language: The Cultural Tool (New York: Pantheon, 2012). Fernandez-­Duque, Eduardo, Claudia R. Valeggia, and Sally P. Mendoza. ‘The Biology of Paternal Care in Human and Nonhuman Primates’. Annual Review of Anthropology 38 (2009): 115–130. Flannery, Kent, and Joyce Marcus. The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). Fortes, Meyer. Rules and the Emergence of Society. Occasional Paper #39 (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1983). Fox, Robin. Kinship and Marriage: An Anthropological Perspective (London: Penguin, 1967). Frazer, James G. The Golden Bough, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1900). Fuentes, Agustín. ‘Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution’. American Anthropologist 117 (2015): 302–315. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973). Graeber, David. Debt: The First 5,000 Years (New York: Melville House, 2011). Hauser, Marc, Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch. ‘The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?’ Science 298 (2002): 1569–1579. Hausfater, Glenn, and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, eds. Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives (New York: Aldine, 1984). Hawkes, Kristen, J.F. O’Connell, Nicholas Blurton Jones, H. Alvarez, and Eric L. Charnov. ‘Grandmothering, Menopause, and the Evolution of Human Life Histories’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 95 (1998): 1336–1339. Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Huxley, Julian S. Touchstone for Ethics (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947). Imanishi, Kinji. ‘Social Organization of Subhuman Primates in Their Natural Habitat’. Current Anthropology 1 (1960): 393–407. King, Barbara J. How Animals Grieve (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). Köhler, Wolfgang. The Mentality of Apes (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925). Kroeber, Alfred L. Anthropology (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1923). Kroeber, Alfred L., and Clyde Kluckhohn. ‘Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions’. Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University 47, no. 1 (1944): 223. Kuper, Adam. Culture: The Anthropologists’ Account (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Laland, Kevin N. Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017).

262  Jonathan Marks Lee, Richard B. ‘Eating Christmas in the Kalahari’. Natural History (December 1969): 14–22, 60–64. Malinowski, Bronislaw. Crime and Custom in Savage Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1926). Marks, Jonathan. ‘A Tale of Ex-­Apes: Whence Wisdom?’ Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 3, no. 2 (2016): 152–174. Marks, Jonathan. What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Mattison, Siobhán M., Eric A. Smith, Mary K. Shenk, and Ethan E. Cochrane. ‘The Evolution of Inequality’. Evolutionary Anthropology 25, no. 4 (2016): 184–199. Moritz, Joshua M. ‘The Search for Adam Revisited: Evolution, Biblical Literalism, and the Question of Human Uniqueness’. Theology and Science 9, no. 4 (2011): 367–377. Pagel, Mark. Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012). Pickering, Travis R. Rough and Tumble: Aggression, Hunting, and Human Evolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013). Povinelli, D. Folk Physics for Apes: The Chimpanzee’s Theory of How the World Works (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Radick, Gregory. The Simian Tongue: The Long Debate about Animal Language (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Rappaport, R. Pigs for the Ancestors (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966). Rodseth, Lars, Richard Wrangham, Alisa Harrigan, and Barbara Smuts. ‘The Human Community as a Primate Society [and Comments]’. Current Anthropology 32, no. 3 (1991): 221–254. Sahlins, Marshall D. ‘The Social Life of Monkeys, Apes and Primitive Man’. Human Biology 31, no. 1 (1959): 54–73. Sahlins, Marshall D. What Kinship Is – and Is Not (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). Shweder, Richard. ‘Relativism and Universalism’. In A Companion to Moral Anthropology, edited by Didier Fassin (New York: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2012), 85–102. Simpson, George Gaylord. The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949). Strier, Karen B. Primate Behavioral Ecology, 5th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2016). Strier, Karen B. ‘Sociality Among Kin and Nonkin in Nonhuman Primate Groups’. In The Origins and Nature of Sociality, edited by R.W. Sussman and A.R. Chapman (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 191–214. Sussman, Robert, and Linda Sussman. ‘Off Human Nature and on Human Culture’. In Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature, edited by Agustín Fuentes and Aku Visala (Notre Dame, IN University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), 58–69. Thornhill, Randy, and Craig T. Palmer. A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000). Tomasello, M. A Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). Tomasello, M. A Natural History of Human Thinking (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).

Continuities/discontinuities in evolution 263 Trevathan, Wenda R., and Karen R. Rosenberg. Costly and Cute: Helpless Infants and Human Evolution (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2016). Van Huyssteen, J. Wentzel. Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006). Westermarck, Edward. The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Vol. I (London: Macmillan, 1906). Williams, George C. Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966). Wrangham, Richard, and Dale Peterson. Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996). Zevit, Ziony. What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). Zigon, Jarrett. Morality: An Anthropological Perspective (New York: Berg, 2008). Zuckerman, Solly. The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes (London: Routledge, 1932).

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate figures, and those in bold type indicate tables agency see orientation altruism 161, 168 – 170, 172, 244, 246, 250 Aquinas, Thomas 182, 186 – 193, 212, 229 Australopithecus afarensis 29, 36 – 37; morphology of 31, 33, 55; relationship to Homo naledi 47, 53, 194 beatific vision see beatitude beatitude 210, 212, 216 Blombos Cave 86 – 88, 95 – 97, 125 burial practice see mortuary practice Christian Semiotic Realism 100, 103 compassion 161, 172; toward animals 186; in chimpanzees 163; in early hominins 113 – 114, 166 – 167, 183; see also empathy; gratitude; humility; theory of mind cosmology 230 – 231; and Christian faith 204, 228 – 229 creativity: of God 101; human capacity for creative cooperation 18 – 19; in human development 15, 21, 145, 232, 235; and religious belief in humans 182 Deacon, Terrence 18, 22, 70, 88, 98 – 101, 123, 145 – 147; see also semiotic theory diagrammatic reasoning 49, 88 – 90, 100 – 101; archaeological evidence of 94 – 98; and discernment 93, 102; and self-knowledge 93; and self-transcendence 91 – 92, 102; see also hypostatic abstraction; semiotic theory

discernment 49, 93; Ignatian discernment 212; as practical wisdom 192; see also wisdom egalitarianism 92, 206, 249 – 250 emotional capacity 112, 161 – 164, 167 empathy: in humans 164, 233; in nonhuman animals 162 – 163, 168 – 169; see also compassion; gratitude; humility; theory of mind Extended Evolutionary Synthesis 70, 77; see also niche construction fairness: in humans 168; in non-human animals 162 – 163, 169; see also egalitarianism; empathy; justice freedom 211, 219, 229 – 230, 235 – 237; and grace 229 – 231, 237 gene flow 30, 34 – 35, 36 – 37, 119; see also hybridization genetic drift 30 – 33, 36 – 37 grace 142, 146, 149, 153 – 154, 161, 164, 167, 190 – 191, 250 – 251; in Christian theology 209 – 211; created and uncreated 216 – 217; and freedom 229 – 231, 237; in Rahner 212 – 213, 215 – 223; relationship between nature and grace 209 – 211, 213, 219, 223; see also humility; wisdom gratitude 161, 164, 167, 172; and humility 185; see also compassion; empathy; humility Homo erectus 29 – 30, 36, 56, 74; morphology of 31, 33, 55, 73; and prosocial behaviour 113, 183; relationship to Homo naledi 4, 52 – 53, 194

Index  265 Homo naledi 31, 33, 36, 47 – 48, 51 – 54, 173, 183; mortuary practice 58 – 59, 172, 183, 194 – 195; relationship to modern humans 54 – 56, 193 – 195; and toolmaking 56 – 58 Homo sapiens: anatomical modernity of 19 – 20, 34, 48, 70, 120; behavioural modernity of 19 – 20, 69 – 70, 90, 126, 234; cognitive capacity of 19 – 20, 22, 89, 91, 95, 102, 119, 161 – 164, 191 humility 142, 162 – 163, 186 – 187, 249 – 250; archaeological evidence of 22, 112 – 116, 121, 161, 168, 183, 185, 193 – 195; in Aquinas 187 – 191; and justice 185 – 186; toward non-human animals 191 – 193; psychological conditions for 143 – 145; and religion 148, 151 – 152, 155; and wisdom 102, 111, 152 – 153; see also grace; wisdom hunter-gatherers 94, 96, 99, 123, 189, 193; and egalitarianism 92 – 93, 168, 206, 249; and prosocial behaviour 114 – 115, 119; similarity to Homo naledi 55 hybridization 34 – 35, 37, 54, 126, 194; see also gene flow hyper-semiotic cognition 49, 86, 88, 90 – 92; archaeological evidence of 94 – 98; and Christian theology 100, 102; see also semiotic theory hypostatic abstraction 49, 88 – 90, 100 – 101; archaeological evidence of 94 – 96, 98; and discernment 93; and folk wisdom 93; and selfknowledge 93; and self-transcendence 91 – 92, 102; see also diagrammatic reasoning; semiotic theory icon see semiotic theory index see semiotic theory justice 92, 257; and humility 185 – 186 kinship 18, 21, 244; comparing human and primate kinship 205, 245, 257; and morality 254; and symbolic thought 92, 95, 99, 250, 252 – 253, 256 Kohut, Heinz 143 – 144, 146, 153 magnanimity 188 – 189, 191 morality 161, 205 – 206, 244, 246, 250, 252; in non-human animals

168 – 170, 245 – 246; origins of 113, 116, 123, 150, 162 – 168, 171 – 173, 254; see also altruism; grace; humility; wisdom mortuary practice 59, 94, 125, 160, 172, 183; see also Homo naledi; Neanderthals natural selection 30, 32 – 33, 35, 36 – 37, 76, 250 Neanderthals 76, 123; capacity for care and compassion 113, 166 – 168, 171, 173; diversity of 53; evidence of technical and cognitive ability 56, 70, 74; evolutionary history of 35, 36; and Homo naledi 55, 194; and Homo sapiens 34; mortuary practice 59, 114, 168 Neo-Scholastic theology 211 – 213, 216 – 220 niche construction 15 – 22, 122 – 123, 186, 232, 237, 244; and emotional capacity 167, 172; and Homo naledi 48, 54 – 55; and human evolution 76 – 77; and language 234; lithic 185; and wisdom 49, 69 – 70, 257; see also Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Niebuhr, Reinhold 101 – 103 ochre: absence in the Howieson Poort 75, 77; evidence of symbolic thinking 87, 96 – 97, 120, 124 – 125; in Middle Stone Age assemblages 56 – 57; use for engravings and pigments 20, 74 orientation 148 – 155 Peirce, Charles 49, 86 – 87, 93; semiotic theory of 70, 87 – 89, 98 – 103; see also semiotic theory practical wisdom see discernment prosociality: and moral emotions 161, 167; in navigating complex relationship 119 – 120; in non-human animals 170, 251; see also altruism; humility Rahner, Karl 203 – 204, 209; and Neo-Scholastic theology 210 – 212; theology of grace 210, 212, 215 – 222; view of theological anthropology 213 – 215 religion: development of 15, 18, 234; and freedom 236 – 237; as human practices 149; and humility 142; as orientation 149 – 151; relation

266 Index to mortuary practice 112; societal impact of 228; and symbolic thinking 145, 147 – 148; and wisdom 154; see also freedom; grace; humility; mortuary practice; orientation; semiotic theory; wisdom reticulate evolution 35, 169, 191, 194 ritual: development of 234; of Southern San hunter-gatherers 96 – 97; and symbolic thinking 94 – 97, 99, 124, 149 – 150, 154, 236, 251; see also mortuary practice; semiotic theory self-transcendence: in early humans 124; and semiotic thinking 90 – 92; theological account of 101 – 102; and wisdom 86, 102; see also semiotic theory; transcendence; wisdom semiotics see semiotic theory semiotic theory 99 – 100; and archaeology 86 – 87; of Charles Peirce 49 – 50, 70, 86 – 88, 100; Christian Semiotic Realism 100 – 103; development of semiotic capacity 146 – 148; evidence for modern semiotic thought 72, 77; and human distinctiveness 205, 247; and religion 147; semiotic ecosystem of humans 18, 21, 247, 256; semiotic model of the human 193, 244; see also Deacon, Terrence; diagrammatic reasoning; hyper-semiotic cognition; hypostatic abstraction; Peirce, Charles; ritual; signs; symbols shame 161, 164, 257; and temperance 189 signs: and Christian Semiotic Realism 100 – 102; and diagrammatic reasoning 88 – 90; human use of 22, 70, 99, 113, 145 – 147, 234, 236 – 237; and hyper-semiotic cognition 92, 98; and hypostatic abstraction 88 – 90; in Pierce’s semiotic theory 49, 86 – 88, 100 – 101; and religion 145, 147 – 149; see also semiotic theory social cognition system 205, 232 – 233, 236 social learning 119 – 122, 126, 142, 184, 235; through emulation 116, 119, 142; through imitation 119, 121, 142, 184; through toolmaking 121 – 122, 184 – 186, 188, 233, 237; see also prosociality

subjectivity 145 – 147, 193, 228 – 229; see also semiotic theory symbols: and Christian Semiotic Realism 100 – 101; and diagrammatic reasoning 88 – 90; humans as the ‘symbolic species’ 22, 88, 90, 98, 183; and hypostatic abstraction 89 – 90; and kinship 253 – 254, 256; and morality 246; in Pierce’s semiotic theory 49, 70, 86; and religious thought 144 – 150, 153 – 154; sensu lato meaning of symbol 86, 98 – 100; sensu stricto meaning of symbol 86, 98 – 100; symbolic artefacts 20, 70 – 73, 75 – 77, 87, 97 – 98, 120 – 121, 123 – 125, 171; symbolic representation of the divine 144 – 147, 152; symbolic thought 15, 70, 168, 234, 244, 247 – 248, 251; see also semiotic theory temperance 189, 191 theory of mind 146 – 148, 152, 164 – 165, 167, 192, 250, 256 toolmaking: as a form of social learning 121 – 122, 184 – 186, 188, 233, 237; among Homo naledi 55, 56 – 58; and humility 193; and niche expansion 54; prepared core (Levallois) reduction 56 – 58; and symbolic thinking 97, 184 transcendence: early human recognition of 187, 189, 195; and immanence 228; religious affirmations of 151; in theological thinking 228; transcendental experience 217 – 218, 221 – 223; see also self-transcendence Trinity 100 – 101, 103, 216 trust 167, 187 wisdom: archaeological evidence of 70 – 78; definition of 69, 142, 161; development in humans 16, 19, 22, 148, 164, 167, 251, 253, 257; and folk wisdom 92 – 93; and morality 252; and pride 191; psychological conditions for 143, 145; and religion 147, 151 – 155; and self-knowledge 93 – 94; and self-transcendence 88, 90, 92 – 94, 102; see also discernment; grace; humility WISDOM database 71, 73, 75 – 77