This study of the cultures of the peoples of the Upper Pleistocene is intended to compare the cultural achievements of the European Upper Paleolithic people with those of their Middle Paleolithic predecessors and their later Mesolithic descendants. The assertion that the Upper Paleolithic culture was the superior will be argued against here, using evidence to the contrary from all three periods.

PRELUDE TO CULTURE

The cultural advantages associated with Homo erectus are their universally adopted flint chopping tools and rough cutting edges, as well as those western developments of the Acheulean tool tradition, which set mankind upon the road towards technical culture. There are two main shapes to their stone choppers, both being flat in section, but the one a typical Oldowan style, basically round, while the second is the Acheulean lanceolate shape. Variety was expressed mainly through implement size. At a site in Tanzania, some handaxes found were so oversized as to prove unwieldy, at least for our less robust moderns (Johanson and Edgar 1996: 250-254).

I will not confirm here the use of fire by the people of the Lower and Middle Pleistocene (1.5 million to 0.2 million years ago), since it is not indisputably proven to have been used by them. What is clear, is that at the very least, they were successful scavengers, and well travelled (as a species). As a species they did what none other before them had, which was to achieve a spatial expansion covering every landmass within physical reach of a walking creature. This was their great achievement.

After the hominid radiation had occurred, the regional racial families evolved independantly, but with the benefit of marginal genetic transference, which over hundreds of thousands of years allowed for full genetic mixing globally of those dominant alleles which offered selective advantages, such as increased intellect (brain capacity).

THE MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC (EUROPE)>

There arose subsequent to Homo erectus the archaic species of Homo sapiens who from the fossil record first showed up 0.4 million years ago and appear to have evolved from the Homo erectus (as described above) rather than to have displaced them. As the Upper Pleistocene came into its own (beginning 120,000 years ago) this evolution of relatively modern sapiens was completed, and these archaic Homo sapiens were essentially like us, except much more robust. The continued robustness of the Hominid family was due in part to the harsh conditions of life for a naked mammal, which required such a physique for thermal efficiency as well as competitive advantage. Their brain mass actually exceeded our own in some cases, but it is possible that, like other large mammals living today, their neural switching cells were not yet as densely packed as ours, and so their intellectual capacity somewhat less.

They developed certain advances in stone technology which produced deliberately shaped flakes using a previously prepared core (called the Levallois technique). The multiplicity of cutting edges which this afforded them included scrapers, points (awls), and knives, which may have been used in hide preparation, woodworking, hafting, as well as in hunting (Turnbaugh et al 1996: 376). In Europe, the robust archaic sapiens were the Neandertal people, whose type died out absolutely no later than 30,000 years ago. The Neandertal first showed up at the end of the Lower Paleolithic, about 130,000 years ago. The Middle Paleolithic belonged to them. They developed enough control over fire to actually use it, as evidenced by their burnt hearth remains (Johanson and Edgar 1996: 215, 218). Much else is made of the evidence they left behind, such as some degree of altruism since they are seen in some instances to have maintained helpless members of the tribe who had been badly maimed years before death (Turnbaugh et al 1996: 375). However, as most animals maintain helpless siblings, from birds to badgers, and chimpanzees may care for their own infirm (Turnbaugh et al 1996: 206), it is not extraordinary that Homo sapiens were capable of such minimal caring.

More extraordinary for the time was the Neandertal innovation of ceremonial human burial. Some burials are associated with artifacts interred with the deceased (Burenhult 1993: 70-73). This is probably evidence of deep sympathetic feeling for the deceased, and profound grief. It has been suggested without foundation that these particular burials indicate that they had an idea of a soul as a separate entity from the body and a concept of afterlife, but how such a conclusion may be arrived at from the evidence is beyond me. They may well have been philosophical, but as that can neither be deduced nor known, it should not be inferred.

The middle Paleolithic drew to a close with the cultural innovations of modern Homo sapiens sapiens. Again, I subscribe to the general evolutionary model whereby modern genetic traits which were advantageous had become widespread, and all that remained was for cultural innovations to occur which could spread outwards from the culture hearths and benefit the rest of mankind.

As to the Neandertals, while we have evidence of their simple technical development, culturally, they left too little expression in the way of artifacts to convince us of anything in the way of their social development or personal preferences. It was only with the advent of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe that we find cultural expression, in addition to technology, in artifacts.

THE UPPER PALEOLITHIC (EUROPE)

There did occur, around 40,000 years ago, a revolutionary change in the archeological record of Europe. There was a complete displacement of the Neandertals by human populations biologically identical to ourselves. These modern sapiens are identified with those whose cultural remains are to be found throughout Africa, and which date back about 120,000 years there (Burenhult 1993: 78). During the same time there arose a wide range of innovations in the behavior and technology of European people, heralding a new culture similar in some ways to that of the plains indians of North America before contact (with colonial Europeans).

This cultural and ethnic revolution occurred during a period of climatic stability, in the middle of the long Wurm glaciation (the last Ice Age, which lasted from 120,000 before present until 10,000 b.p.) In North America, it was the middle of the Wisconsin glaciation, where no humans were yet in evidence, and all of Canada was under glacial ice.

At that time, the dominant biomes of Europe consisted of vast treeless tundra or equally vast steppe grasslands extending from the Iberian peninsula in the west all the way to the steppes of Russia in the east. At the northern edge of the tundra was the wall of glacial ice covering most of Britain and the North Sea, and all of the Baltic and Scandinavia. To the south of the grassland prairies were the forests of beach, oak, and conifers surrounding the Mediterranean basin (Cunliffe 1994: 43). It was on the grassland steppes of Europe that the people of the Upper Paleolithic flourished. Theirs was a seasonal migratory life, following the great herds of large mammal prey species which dominated the continent, just as the plains bison dominated the western prairies of North America until the railroads arrived in the last century. Evidence of this clear dependence upon specialized exploitation of particular game species is widespread (Cunliffe 1994: 44). For example, in the cave and rock shelter sites of south-west France, reindeer remains account for over 90 percent of total fauna remains in a human habitation site, (some sites show 99 percent reindeer content). This reliance on one big game species is a sensible economic choice, since such migratory species are easy enough to track, and certain to supply all food and clothing requirements for any number of primitive hunters. In our own times, we have seen this very same economy at work among those in the Canadian arctic who live off the caribou herds.

Initially, the Pyrenees mountains acted as a barrier to the Upper Paleolithic expansion, which offers an explanation as to why the Neandertals survived longest in the Iberian peninsula. Once the Cro-Magnon people crossed those mountains, the renowned "Neanderthal Man" disappeared forever. (Stepping out of essay: it is unknown what became of him, but, as Eliza Doolittle would have it, I think "they done 'im in, they did".)

As the Upper Paleolithic people improved on the exploitation of the plains herds, they set up patterns of trade amongst themselves which had never been seen before. By contrast, the early Middle Paleolithic artifacts never appear more than seventy miles from sources of origin. These artifacts, of course, are simply stone raw materials (found in France and Belgium). By the late Middle Paleolithic, there are more of these short haul trade routes in evidence as well as a few in Germany which extend over two hundred miles. The opening period of the Upper Paleolithic, by contrast, already had trade routes of stone materials expanded in Germany to over five hundred miles, and in France the trade in seashells from the Mediterranean extended northwards a thousand miles, towards Holland. (Cunliffe 1994: 27)

The usage of the seashells is most interesting. It was not for reasons of subsistence that the seashells came into use so far from the ocean, but for purely esthetic purposes. They may have had considerable prestige as trade goods, and therefore have had economic use (subsistence value), but they were used to make bracelets and necklaces, and they were sewn as decorations onto clothing. There is a body which was profusely decorated with such wonderful ornaments when it was interred 25,000 years ago at Sungir near Moscow (Cunliffe 1994: 67). Other similar ornamentations associated with burials occurred as far afield as Italy, again around 20,000-25,000 years ago (Burenhult 1993: 95).

As long ago as 32,000 years, ivory was being carved into beads made to look like seashells and pierced for stringing or sewing. The decorative carving of ivory continued all over Europe at this time. Mammoth ivory made for excellent carvings, many of which survive today. Fabulously idealized forms clearly representative of pregnant females are found over the full geographic range of the Upper Paleolithic peoples, from the Pyrenees to the Urals, during the Gravettian cultural period (22,000-27,000 b.p.). Whether or not these were totems or ritual magic objects intended to promote fertility, we may view them as simply beautiful artistic creations (Cunliffe 1994: 69). They were carved out of mammoth ivory, as well as from such stone as translucent calcite (brown agate). A carving of a sphinx-like figure, a standing man with the head of a lion, from Germany (30,000 b.p.) confirms the presence of big cats in Europe (Cunliffe 1994: 50).

Concentrations of fabulous paintings of animals and hunters occur in caves throughout Spain and France. The artwork found there is done no justice without photographic reproductions of them to actually see and marvel at. The cave art exemplified by the sites at Lascaux (Cunliffe 1994: 68) and at Grotte Chauvet (Turnbaugh et al 1996: 404), both in France, was executed during the Solutrean cultural period (21,000-17,000 b.p.).

It is wonderful art, and in its profusion in these caves it speaks of a prosperous culture which supports fixed settlements, at least from time to time, which supported the artist(s) who created the deep galleries in subterranean fastnesses which, remarkably, even today have remained secret places. Nevertheless, it must at the time have been a very public effort, since it was not a private economy which was required to support such a cultural achievement. Even the logistics of maintaining lighting in caves so deep may have required many hands to be kept from the hunt. There are other indications in their artwork that the great hunting people of Europe prospered during the Upper Paleolithic. The prosperity of the community at Willendorf in Austria is attested to by the more than generous body weight of their venus figurine.

The exquisite upper paleolithic Venus of Brassempouy is almost reminiscent of a Roman bust, so civilized is its appearance, so subtle its dignity (Burenhult 1993: 101). It looks like it could come straight off a coin of the early republic .

Clearly, they did not save their best efforts for the merely utilitarian hunting tools, but it would have been interesting to see how they decorated the wooden elements of their weapons, and the fabric and hides of their clothing and shelters. Those perishable elements of the North American plains indians culture were the most fabulous of all, and a people as artistic as the Upper Paleolithic Europeans must have had delightful campsites and costumes. They are always drawn naked or barely clothed, but from their northern climate and their remaining gravegoods, we should know that they were otherwise adorned.

The utilitarian goods which they manufactured for the hunt were well made, and varied. From the kinetic advantage of the leveraged spear thrower (atlatl) to the huge diversity of scrapers, knives, spear and arrowheads, needles, awls, and the later Magdalenian (15,000 b.p.) barbed fishing gaffs, the Upper Paleolithic hunters of the glacial European steppes had as good a technology as any found in the western plains of North America in 1500 A.D (Cunliffe 1994: 48). They did as they pleased and they lived well.

Then the solar engine shifted gears 10,000 years ago and the Ice Age ended.

THE MESOLITHIC RECESSION

The great ice cap retreated into the arctic ocean, and the cold prairie of Europe warmed up. Vast lowland areas such as the North Sea basin and the English Channel which had been tundra were inundated by the sea, which rose over 300 feet globally. New northern lands opened up, however, which had been formerly under glacial ice, and all of Britain and Scandinavia became available for colonization. Trees quickly succeeded to the grasslands and where the herds of reindeer and bison had roamed with the lion and horse, now the deer and elk wandered solitary among the oak and beech forests.

With the loss of the big game herds, and the wide open spaces, the human population of Europe shrank back to the river fisheries and coastal habitats which offered the sure supply of small game and sustenance. Big game hunting became a more solitary and quiet affair, as humans in formation could only scare off deer. The people diversified their economy and relied strongly on fish, game birds, and edible plants, berries and nuts in season. In addition, the innovation of grinding hard grains into edible form became an important addition to the diet. The beginning of domestic agriculture was just around the corner. It was a harder life, requiring more work for less calories. However, it also required more diversity of technology. Certainly at this time, more people were task specialists, and more innovations followed as each new resource suggested its own technical solutions.

While stone tools still dominate the archeological record, there was an explosion in the diversity of these implements (Cunliffe 1994: 94-95). The people who moved into Finland produced fine leaf-shaped spear points, carefully smoothed to a polished finish (Cunliffe 1994: 91). There was also, however, extensive use of organic materials for the manufacture of tools. Barbed gaffs, singular fishing hooks, needles and awls, buckles and daggers all were made from bone and antler. Birch bark water containers were made, and fish nets from plant fibre (Cunliffe 1994: 98-99) Wicker cages and huts were constructed everywhere, and the high utilization of forest wood resulted in specialized development of axes and adzes of stone with wooden and antler handles. Posts were used widely in the construction of dwellings, indicating a facility with rudimentary construction suitable for a seasonally scheduled-migratory lifestyle.

The crowning achievement of the Mesolithic age, however, was the mastery of fire, and its use in firing clay, which for the first time became a basic raw material for manufactured goods. Pottery vessels first appear in the archeological record in Scandinavia around 5,600 years ago (Cunliffe 1994: 101). This completely changed the way in which food and drink could be utilized, since it could now be safely stored for long periods of time, and thus stockpiled.

Initially, there appears to have been a population decline following the drastic environmental changes after the end of the Ice Age, but with the new sophistication in food extraction technologies, a rapid population growth set in, especially in the prosperous new lands of Scandinavia and Jutland. The Baltic Sea provided food in abundance, as well as suitable locations for settlement. Soon, the nomads who had followed the Ice northwards to colonize Scandinavia would germinate a nation so populous that they would be forced to face southwards for spatial expansion. It was then, in the late Mesolithic, that the relentless Germanic expansions began.

While the Mesolithic period is traditionally associated with stone technology until the rise of permanent agricultural settlements 5500 years ago, there is evidence that with their mastery of fire and their development of kiln ovens, they had also already stumbled upon smelting low temperature metal. As our own interglacial warm intensified recently, primordial glaciers in the European Alps above Italy melted away. In the wake of one such meltdown the fully clothed and well preserved body of a Mesolithic trader who had died on the glacier 5,500 years ago was exposed to view. He wore leggings, a loincloth, a deerskin coat, and an outer cape of woven plant fibres. He carried a bow and a quiver full of arrows, as well as a small flint knife and a fire starting kit. He had ritual tattooes over some old injuries, but was otherwise in good health when he suffered his final defeat. He also had in his possession a copper axe (Fagan 1996: 238).

CONCLUSION

When the new Europeans displaced the Neandertals, they definitely brought into Europe the innovations which allowed them to prosper, and which quickly led to a refinement of cultural expression the like of which had never before been seen in the world. While the Ice Age lasted, they were content to carry on millenium after millenium, with so little change in their economy or in their culture that it is now possible for us to view that relatively recent period which lasted as long as twenty thousand years almost as if it were expressed by one uniform cultural tradition. Theirs was a sublime and confident cultural expression, but it was not particularly innovative, nor dynamic. When the Ice Age ended, their steady lifestyle ended, and climate change forced on their descendants the need to react in new ways, which gave rise to a greater variety of regional economies and much greater complexity of cultural innovation and expression.

The early Mesolithic period in Europe was indeed poorer, for a time. Nevertheless, there was such a fast pace of cultural innovations which were triggered by the rapid climate change and subsequent environmental variations, that I have formed the opinion that the early Mesolithic period certainly heralded many dynamic and innovative technical changes throughout Europe that eventually led to an acceleration of cultural diversity and further technical achievements.

There was more culture in Europe after the upper Paleolithic ended, not less. It simply took the now poorer folk some time to develop confident artistic expressions in their own artifacts. The new innovation of pottery coming out of the middle east was the first of these to survive the ravages of time.

ENDNOTE:

Beyond the borders of Europe, possibly the greatest surviving cultural icon of the Upper Paleolithic age was a megalithic lion carving found in Egypt. Cut out of the forest bedrock, the great lion faced east into the rising sun, which, according to the precessional drift of our prehistoric constellations, was rising in the house of Leo every vernal equinox from 11,000-12,500 years ago. Geologists have postulated that it was left to erode in the rains of North Africa for thousands of years before it was buried in the desert sands of the post Ice Age drought (Hancock 1995: 377). If this were true, then only after the pharoah Khafra cut his own little face into the weathered stone thousands of years later, did the Upper Paleolithic lion became a sphinx.

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