Abstract
This chapter reviews evidence concerning the development of our species and its prehistoric migrations. By relating these acts of migration to the emergence of innovations and their initial accumulation—in what would become the first human forms of civilisation—the chapter brings phylogenetic examples of the connection between mobility and possibility.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
For findings from this study see Glăveanu et al. (2018).
- 3.
For details, see Glăveanu and de Saint Laurent (2018). Basically essentialism derives conclusions about the perspective of others by formulating judgements about who they are (‘people like these…’), situationalism by where and how they live (‘people in this situation…’), repositioning by trying to place oneself in the situation of the other (‘if this happened to me…’), and identification by trying to become the other (‘if I were him or her…).
- 4.
For more details about this you can check the OECD documents ‘Is migration good for the economy?’, available on OECD migration (https://www.oecd.org/migration/).
- 5.
See Macková and Kysučan (2016).
- 6.
See de Saint Laurent et al. (2020).
- 7.
I don’t want to ignore or downplay here the many people who don’t think like this and who are not only open to migrants but eager to help them. During the refugee crisis, some of these people risked fines and even their own freedom to aid migrants, to offer them transport and shelter and, today, many more are actively fighting anti-immigration discourses, including on social media.
- 8.
For more details see Knappett and Kiriatzi (2016).
- 9.
‘Human evolution may be divided into two phases. During the first phase, the earliest representatives of the human subfamily diverged from the African apes, roughly 6 million years ago. The divergence probably was triggered by a shift from quadrupedal to bipedal locomotion, which was likely tied to a change in foraging strategy. The extreme poverty of the fossil record for this time period obscures the earliest part of the human story. For more than 3 million years, humans remained small-brained “bipedal apes” in the tropical zone of Africa. During the second phase of human evolution, which began 2.5–2.0 million years ago, the larger-brained genus Homo appeared, along with stone tools and evidence for meat consumption. Roughly 2 million years ago, or shortly thereafter, representatives of Homo emigrated out of tropical Africa into the northern parts of the continent and also into Eurasia – as far as latitude 40 degrees North. This was followed by several more migrations of various forms of Homo out of Africa, culminating in the global dispersal of modern humans or Homo sapiens, beginning roughly 60,000 years ago’ (Hoffecker 2015, p. 394).
- 10.
- 11.
Fischer (2003).
- 12.
See Kuhn (2012). As he notes, ‘the phenomenon of a particularly creative period or place is an emergent property of the thoughts and actions of a great many different individuals; it is a consequence of interactions more than individual characteristics’ (p. 69).
- 13.
‘Early products of individual genius are both uncommon and very limited in their distribution. Prior to about 70.000 years ago, there were very few objects that stood out as emblematic of the individual creative process. Even after this time such objects are far from ubiquitous. For example, during the Upper Palaeolithic (ca. 45–12 ka), iconic phenomena such as cave paintings and finely decorated tools are – with some notable exceptions – confined to limited pockets within Western, Central and Eastern Europe. These phenomena constitute a fascinating and rich subject for research, but concentrating too much attention on them leaves out most of the globe and the largest part of human prehistory’ (Kuhn 2012, p. 70).
- 14.
Kuhn (2012, p. 70).
- 15.
Kuhn (2012, p. 74).
- 16.
‘The density and structure of connections among nodes (individuals) can influence the rate at which information (or anything else) propagates across geographic and social space. As such, the formation of social networks and their structures could have important consequences for the dispersal and retention of novel behaviours, and so for the appearance of innovation in the Palaeolithic cultural record’ (Kuhn 2012, p. 76).
- 17.
‘It is reasonable to postulate a causal connection between strategies of social alliance formation and the cultural dynamism of the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic and late MSA in Africa (Stiner and Kuhn, 2006; Powell et al., 2009). But simply contrasting these long time intervals with earlier periods makes it difficult to disentangle the effects of networks from the influence of demography and the appearance and dispersal of a new hominin, H. sapiens; that is, it leaves open the question of whether the rapid innovation during the late MSA and Upper Palaeolithic was due to new kinds of social networks or simply new kinds of hominins. Dynamics within the Upper Palaeolithic may point more directly to the consequences of networks for cultural change and diversity. More specifically, cultural homogenisation and turnover within the Upper Palaeolithic could well be related to the increasing interconnectedness of human populations’ (Kuhn 2012, p. 79).
- 18.
See Hamilton et al. (2011).
- 19.
See Granito et al. (2019). Interestingly, they discovered that styles of pictorial representation are shaped by intergroup contact in the direction of becoming more figurative and transparent to outsiders, compared to those groups lacking such contacts and where the style is abstract and opaque.
- 20.
For more details, see Heitz and Stapfer (2017).
- 21.
For more examples see Cochrane (2008).
- 22.
I am very grateful for these observations to Luuk Huitink.
- 23.
Blecking (2008).
- 24.
Schilling (1983). As nicely noted, ‘in early modem Europe, unlike present times, the propagation of innovations and their interregional penetration did not come about primarily through books or technical and professional journals. It took place rather through the migration of skilled craftsmen, financiers and entrepreneurs, settling voluntarily or in consequence of expulsion from foreign countries’ (pp. 7–8).
- 25.
See Vertovec and Wessendorf (2010).
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Glăveanu, V.P. (2020). Homo Movens . In: Mobilities and Human Possibility. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52082-3_3
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