[gopher_space]

Anthropology started at a time when people thought civilizations evolved in a straight line from savages to England. But it's hard to pretend that the natives sat around a rock grunting at each other when their e.g. bone-setting techniques were essentially modern, so there's a tradition of "not as benighted as you might have thought" articles.

WHY that point of view still exists is a question every anthro novice asks, and it turns out that cultural evolution is too attractive an idea for some people to let go of.

[thatfrenchguy]

> sat around a rock grunting at each other

Seems crazy to me, given anyone with children that is exposed to multiple languages can easily imagine how complex the language scene must have been in humans that did not write, given how easy and natural it is for little ones to pick up different languages that they speak with different people.

[datameta]

Most likely even Heidelbergensis had "complex grunting" and hand signs so humans in the neolithic are effectively identical to us in language capability.

[arresin]

But then why did they spend so much time without writing or with the same level of tech for so long?

[Broken_Hippo]

Go ahead. Invent some new tech that absolutely no one know about or how to do and that isn't based on any known tech. I'm waiting. What's taking so long?

Discovering stuff is hard and harder if you don't think you need it. People kept fire going before they knew how to start fires. If you don't know about the concept of flint or lighting dry stuff with sparks, it is really hard to invent fire starting. Writing isn't as useful if you can just learn what you need to know while growing up. A more complicated world later - as are discoveries slowly started to build up - probably created the need.

But again, those discoveries are hard and they took time. A really long time, apparently.

[conover]

I think there is a tendency to project the modern era's speed of technological progress back in time, which isn't reasonable. We went from the Wright Brothers to Apollo 11 in 66 years. The first transistor to the iPhone in ~60 years. That rate of development is...new.

[arresin]

My thinking is that they didn’t have any time to invent new things. They did chores and then died.

[gopher_space]

Hunter gatherers had a ton of free time. It's almost impossible to describe how thick on the ground resources were pre-industrialization.

[DuperPower]

check your privilege, you anglos think you are the best culture, you have It so ingrained you dont even notice it

[Podrod]

I believe they were joking. Maybe you should check your sense of humour?