12 Reconstruction of Ancient Human Behavior and Social Organizations

Dr. Arpita Mandal

epgp books

 

 

 

 

Learning objectives:

 

  • To understand the origins of human behavior
  • To understand the origins of social organisation
  • To delineate the different approaches to study ancient human behaviour and socialization

 

Contents:

  1. Introduction

    2. Socioecology

 

3. Interpretation of origin of human behaviour o -From fossil records

 

o  -From contemporary nonhuman primates

 

o  -Tracing human behaviour from archaeological records

 

4. Origin of language

 

5. Behaviour and human origins

 

6. Increased geographic range

 

7. Social organization

 

8. Conclusion

 

9.Summary

 

Introduction:

The legacy of our human evolutionary past has been one of unparalleled evolutionary success, due to remarkable behavioral adaptability born of our expanded brains. The legacy we leave for the future will depend on how well we choose to adapt to the predicament we have brought upon this planet.

 

   One school of thought argues that Homo sapiens emerged with the abilities needed to be modern, and it simply took 70,000 years to hone the technological and social skills needed before they could successfully venture out and populate the rest of the world.”Humans have had the capacity for space travel, or designing computers, for several thousand years—nothing about us has really changed,” said Richard Potts, Director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., 1998 “The problem of discovering when modern human behaviour arose is that significant innovations are manifested after the cognitive and social capacities to innovate have already evolved.” Potts further considers the ability to adapt to change, particularly to environmental conditions, as a key factor in modern human evolution. Adaptability and innovation in response to climatic change can be seen occurring as far back as 400,000 years ago. A less widely accepted theory holds that humans underwent a dramatic genetic change in brain function—perhaps increased memory or improved language skills—around 50,000 years ago which gave them an enhanced ability to innovate and enabled the exodus from Africa.”The alternate argument [gradual evolution of skills] is based on the assumption that the historic present is key to the past, that because we’ve never seen a modern change in cognition it didn’t occur in the past. I don’t see any reason to make that assumption,” said Richard Klein, 2004. a paleoanthropologist at Stanford University. Revolutionary changes in behaviour also occurred roughly 2.5 million years ago, and again at 1.8 million years ago, he says.”There were events that occurred back then that were certainly unique,” he said. “Four, five, six million years ago, hominid brains were about half the size of ours [scaling for size]. Increased brain size was not a gradual process. Greater intelligence was naturally selected for and occurred quickly. It was not a continuous process.” Klein believes that genetic evidence might ultimately provide answers.

 

Socioecology:

Like other animals, Primates spend their lives solving the very basic problems of finding food, avoiding predators, finding mates and (especially for females) rearing offspring. As anatomical features evolved in response to selective pressures imposed by the environment, similarly behaviors also evolved to meet these demands. Thus, behaviors can be seen as adaptive responses that provide the most fundamental necessities of life, and their evolution has been the result of the complex interactions of numerous factors. Scientists who study behaviour in free –ranging primates do so within an ecological framework, focusing on the relationship between aspects of social behaviour and the natural environment, an approach called socioecology.

 

Therefore, to understand the functioning of one component such as the social structure of a given species, it is necessary to determine its relationship with numerous environmental factors, including:

 

  • Diet: quantity and quality of different kinds of foods ( caloric value, digestive energy required, net value to the animal )
  • Distribution of food and water resources ( dense, scattered, clumps or seasonal availability)
  • Body size
  • Distribution and types of predators
  • Distribution of sleeping sites
  • Activity patterns ( nocturnal, diurnal)
  • Relationships with other species, both primate and non-primate
  • Impact of human activities

     Observations on primate behaviour in the wild have documented, as Yerkes (1927) foresaw, the role of social, as well as genetic transmission of behaviour. Some argued ( e.g Cavalli Sforza 1982, Boyd and Richerson 1985, Durham 1992), a Darwinian framework for models of cultural evolution. It is essentially an expanded view of Darwin’s evolution based on inclusive fitness and models for direct phenotypic transmission of behavioural traits. This expanded view of evolutionary processes and the capacities of an ancestral primate species provide a sufficient basis for modeling the emergence of the culturally framed forms of social organization that characterizes modern Homo sapiens. The transition to the forms of social organization that characterize human societies also involved a fundamental shift to evolution, driven by the transmission of conceptual systems underlying social organization rather than transmittal of individual traits .The barrier represents the difficulty in maintaining a coherent form of social organization in the face of an evolutionary trend towards increased individuation of behaviour as exemplified in the transition from the cercopithecines (Old World monkeys) to the apes. This increased individuation led to the potential reduction in the coherency of social organization that was resolved among the pongids either through reduction of the size of social units or through partial solutions to the problem of maintaining social coherency in the face of extensive individualization. A more complete resolution of the conflict between individuation and social coherency depended upon a shift away from social organization arising from a genetic/individual learning/ individual-interaction foundation to social organization constructed around a conceptual system for interaction that transcended individual fitness as the primary basis for evolutionary change.

 

  As noted a half-century ago by the structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss: “It seems as if the great apes, having broken away from a specific pattern of behavior, were unable to re-establish a norm on any new plane. The clear and precise instinctive behaviour of most mammals is lost to them, but the difference is purely negative and the field that nature has abandoned remains unoccupied” (1969[1949]:8).

 

  Evolution of biologically based cooperative patterns of behaviour driven by inclusive fitness as a way to overcome the problems introduced by individuality are limited by the shallow depth of biological kin relations that can be activated among the non-human primates. Accommodation of individualized behaviour had to shift from a biological kin basis to a conceptual basis for constructing relations among group members that transcended the limitation posed by means for identification of biological kin. This shift enabled patterns of behaviour conducive to social cohesiveness in the face of extensive individualization of behaviour to arise and thereby restructure the mode of evolution as it applies to hominid social organization and cultural systems.

 

Interpretation of origin of human behavior:

From fossil evidences behavior can sometimes be established from examination of the fossils themselves. For example, cut marks on the Bodo skull and the Klasies River sample may indicate cannibalism or ritual behaviour (White, 1986, 1987; Deacon & Deacon, 1999).

     Postcrania are a possible source of information regarding postural and locomotor habits and activity levels, though postcranial remains from African Middle Pleistocene and early later Pleistocene fossil postcrania exhibit both primitive and derived traits (Stringer, 1986; Solan & Day, 1992; Churchill et al., 1996;Pearson & Grine, 1997; Groves, 1998;

 

    McBrearty et al, 1999). The gracilization of the upper limb which marks the advent of anatomical modernity (Churchill et al., 1996; Pearson et al., 1998; Pfeiffer, 1998) is a reversal of a previous trend towards robusticity and may suggest a relaxation of selection for constant mobility and close encounters with prey (Trinkaus, 1987).

     The tropical limb proportions of early H. sapiens in late glacial Europe suggest not only an extension of the human geographic range out of the tropics, but also the use of cultural rather than physical solutions to the problems of cold temperatures and scarce resources (Trinkaus, 1981; Torrence, 1983;Foley, 1987; Ruff, 1994; Holliday, 1997, 1998, 2000; Pearson, 1997). That these solutions resulted in less nutritional stress among juveniles in early modern human populations is reflected in the lower incidence of Harris’ lines and enamel hypoplasias among these populations relative to the Neanderthals (Bermu´dez de Castro, 1988; Ogilvie et al., 1989; Brennan, 1991; Trinkaus, 1995), although sample sizes in these studies are small. From contemporary non human primates.

 

    Because fossil and archaeological records provide limited data concerning behaviour and social organization, researchers turn their attention to other sources of information to help reconstruct our past. Modern hunter-gatherers, for example serve as analogues for reconstructing how our ancestors adapted to their environment and how they may have made and used tools. Nonhuman primates are our closest phylogenetic relatives and are studied to generate information about ecological and behavioral adaptations. Comparative discussions of human and nonhuman social behaviour seem particularly vulnerable to culturally loaded generalizations with the assumption that they are true of all people. Despite these constraints, a comparative approach yields useful information and is a main reason why we can deduce a fair amount of information about the social organizations and behaviors of long-extinct humans from their cultural and skeletal remains.

 

     From the viewpoint of reconstructing human evolution, studies of the chimpanzee have generalized many suggestions concerning our ancestral behaviour and social organization. Of special interest are the facts of chimpanzee intelligence, communication, sociability, and adaptability, duration of the mother-infant tie and sibling relationships, bipedalism, extent of object manipulation and tool use, heavy reliance on plant foods and some predation, and the important roles that social tradition and the environmental context have on social organization and behaviour (Tanner, 1981).

 

  Boesch-Achermann and Boesch (1994) in a study said that, hunting behaviour and meat eating also show remarkable variability. Chimpanzees of the Tai Forest cooperate in hunting colobus monkeys. And among the same species, the ranking male of the group shares the meat with the female who killed the monkey before other males have a chance to share the meat.

 

  One of the best known researchers on Chimpanzee is Jane Goodall, whose studies begun in 1960 in the Gombe Stream reserve, Tanzania, has added significantly to our knowledge about chimpanzees and has provided insights for the earliest stages of human evolution. Goodall however has documented a number of instances of chimpanzee tool use and manufacture. Goodall, 1964 saw chimpanzees break off grass stems or thin branches, which they poke into termite holes to get at the termites. If the probe does not fit the hole the chimpanzee shapes it until it does. Leaves are stripped away to make the tool suitable for “termite fishing”. After termites become attached to the probe, the chimpanzee runs the probe across its front teeth and eats the termites. Thus a tool used is also made.

 

  Communication is universal among animals and includes unintentional, autonomic responses and behaviors that convey meaning. Such attributes as body posture convey information about an animal’s emotional state, e.g. a crouched position indicates a certain degree of insecurity or fear, while a purposeful striding gait implies confidence. Many intentional behaviors also serve as communication. In primates, these include a wide variety of gestures, facial expressions, and vocalizations, some of which we humans share.

 

   Primates also use a wide array of vocalizations for communications. Some, such as the bark of a baboon or food grunt of a chimpanzee are made to inform others. Primates also communicate through displays which are more complicated, frequently elaborate combinations of behaviors. Indeed, if primates are not reared within a relatively normal social context, such behaviors may not be performed appropriately because the contextual manifestations of communicatory actions are learned. But the underlying predisposition to learn and use them and the motor patterns involved in their execution are genetically influenced.

 

  Over time, certain behaviors and motor patterns that originated in specific contexts have assumed increasing importance as communicatory signals. For example, crouching initially aided in avoiding physical attack. In addition, this behaviour conveyed that the individual was fearful, submissive and nonaggressive. Thus, crouching became valuable not only for its primary function, but for its role in communication as well and natural selection increasingly favored it for this secondary role.

 

  Archaeological remains are a good source of evidence for past behavior, and may help to clarify the nature of later Middle Pleistocene speciation events themselves. The most conspicuous behavioral event in the late Middle Pleistocene archaeological record of Africa is the disappearance of the Acheulian industry before 200 ka, and its replacement by diverse Middle Stone Age (MSA) traditions. This obvious fact is consistently overlooked because Europe’s earliest modern human inhabitants, about 150,000 years later, were makers of Upper Paleolithic technology. Thus, the origin of H. sapiens has been conflated with the origin of the Upper Paleolithic. The Acheulian contains large bifaces, while most MSA industries are characterized by smaller flake tools, sometimes made on flakes struck from prepared cores. The abandonment of handaxes and cleavers for smaller flake tools represents the replacement of hand held by hafted implements and signals a profound technological reorganization. It is clear that the features diagnostic of physical modernity emerge in conjunction with MSA technologies. There are evidences to support the presence of modern human behaviors in sub-Saharan Africa at remote times far predating such traces outside Africa. The appearance of modern behaviors accompanied or even preceded the appearance of H. sapiens during the African MSA, suggesting that the behaviors may perhaps have driven the anatomical changes seen in the fossils. These behaviors developed gradually over a substantial period of time and periodically in different parts of the continent.

 

   The Neolithic or New Stone Age (NSA) beginning before 10,000 years ago in some areas of the world marks the most pivotal changes in human history: the shift from food gathering to food production. Like the changes from the Paleolithic to Mesolithic the transition to the NSA occurred gradually. The archaeologist V. Gordon Childe (1951) used the term “Neolithic Revolution” to describe the origin and impact of food production –plant cultivation and domestication. Neolithic now refers to the first cultural period in a given region in which the first signs of domestication are present. The Neolithic economy based on food production produced substantial changes in human lifestyles. The pace of social and cultural change increased enormously. Human populations were thus modifying the reproductive patterns of certain plants and animals to propagate certain characteristics better suited to their own needs. Gradually this process yielded plants and animals that were distinct from wild species and dependent on humans, the process that is referred as domestication. In addition to a dramatic increase in population, the Neolithic period is also marked by increasingly sophisticated material culture, social stratification, and political complexity. These trends set the stage for the emergence of states in many parts of the world.

 

The origin of language:

  In much of the recent literature, the ‘‘human revolution’’ is synonymous with the origin of ‘fully syntactical’ language (e.g., Mellars, 1991; Noble & Davidson, 1991, 1996; Klein, 1992, 1995; Mithen, 1994, 1996). Abstract and symbolic behaviors imply language, but it is doubtful that the point at which they can first be detected coincides with the birth of language. Attempts to identify the earliest signs of language, whether from the study of the brain (e.g., Falk, 1980, 1990; Holloway, 1983, 1985; Deacon, 1997), the speech apparatus (e.g., Falk, 1975; Lieberman, 1975, 1984; Arensburg et al., 1990; Lieberman et al., 1992; Kay et al., 1998), stone tools (e.g., Wynn, 1979; Dibble, 1989; Toth & Schick, 1993), or primate communication (e.g., Cheney & Seyfarth, 1990; Savage- Rumbaugh & Rumbaugh, 1993), contribute to a sense of continuity, rather than discontinuity between human and nonhuman primate cognitive and communicative abilities (e.g., Parker & Gibson, 1979, 1990; Gibson, 1993; Gibson & Ingold, 1993; Mellars & Gibson, 1996). Language does not fossilize, and technology provides insight only into the minimum cognitive abilities of its makers and users (Wobst, 1983; Wynn, 1985; Goren-Inbar, 1988). We infer that some form of language originated early in human evolution, and that language existed in a variety of forms throughout its long evolution, but we concur with those who have pointed out the inherent untestability of many propositions regarding the origin of language, and the profound silence of the archaeological record on this issue (Dibble, 1989; Foley, 1991b; Graves-Brown, 1994).

 

Behavior and human origins:

      There are several physical characteristics, such as adaptations for bipedal locomotion and an enlarged brain, that characterize humans and to varying degrees, our hominid ancestors. But from a structural point of view, humans are not really that unique when compared with other primates, especially the great apes.

 

   It is the behavioral attributes that most dramatically set humans apart, and long ago culture became our strategy for coping with life’s challenges. No other primate even comes close to the human ability to modify the environment. Communication through symbolic language is yet another uniquely human trait. Several other features differentiate humans from the majority of other primates. These traits may be found in one or more other primate species, but only humans can claim them all:

 

  1. Humans are bipedal.
  2. Humans live in permanent bisexual social groups with males often bonded to females.
  3. Humans have large brains relative to body weight and they are capable of complex learning.
  4. Humans can think symbolically and they use language, a communication system that is symbolic in nature.
  5. Humans have adapted culture.
  6. Humans obtain food through some male-female division of labour.
  7. Human females experience concealed ovulation so that they are sexually receptive throughout the year.

     These traits are characteristic of all modern humans. Humans reflect their evolutionary heritage as primates and stand as one component of a biological continuum. It is this evolutionary relationship, then, that accounts for many of the behaviors we have in common with prosimians, monkeys and apes.

 

  The European Upper Paleolithic, because it is known to be the product of H. sapiens, is often used as a standard for modern human behavior, which is contrasted with the European Middle Paleolithic produced by the Neanderthals (e.g., White, 1982; Clark & Lindly, 1989, 1991; Hayden, 1993; Klein, 1995; Mellars, 1995). The literature converges upon a number of common ingredients thought to characterize modern human behavior:

  • -Increasing artifact diversity.
  • -Standardization of artifact types.
  • -Blade technology.
  • -Worked bone and other organic materials.
  • -Personal ornaments and “art” or images.

Structured living spaces.

  • Ritual.
  • Economic intensification, reflected in the exploitation of aquatic or other resources that requires specialized technology.
  • Enlarged geographic range.
  • Expanded exchange networks.
  • Technology
  • New lithic technologies: blades, microblades, backing
  • Standardization within formal tool categories
  • Hafting and composite tools
  • Tools in novel materials, e.g., bone, antler
  • Special purpose tools, e.g., projectiles, geometrics
  • Increased numbers of tool categories
  • Geographic variation in formal categories
  • Temporal variation in formal categories
  • Greater control of fire

Economy and social organization

  • Long-distance procurement and exchange of raw materials
  • Curation of exotic raw materials
  • Specialized hunting of large, dangerous animals
  • Scheduling and seasonality in resource exploitation
  • Site reoccupation
  • Intensification of resource extraction, especially aquatic and vegetable resources
  • Long-distance exchange networks
  • Group and individual self-identification through artifact style
  • Structured use of domestic space

Symbolic behavior

  • Regional artifact styles
  • Self adornment, e.g., beads and ornaments
  • Use of pigment
  • Notched and incised objects (bone, egg shell, ocher, stone)
  • Image and representation
  • Burials with grave goods, ocher, ritual objects

     At first glance, this inventory is reminiscent of the sort of trait list that Childe (1928, 1950) and others once used to define civilization. However, they reveal assumptions about underlying hominid capabilities.

 

It can be argued that modern human behaviour is characterized by:

  1. Abstract thinking, the ability to act with reference to abstract concepts not limited in time or space.
  2. Planning depth, the ability to formulate strategies based on past experience and to act upon them in a group context.
  3. Behavioral, economic and technological innovativeness.
  4. Symbolic behavior, the ability to represent objects, people, and abstract concepts with arbitrary symbols, vocal or visual, and to understand and imply such symbols in cultural practice. Tangible traces of these early behavioral shifts toward modernity can be seen in the African archaeological record, and can be tied explicitly to hominid cognitive and cultural capabilities.
  5. Ecological aspects of the record reflect human abilities to colonize new environments, which require both innovation and planning depth.
  6. Technological features reveal human inventiveness and capacity for logical thinking.

Foraging societies

  Because events in the prehistoric past cannot be directly observed, the anthropologists can reconstruct them only from material evidence recovered in modern times. Such reconstruction is based on analogy, whereby the identity of unknown forms is inferred from those already known. Ethnoarchaeology utilizes living populations for reconstructing our past. For example, we can gain insights from populations of modern foragers about a way of life that was a basic part of our evolutionary past. One individual to study foragers as a guide to the past was Richard Gould (1968a, 1968b, 1969), who worked in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia with a two family group of thirteen aborigines. These people were once among the few people in the world still making and using stone tools regularly. He and his wife observed the details of tool making, hunting, camping, composition of living floors and the aborigines’ extremely complex system of social behaviors. The Australian aborigines’ remarkable adaptation to their rather harsh desert environment includes a technology similar to that of a toolmaker of 30,000 years ago. A common tool is the “adz flake” which is thick with a fairly steep edge. It closely resembles scrapers common to many prehistoric sites.

 

Increased geographic range:

  Expansion of human populations into challenging habitats by means of improved technology is seen as a sign of cognitive sophistication and social complexity (Torrence, 1983; Klein, 1989b; Davidson & Noble, 1992; Jones, 1992; Soffer, 1994; O’Connell & Allen, 1998). This trend is seen in the African MSA. MSA sites in Acheulian, which may simply reflect preservation bias and an increase in population size. However, the fact that they are found in virtually every corner of the continent argues against population expansion as the single explanatory factor. This extension into previously uninhabited zones is thought by Clark (1993) to illustrate the improved adaptive abilities of MSA hominids over those of their Acheulian predecessors. The geographic distribution of MSA sites does indicate human adaptations to a wide range of challenging habitats. Two of these, desert and forest, merit special consideration. Sparse Acheulian sites indicate sporadic occupation of what is now the Sahara, Namib, Karoo, and Kalahari deserts, but our understanding of the significance of most of these is tempered by three factors:

 

(1) Good data for the interior of the Sahara is lacking;

(2) The ready visibility of Acheulian bifaces tends to inflate the numbers of Acheulian sites relative to those of other periods; and

(3) The environmental conditions in these regions at the time of occupation are unknown. The few known dates suggest that these occupations date to the late Middle Pleistocene (Miller et al., 1991, 1993). Associated lake and spring deposits indicate a more wet habitat than at present (Wendorf et al., 1993a,b; Churcher et al., 1999; Nicoll et al., 1999). Sites of the MSA Aterian industry do indicate widespread habitation of the Sahara between ca. 90 ka and ca. 40 ka. Aterian sites are found in habitats varying from marine to mountain to semiarid desert, and occupation was not confined to humid periods (Marks, 1975; Williams, 1976; Clark, 1980; Debenath, 1994; Kleindienst, 2000b). For South Africa, Deacon (1989) observes that MSA occupations, in contrast to those of the Acheulian, are not restricted to sites near water sources. He suggests the use of water containers in the MSA and a perception of the environment indistinguishable from that of people of later periods. Human life in a tropical rainforest environment, with its dispersed fauna, and fruit and root resources that are often inaccessible and toxic, requires complex technology. No modern human groups are known to subsist in the forest solely by foraging without a source of domesticated carbohydrates, and this adaptation has been held to have been impossible for prehistoric groups (Bailey et al., 1989). Others, however, argue that it is feasible, particularly if fish are incorporated into the diet (Gragson, 1992). Evidence for early occupation of tropical forest environments is equivocal. Acheulian sites are very rare for the Congo Basin. Clark (1981) has suggested that the technology of the Sangoan industry provided the equipment necessary for a forest adaptation.

 

Social organization:

Regional variety in MSA points to the diversification of MSA toolkits and the varying proportions of different artifact classes at different sites no doubt reflect regional traditions as well as different extractive activities. Points comprise the single functionally equivalent class of artifacts that best reflects regional differences, and signals the presence of regional styles. Projectile points have traditionally been used by archaeologists to define later prehistoric industries worldwide. They are thought to encode stylistic information for their makers for two reasons:

 

(1) Point design is tightly constrained by aerodynamic and hafting requirements, and therefore successful designs tend to be closely replicated (Wilmsen, 1974; Knecht, 1993);

(2) Within groups, sharing or exchange of projectile points imposes design limits. Ethnographically, individuals have been observed to continue to manufacture projectiles long after their declining eyesight, reflexes, and endurance have diminished their own success as hunters. Among the Kung and other people, projectiles are provided to successful hunters in exchange for a claim on the meat (Yellen, 1977; Lee, 1979). Thus, the maker must conform to a familiar template so that the hunter will be able to perform with tools produced by a variety of craftsmen (Wiessner, 1982, 1983). This contributes to abrupt discontinuities in projectile point style that coincide with the boundaries of the ethnic groups within which projectiles are exchanged. Such geographic patterning of form in functionally equivalent artifacts has been seen as the archaeological signature of style; however it is construed (Sackett, 1990; Wobst, 1977; Hodder, 1985; Conkey, 1990). On the whole, there is not a high degree of variability in the Middle Paleolithic of Western Europe, where pointed forms are rare (Chase & Dibble, 1987)

 

Conclusion:

  Behavior is a highly complex trait and must be seen not only as being influenced by specific gene products, but also as the product of interactions between genetic and environmental factors that are not yet fully elucidated. Indeed the ability to learn is ultimately based in the genome inherited by individuals of any species. Between species there is considerable variation in the limits and potentials for learning and behavioral plasticity (capacity to change in a physiological context).

 

  A dispute arises when trying to establish the actual mechanics of behavioral evolution in complex social animals such as primates. There is a need to determine which primate behaviors have a genetic basis and how these behaviors influence reproductive success.

 

Summary:

Primate behavior, like human behavior, is highly social.

  • This presentation has concentrated on social behaviour, because, to some extent, it’s what’s most interesting and also what makes non human primates so like us.
  • However, behaviour also includes locomotion (running, jumping, walking and climbing) and specifics of foraging behaviour.
  • Socio-biological principles give us the tools to objectively investigate these things, but we shouldn’t be blinded by the perfection of the method.
  • Primates are very social creatures. They express themselves in social situations through a variety of behaviors, including grooming (a bonding behavior).
  • Primate social groups reflect the complexity of their social relationships.
  • Group structures can range from one male with several females to groups of many males and females to solitary individuals.
  • Primates show both competitive and cooperative behaviors, all of which can be studied within an evolutionary context.
  • Primate researchers have long been collecting evidence that nonhuman primates have culture, particularly material culture or the ability to make simple objects to alter their environments (e.g., stick tools to fish for termites).

   In the end, most behavioural studies just give clues to the big picture, and the picture itself needs to be pieced together like a jigsaw. And like most of these things, it is open to interpretation too.

 

 

you can view video on Reconstruction of Ancient Human Behavior and Social Organizations

 

 

 

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