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Communication across geographies is not new and may have existed as early as 400,000 years ago, according to a new study. The hypothesis was made based on evidences of fire use in different parts of the world during the same geological period.
Concrete archaeological signs of fire use among hominins appear as early as 400,000 years ago. The evidences of fire use are spread “over major parts of the Old World, in Africa, as well as in western Eurasia, and in different subpopulations,” the paper noted.
This cultural dispersion over a short span of time indicates that there were large-scale social networks in place even in that era, the scientists inferred. The various groups of early humans were tolerant towards one another and exchanged ideas and techniques quite often, they added.
The cultural behaviour is more similar to that exhibited by modern humans than its “great ape relatives”, the report said.
A similar phenomenon around a 1,000 years later backs the cultural dispersion theory: The hominins of the Old World followed the same and a rather complex method to carve stone tools, known as the Levallois technique.
The scientists wrote in the paper:
The complexity of Levallois stone knapping means that it can in, all probability, only be learned through close and prolonged observation combined with active instruction, supporting our earlier argument for intensified intergroup interactions around 400,000 years ago.
The study also considered other possible ways of widespread, simultaneous fire use during the period, such as relocation of an entire subgroup, transmission through evolution or individual inventions of fire-lighting technique in different parts of the world. Cultural dispersion, however, emerged as the strongest reason.
The study was done by researchers from the University of Leiden and Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences August 3, 2021.