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The Ādam Paradox Hypothesis 116
Francesco d’Errico emphasized gradualism. To him, the intermittent beads,
ochre engravings, and burials of Africa and the Levant were not sparks awaiting
ignition but evidence of slow accumulation.
“Symbolic practices emerged gradually, in
fits and starts, accumulating across tens of thousands of years. The appearance of sudden
‘revolutions’ reflects gaps in the record, not biological thresholds.
” (d’Errico & Stringer, 2011,
p. 1064).
The strength of gradualism is inclusivity — no artifact is dismissed as
anomalous. Yet its weakness lies in the silences. If symbolism accumulated
steadily, why do we see collapse at Blombos, vanishing at Qafzeh, silence in the Levant?
Tattersall himself advanced the threshold model. For him, symbolic cognition is
categorical, not incremental.
“Symbolic cognition is not incremental. It is a
threshold phenomenon: once crossed, it redefines what it means to be
human. The archaeological record, with its abrupt efflorescence, speaks to this.
”
(Tattersall, 2012, p. 205).
This aligns closely with the Adam Paradox Hypothesis, which frames the
threshold not as a blind mutation or demographic accident but as the infusion of
rūḥ into an already prepared vessel.
Figure 11.10 — Comparative models of symbolic origins: Human Revolution (Klein),
Demography (Mellars), Gradualism (d’Errico), Threshold (APH).
Four competing
frameworks for the
emergence of symbolic
behavior in Homo sapiens
are compared along a
300,000-year timeline.
The Human Revolution
model (Klein) posits a
sudden genetic or cognitive
trigger around 50–40 ka.The Demographic model (Mellars) links symbolic proliferation to population density and connectivity,
with an onset near 80 ka. Gradualism (d’Errico) envisions incremental accumulations of symbolic
practices from ~150 ka onward. The Threshold / APH model (Tattersall, APH) highlights
anatomical modernity (~200 ka) followed by a long delay and then a sharp symbolic burst around 70
ka. Together these models frame the debate on whether symbolic cognition arose suddenly, through social
dynamics, or via gradual cultural layering.