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The Ādam Paradox Hypothesis 124
The archaeological record bursts with evidence of presence and creativity:
harpoons in the Congo, ivory carvings in Europe, ochre engravings in South
Africa, and footprints across the ancient shores of Australia. They painted lions
and mammoths on cave walls in France, composed music on bone flutes in
Germany, and stitched clothes from hides to endure the frozen steppes of
Siberia. This expansion was not just geographical; it was demographic and
cultural. From fragile handfuls, humanity had become plural — spread across
continents, bound by symbols, and organized in ways no primate had ever
achieved.
This transformation raises one of the central paradoxes of human history: How
did a species on the brink of collapse become the dominant ecological force on Earth? What
triggered the surge?
Some scholars argue that numbers came first. As populations grew denser,
innovation followed. In this view, demography is the engine: larger groups
produce more ideas, and more ideas survive. Paul Mellars summarized this
position clearly:
“The increase in population density after 50,000 years ago created a tipping point in which
innovations spread and accumulated.
” (Mellars, 2006, p. 940)
Others insist the arrow runs in the opposite direction.
Ian Tattersall, for instance, rejects demographic primacy:
“Population growth cannot account for the suddenness of symbolic thought. Cognition
unlocked the possibility of large groups, not the reverse.
” (Tattersall, 2012, p. 210)
This is the debate at the heart of Chapter 12.
Was it demography first — larger groups giving rise to culture? Or cognition
first — symbolic thought enabling cooperation, and only then allowing
numbers to rise?
The Adam Paradox Hypothesis (APH) sides firmly with the latter. According
to APH, around 70,000 years ago a threshold in cognition was crossed.
Symbolic thought ignited — not as a gradual accumulation, but as a sudden
activation, a genomic and cognitive switch.