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The Ādam Paradox Hypothesis 154
14.1 Archaeology: From Silence to Symphony
The archaeological record is often invoked to argue for gradual cultural
accumulation, yet its true message is far more decisive. For nearly a quarter of a
million years, anatomically modern humans left behind only ephemeral traces of
culture. Stone tools shifted incrementally, shelters vanished, and symbolic
artifacts appeared only sporadically — ochre pieces scratched at Pinnacle Point,
a bead or two at Qafzeh, ambiguous engravings at Klasies River. But these
sparks never stabilized into lasting traditions. They flared briefly, then
disappeared.
If symbolic cognition were a gradual evolutionary drift, we would expect a
steady increase of artifacts across this immense timespan. Instead, what we see
is silence — silence punctuated by failed experiments. Then, after ~70,000 years
ago, the pattern changes abruptly. Symbols erupt everywhere and stabilize.
Ornaments multiply, myths are painted in caves, music echoes in ritual spaces,
and burials become ceremonial. The difference is not one of degree but of kind
— a threshold crossed.
Thus the proposal is clear: the archaeological record is not evidence of slow
accumulation but of a long dormancy followed by sudden ignition. This ignition
— the Adamic threshold — is the decisive explanation for the Cognitive
Revolution.
Supporting Evidence for the Threshold
Blombos Cave (~75–70 ka): The Beads of Belonging
On South Africa’s coast, excavations uncovered over seventy Nassarius
kraussianus beads, perforated and polished, with microscopic wear showing
they were strung and worn (Henshilwood et al., 2004).
As d’Errico (2005) explains:
“Beads are unambiguous indicators of symbolism because their value depends entirely on
shared meaning” (p. 9).
Unlike tools, these served no survival function — they were tokens of
identity, marking the shift from I to we.