Page 250 - Flipping book The Adam Paradox Hypothesis - Second Edition.pdf

The Ādam Paradox Hypothesis 227
Where Sparks Fail to Become Fire
1. Scale and Permanence
Yes, sparks flicker. But they rarely last.
Neanderthal pigments appear briefly, then vanish.
Trinil engravings are isolated; no tradition follows them.
Early ochre uses at Pinnacle Point fade without continuity.
These are not cumulative symbolic systems. They are isolated sparks in damp
wood, extinguished before they become fire.
2. Synchrony Problem
Around 70kya, symbolic artifacts stabilize across Africa and Eurasia almost
simultaneously.
Beads appear in multiple regions.
Burials with ochre appear in the Levant and Africa.
Engraved motifs proliferate.
Independent sparks do not naturally align. Synchrony suggests a shared ignition.
3. Demographic Alignment
Population expansions track the same ignition window. Effective population
size surges after ~70kya (Henn et al., 2012).
If multiple sparks ignited independently, expansions should have been
staggered. Instead, they rise together. This points to a single synchronizing
trigger.