Page 26 - Flipping book The Adam Paradox Hypothesis - Second Edition.pdf

The Ādam Paradox Hypothesis 3
The Second Strand: Sparks Without Continuity
The archaeological record does preserve brief flashes of symbolic behavior
before 70,000 years ago. These flashes prove that the human brain was
capable of abstract thought. But they also prove that something was
unstable.
At Pinnacle Point in South Africa (~164 kya), people collected and ground
red ochre, likely for body painting, and heat-treated silcrete for toolmaking
(Marean et al., 2007). At Qafzeh (~92 kya), perforated shells suggest
ornamentation—beads strung as necklaces (Bar-Yosef Mayer et al., 2009). At
Blombos Cave (~77 kya), pieces of ochre are engraved with deliberate
cross-hatched patterns, widely hailed as the earliest abstract designs
(Henshilwood et al., 2002). At Diepkloof (~60 kya), ostrich eggshell
fragments bear repetitive geometric motifs (Texier et al., 2010).
Figure 1.1 — Dual Timeline: Anatomy vs. Sparks
The actual artifacts corresponding to the Sparks Timeline