THE CREATIVE REVOLUTION
Behavioral Modernity
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❓ What makes us different from other animals?
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- Symbolic, abstract thinking
- Regularized, shared systems of communication
- Elaborations of social norms and specialized roles
- Wide-spread cooperation, even among non-kin
- Outside of Darwinian modes of thinking
- Research focused on Europe
- Scholars into 1980s viewed Europe as the center for behaviorally modern humans
- (supposedly) ANATOMICAL modernity happens in Africa, but MIND modernity happens when they get to Europe...(yea ok lol)
- Around 40,000 years ago (same time as when Neanderthals disappearing)
Europe: A Remote Cul De Sac

- Creative revolution began around the same time anatomically modern humans were developing in Africa
- Behavioral modernity may extend to different kinds of humans, like Neanderthals and Denisovans
- THIS PAPER CHANGED THE WAY ARCHEOLOGISTS THOUGHT ABOUT US
Major Questions
- Does behavioral modernity develop in tandem with anatomical modernity?
- Is behavioral modernity limited to AMH (H. sapiens)?
- Does behavioral modernity develop slowly (an evolution) or suddenly (a revolution)