Creation Narratives and Paleolithic Era

Two main tracks:
- A. Religious Creation Narratives
- B. Scientific Creation Story
1. The Story
- Religious: origin through divine action; purpose and place of humans in creation
- Scientific: evolution and biological origins of humankind
2. What sources support Creation Narratives?
- i. Oral Tradition
- ii. Scientific Sources
- a) Bones
- b) Stones
- c) DNA
C. Symbolic Thinking
D. Language
- 1. Why is Language important?
- Enables complex symbolic reasoning about environment
- Supports pondering, analogies, memory, and transfer of information
- 2. How did modern humans acquire language?
- Language development around $10^5$ years ago in Africa; as humans dispersed, $19$ language families evolved from which all modern languages originate

Earliest hominid species evolved in Africa; key milestones include:
- Sahelanthropus tchadensis
- Ardipithecus ramidus (Lucy) – ~ $3.2$ million years ago
- Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) – ~ $3.9 ext{ to }2.9$ million years ago
- Orrorin tugenensis – ~ $6$ million years ago
- Australopithecines
- Homo habilis
- Homo naledi
- Homo erectus
- Homo sapiens
Out of Africa migrations
- Hominid species like Homo erectus began migrating out of Africa; only Homo sapiens spread to all major inhabitable regions

A. Cultural Adaptation
B. Collective Learning
- Share, share things and ideas with one another
- Organize themselves in cooperating groups
- Join together to make plans
- Adapt to new physical and natural environments quickly
- Pass on knowledge to the next generation
- Remember knowledge and store it
C. Migrations
- Pacific Ocean routes
- Beringia land bridge
D. How did people live during the Paleolithic Era?
- Hunter-gatherer, nomadic lifeways; reliance on tools and natural resources
E. Interpretive Bias
F. Preservation Bias
G. Lessons from Modern Foragers

Tools and artifacts
- Paleolithic hand axes: suitable for digging, chopping, and butchering
- Usage span: $1.7$ million years
- Example finds localized in Aisne, France
Fossil and skull evidence
- Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis): evidence of early hominid anatomy and bipedalism
- Skulls of ancestors show brain growth over time; larger brain associates with advanced vision, cognition, and communication
- Skull sequence (left to right): Adapis (50 million years ago), Proconsul (≈23 million years ago), Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens (Qafzeh, Israel, ≈ $90{,}000$ years old), Homo sapiens sapiens (≈ $22{,}000$ years old)
Key dates and terms
- Australopithecus afarensis lived around $3.9 ext{ to }2.9$ million years ago
- Orrorin tugenensis around $6$ million years ago
- Homo sapiens emergence and brain development linked to increased cognitive capabilities
Language and diversity
- Complex language development initiated around $10^5$ years ago in Africa
- Later dispersion produced the world’s $19$ language families

Map insights
- Early hominids evolved in Africa; migration out of Africa occurred in waves
- Only Homo sapiens achieved global inhabitation
Original language families
- As humans spread, language diversified into $19$ families, giving rise to all modern languages

Interpretive Bias: how researchers interpret archaeological findings
Preservation Bias: how the preservation of materials affects what we can study
Lessons from modern foragers: Hadza of Tanzania illustrate ancient hunter-gatherer lifestyles, still relevant for understanding pre-agricultural humans

Hunter-gatherer society; dig up edible roots as a staple for high-calorie intake
Modern foragers provide ethnographic comparisons for Paleolithic life