As the victors of Gorham’s Cave were consolidating their position as the new masters of Europe, their Cro-Magnon cousins who left the Levant at the same time (between 50,000 to 45,000 years ago) to seek their fortunes in Africa and Asia were no less successful. Over the next 20,000 years, Cro-Magnons achieved a massive population expansion and colonised six continents.663 This impressive achievement is hardly surprising given that not only were they highly intelligent, but they had the conquistadorial spirit and the sophisticated weapons to back it up. And they were still hyper-aggressive.
Inevitably, the three original migrations from the Levant (to Europe, Asia and Africa) gradually split into hundreds, then thousands of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes that became the founding populations of the first ethnic groups and proto-nation states.
This is the short familiar story. What’s left to be answered is how the Cro-Magnons made the final transition from gruff, maniacally aggressive cavemen and women to fully modern humans?
Cro-Magnons were ostensibly Upper Palaeolithic, but that does not mean they were as smart or as creative as today’s humans. This is an important point and worth elaboration. The Cro-Magnons did not invent writing, the stone arch or even agriculture. The first representational cave art does not appear for another 10,000 years. Agriculture and the first pottery only appeared 30,000 years after the Cro-Magnons burst onto the world stage. The wheel was not invented until the fifth millennium BC (by the Mesopotamians), and even then it was only a potter’s wheel. And although their lives depended on improved weaponry, Cro-Magnons never invented metallurgy and the smelting of copper and tin to produce bronze weapons. That did not happen until the late fourth millennium BC—40,000 years later—about the time the Mesopotamians created the first cuneiform writing system.
A hallmark of modern humanity is that motley collection of social, economic and political systems and settlement patterns we call civilisation; which dates to only around the sixth millennium BC, to the Sumerian culture of southern Mesopotamia.
Colin Renfrew, director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological
Research, calls this the sapiens paradox:
It seems a paradox that while the most significant steps in human evolution in the physical sense occurred more than 40,000 years ago, with the emergence of our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, the salient aspects of human behaviour which distinguish our species so markedly from that of the other mammals emerged in many cases very much later. ‘By their works ye shall know them’ seems a good motto for the archaeologist, and the most prominent of those works post- date the Upper Palaeolithic period.664
Renfrew’s paradox concept is a useful one, and any unified theory of human evolution needs to at least attempt to resolve it. From the perspective of NP theory, it is not a paradox at all. It is precisely what is to be expected if Cro-Magnons were only ever a transitional species.
The image of a Cro-Magnon correctly conjures up a half-formed being, something between a modern human and a Frankensteinian brute. Paradoxically, although Cro-Magnons were conceived as an antidote to the violence and destruction of the Neanderthals, they were themselves far more violent and destructive.
One of the reasons why the Cro-Magnons who left the Levant to conquer the world were such a highly variable group is because they left at different times. Some families and groups left very early—straight after the population bottleneck—with only enough Upper Palaeolithic traits to survive outside their familiar territory. Others stayed in the Levant and accumulated and consolidated more modern traits, so that when they left, they were better equipped to deal with the challenge of capricious foreign environments. Although there were three main migrations out of the Levant (to Africa, Asia and Europe), in reality, these consisted of countless ‘trickle migrations’ over thousands of years by disparate clans, families and tribes that had splintered away from the original post- bottleneck population.
This raises a new question of fundamental importance to the discussion on human origins. How did these globally dispersed transitional people, with their minor physical and behavioural variations, coalesce into a single unified species—Homo sapiens sapiens? In other words, if swarms of variable Cro-Magnon families and clans left the Levant between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago—all heading in different directions, with some ending up on different continents—how did fully modern humans all around the world end up looking and behaving fairly much the same?
This is one of those devilish questions that can throw a spanner into the works of any budding theory of human evolution, a question so intractable, it has hardly ever been raised, much less resolved.
This is not to say that, as Cro-Magnons colonised marginal environments, a few regional differences did not creep in. Of course they did. These included variations in skin colour, height, and hair texture, but these really are only superficial differences and can be simply explained as the result of natural selection selecting favourable traits to cope with specific regional environments like polar or equatorial areas.
For example, if the Cro-Magnons who returned to Africa were, as proposed by NP theory, mostly divested of body hair, this would be maladaptive in the equatorial environment because of the risk of sunburn, skin cancers, heat stroke and so on.
This would normally have generated selection pressure for a return to the thick body fur that protected their African ancestors. However, by then, Neanderthal identification protocols were well entrenched and these now effectively prevented the selection of body hair. The only viable alternative, I suggest, was to select for an increase in the skin pigment melanin, which protects the skin against ultraviolet (UV) radiation.665
Likewise, humans who colonised extremely cold climates became slightly smaller and stockier because this helped conserve body heat, just as people inhabiting high altitude acquired lungs with an increased sensitivity to low oxygen levels and hearts that could process glucose more effectively.
But these are minor differences. To illustrate just how similar modern humans from around the world really are, consider firstly that 99.9 percent of everyone’s DNA is exactly the same, irrespective of which ethnic group they belong to. And of the remaining 0.1 percent, there is actually more individual variation between members of the same ethnic group than between individuals from completely different ethnic groups separated by continents.666,667
So, despite inconsequential physical variations, modern humans are virtually identical and are all members of the same single species. This is particularly evident when it comes to behaviour. After all, there is only one ‘human nature’. Given that species diversity is the rule in the animal kingdom (there are 10,000 species of birds for example) the fact that there is only one species of sapiens and we’re all so uniform continues to perplex and fascinate life scientists.
So now we have two quandaries. What caused the transitional Cro-Magnons to make the final leap from prehistoric cavemen to smart, fully modern humans? And secondly, given that this transition happened long after the Cro-Magnons split into thousands of geographically isolated groups—separated by four continents and 30,000 years—how did they all end up as one unified species rather than dozens or even hundreds of different subspecies?
Because the current biological models can’t even begin to explain the singular uniformity of modern humans, much less how Cro-Magnons came to invent the wheel, writing and other modern marvels, we need to look to Teem theory for answers.
Suppose for a moment that the last European Neanderthals did live at Gorham’s Cave on the southern coast of Spain, as suggested by Clive Finlayson. The Cro-Magnon victors who swept down on them one fate- ful day could have no idea they had just killed the last Neanderthals.
When it was all over, and only the sound of the surf on the beach filled the air, those burly Cro-Magnon men would have looked around, scratched their furrowed brows, and asked themselves, “Where are the others?”.
They probably assumed there were more of these creatures lurking further along the coast. Or in the Andalusian mountains that swept up from the Mediterranean sea. The hunt would continue. And when the victors of Gorham’s cave grew old and died, their sons would have continued the hunt. And theirs in turn: for generation after generation.
During all that time, they could not afford to let their defences down. For all they knew, those hairy beasts were still lurking in their dark forest glades, in dank caves, or some hellish ‘underworld’ beyond human comprehension, making plans—preparing to attack—sneaking out on moonless nights to abduct young women and girls.
But gradually, over time, the real (episodic) memories of European Neanderthals dimmed and faded. Within even a few hundred years of the Neanderthal extinction, the Cro-Magnons would no longer be consciously aware of Neanderthals, or even that they ever existed.
It seems almost incomprehensible that, after being part of the prehistoric landscape for so long, all conscious memory of Neanderthals could be lost. Yet writing had not been invented then, and without a notational system to preserve their recollections of the predation, or their dramatic phoenix-like resurrection from the ashes, the collective memory of the great inter-species struggle would inevitably atrophy.
The upside was that, as the direct memory was lost, the conscious awareness of being hunted and harassed by Neanderthals and the anticipation of hunting them gradually faded too. Cro-Magnons no longer woke with the conscious expectation that they could encounter one of these fearsome creatures.
Is that the end of it then? Not quite.
With the end of the Neanderthals, the innate teemic responses that the Levantine humans had acquired over thousands of years (initially to help identify and escape from Neanderthals, and later to hunt and kill them) were theoretically no longer needed.
This is quite common in evolutionary biology. When a trait no longer performs its original evolutionary function, it is said to be vestigial. The appendix and the coccyx are examples of organs that once performed an evolutionary function.
NP theory proposes, however, that the teems acquired during the Neanderthal predation and the innate behavioural responses they precipitated had been too adaptive for too long to completely disappear. These inherited emotional memories had, after all, protected humans for at least 60,000 years so were genetically encoded in the human genome. Rather than disappear altogether, the preoccupation with Neanderthals simply sank below the surface, into the realm of the subconscious, the imagination and dreams.
From that subterranean vault, the emotions encrypted into Cro-Magnon ncDNA maintained vigilance for Neanderthal triggers—any environmental cue or sign that indicated the presence of Neanderthals. The sight of a hairy newborn baby still sent a frisson up a mother’s spine, a wide-eyed foreigner could still spark long-forgotten trepidations and even a raised voice could trigger a primal apprehension.
This is because, in all animal species, vigilance for predators and predator identification is controlled by a primitive area of the reptilian brain called the amygdaloid complex, part of the limbic system, which operates independently of higher brain functions. According to Teem theory, the amygdala is the nerve centre responsible for monitoring teemic triggers. In the case of humans, anything that looked, smelled, sounded, tasted or felt remotely Neanderthaloid would trigger a teem. When triggered, the teem would release emotions such as anxiety, dread, hostility, suspicion and aggression, which in turn would precipitate appropriate behaviours.
These instinctive responses evolved before the mammalian cortex, so still operated independently of consciousness and other cerebral functions. This means that Cro-Magnons were not aware they were monitoring for extinct Neanderthals, nor that such a creature ever existed.
Forty thousand years later, when the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote “In each human heart terror survives”, he was expressing what we intuitively know—that every human carries within them a dormant terror, waiting to be awakened.
Because they helped identify Neanderthals (and Neanderthal characteristics), Neanderthal teems influenced mate selection, which played a major role in the emergence of a single unified species.
When Cro-Magnons selected a mate, their decision was being subliminally influenced by Neanderthal teems and sign stimuli acquired by their Levantine ancestors. All the men would know was that they preferred curvaceous, attractive young women with symmetrical faces, rounded bottoms and full breasts. Flat-chested, straight-waisted and unattractive females with hairy bodies (all subliminally perceived as Neanderthal) were left on the shelf.
Women were guided by their Neanderthal teems just as assiduously as men. Girls eyeing up a potential Cro-Magnon boyfriend would give the thumbs down to anyone who subliminally triggered a Neanderthal teem. That would include boys who were too hairy, did not have a proper chin, had no back to their heads, had hunched shoulders, wrinkled and leathery skin, low foreheads, bull necks, thick brow ridges, an ape-like gait or large, bulbous eyes. In other words, the more you looked like a Neanderthal (below) the less chance you had of finding a mate. Today, without knowing the secret history of predation, the word, ‘Neanderthal’ is used unwittingly as a derogatory term to describe just this suite of undesirable ape-like features and behaviours.
Because Neanderthals were on average slightly shorter than humans (males were 1.7m [5’6”] and females 1.6m [5’ 3”] tall), women expressed a teemic preference for taller men. Even today, research shows the shorter the man, the less chance he has of fathering children.668
One of the more important evolutionary functions of Neanderthal teems was to provide quick first impressions of strangers. Because teems are automatically and subliminally activated by sign stimuli, they can trigger a subliminal emotional response to a stranger long before any conscious evaluation is formed in the brain. When a Cro-Magnon woman came across a strange young man, sensory stimuli from all her five senses would feed into her limbic system and, if a teem was triggered, it would release emotions that would subliminally inform her attitude towards him—her first impression. In many cases, that was as rudimentary as courtship was. It was either love at first sight, or repulsion. All the flirtatious chit-chat that followed was peripheral. The unconscious decision had already been made.
As the post-bottleneck population spread out across the world, they took their library of inheritable Neanderthal teems with them. These teems subliminally provided aesthetic emotional preferences and attitudes which guided the choice of sexual partners and friends. All over the world, humans began selecting the same kinds of people as mates and this gradually helped unify Cro-Magnon physiology and behaviour.
By providing the criteria to guide the sexual selection of mates, teems exerted an enormous influence over Cro-Magnon evolution. But teems did something even more significant. For the next 20,000 years, Cro-Magnon death squads used Neanderthal teems and sign stimuli to decide who lived, and who died.