An international team of researchers, including scientists from Wits University, have substantially increased the age at which we can trace the emergence of modern culture, all thanks to the San people of Africa.

Objects discovered in the archeological layers of Border Cave, South Africa. a: wooden beating stick, b: wooden stick decorated with notches and bearing at its end residues of ricinoleic acid, c: bone point decorated with a spiral engraving filled with orange pigment, d: baboon fibula with one edge covered with notches engraved by four different lithic cutting edges, e: object constituted of beeswax and plant resin, f: ostrich egg and shell beads. Scale = 1 cm. (Credit: Errico/Backwell)

"The dating and analysis of archaeological material discovered at Border Cave in South Africa, has allowed us to demonstrate that many elements of material culture that characterize the lifestyle of San hunter-gatherers in southern Africa, were part of the culture and technology of the inhabitants of this site 44,000 years ago," says Backwell.

A key question in human evolution is when in prehistory human cultures similar to ours emerged? Until now, most archaeologists believed that the oldest traces of San hunter-gatherer culture in southern Africa dates back 10,000, or at most 20,000 years.

The study of stone tools discovered in the same archaeological layers as the organic remains, and from older deposits, shows a gradual evolution in stone tool technology. Organic artifacts, unambiguously reminiscent of San material culture, appear relatively abruptly, highlighting an apparent mismatch in rates of cultural change. This finding supports the view that what we perceive today as "modern behavior" is the result of non-linear trajectories that may be better understood when documented at a regional scale.

Yes border cave has some very nice artifacts in it. Survival of bone and wood back that far is rare.

In light of this confusion, it's easy to see how it can appear that many diverse cultures all over the planet spontaneously developed advances all at the same time, when in reality, there was likely more a degree of gradualism occurring over a much longer scale of time that most non-academics are use to thinking.

Ancient history can get along fine and be spoken for in accounting for it's developments quite well on it's own without people from the stars giving gifts of knowledge to all the good little boys and girls of planet earth.

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by Hanslune

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Yes border cave has some very nice artifacts in it. Survival of bone and wood back that far is rare.

Thanks!! LOL, it hit wikipedia already??! Interesting. I'd like to get my hands on the papers about to be published, but thanks. I shoulda known someone else would already be all over this. THANKS for the LINKS!!

I was curious in regards to where these other places of modern human populations? Any story or finding I have ever seen were in Africa. I was just curious if I was missing something.

Map of the world showing approximate centres of origin of agriculture and its spread in prehistory: eastern USA (4000-3000 BP), Central Mexico (5000-4000 BP), Northern South America (5000-4000 BP), sub-Saharan Africa (5000-4000 BP, exact location unknown), the Fertile Crescent (11000 BP), the Yangtze and Yellow River basins (9000 BP) and the New Guinea Highlands (9000-6000 BP). A proposed centre of origin in Amazonia (Lathrap 1977) is not shown. Adapted from File:BlankMap-World6, compact.svg and Diamond, J. (2003). "Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions". Science 300: 597–603. DOI:10.1126/science.1078208. "Fig. 1"

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by Recouper

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Very cool!! I am not saying that the OP article is the be-all and end-all of our knowledge.

Originally posted by wildtimes
I wouldn't be surprised to someday learn they've found evidence of a 1,000,000 year old "civilization"...in fact, I think it's probable.