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Problem-Solving in the Stone Age: Archaeological Perspectives on the Evolution of Human Culture

Steven Mithen

It is appealing to view the history of human culture, from the first stone tools of 2.5 million years ago, as a history of human problem-solving: our prehistoric ancestors pitting their wits against nature and each other. Much of cultural evolution may indeed have been like that, but when we look at it in the long term, from 2.5 million to 100,000 years ago, we get a broader perspective on it and its relation to culture change. We see, for instance, how societies adapted to new 'problems', such as severe climatic change, although these may have been beyond the perception of any one individual or even of one generation. The long term perspective also shows how solving one problem has often created a myriad of new problems. For instance, sedentism and agriculture 10,000 years ago may have originated to solve economic problems caused by short term climatic fluctuations, but this lifestyle created many new problems: health, hygiene, how to resolve social tensions in sedentary groups. In other cases we can see how some of our most treasured achievements, such as the cave paintings of Europe, arose partly as a means to solve seemingly mundane problems of daily life during the last ice age.

Dr. Steven Mithen is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Reading, after having undertaken research and taught at Cambridge University. During the 1980s he directed a major field project in the Hebridean islands examining issues of post-glacial colonisation and hunter-gatherer patterns. His current project is based in Wadi Faynan, Jordan, where he is studying the transition from hunter-gatherer to farming lifestyles. In addition to fieldwork, his research includes the use of computer-simulation for studying past human behaviour and the evolution of human cognition.