Reflections of life in art, Pleistocene into Holocene (Part II).

As a continuation of my previous post, I'm going to venture into the Holocene era and explore the dramatic differences between the culture in this, and the Pleistocene time periods.

The drastic lifestyle changes that began in the Holocene were initiated by a hugely drastic climate change, "the greatest consistent change in Earth's climate that had occurred throughout the entire span of our species", in fact. (Guthrie 409). As temperatures rose, animal and plant life became abundant, and the previous hunter-gatherer bands of the Pleistocene morphed into larger tribal groups. This floral and faunal abundance enabled tribes to store surplus food, thereby assuring a constant supply.

I don't want to get bogged down in miniscule details of the book; so basically, the relatively (compared to Pleistocene) comfortable lifestyle of the Holocene resulted in larger tribes where people had concerns other than basic survival. This excess of time resulted in the contemplation of myths and magic as well as tribal concerns, rather than individual hunting worries. Confusion occurred when conditions weren’t favorable; "when bad luck did arrive, it may have seemed very strange and unreasonable, a matter of who or what to blame"(Guthrie 418). They began to ponder spiritual notions, which is reflected in their symbolic, exaggerated, non-realistic artwork.

After reading about the numerous problems with this new tribal lifestyle, I think that I would have rather lived in the Pleistocene than the Holocene. The Pleistocene people did not war, or have significant nutritional deficiencies, or easily acquire numerous various diseases. In the Pleistocene, children were raised with much more care and attention; people understood the natural world and didn't blame their bad luck on some spiritual higher power. It is interesting to me that the Holocene held the first occurrences of religion and war. While tribal groups developed their own identities they naturally viewed neighboring tribes as potential competitors, and the "us" versus "them" mentality took hold. Guthrie even mentions some current conflicts that resulted from "too much emphasis on old tribal identity"(421), like between Israel and Palestine, among others.

Religious nature was sprung from the same womb as a warring nature, and as they were linked 9000 years ago, they remain so today. Unfortunately, I see no easy way out of the puzzle of strong group identity leading to warfare. Group identity is an inconceivably large force in our lives that the concept of reverting back to Pleistocene bands is basically ludicrous. However, some sort of balance would be nice.