Symbolic culture

Symbolic culture, or non-material culture, is the ability to learn and transmit behavioral traditions from one generation to the next by the invention of things that exist entirely in the symbolic realm. Symbolic culture is usually conceived^{[by whom?]} as the cultural realm constructed and inhabited uniquely by Homo sapiens and is differentiated from ordinary culture, which many other animals possess. Symbolic culture is studied by archaeologists,^[1][2][3] social anthropologists^[4][5] and sociologists.^[6] From 2018, however, some evidence of a Neanderthal origin of symbolic culture emerged.^[7][8] Symbolic culture contrasts with material culture, which involves physical entities of cultural value and includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects.

Examples of symbolic culture include concepts (such as good and evil), mythical constructs (such as gods and underworlds), and social constructs (such as promises and football games).^[9] Symbolic culture is a domain of objective facts whose existence depends, paradoxically, on collective belief. A currency system, for example, exists only for as long as people continue to have faith in it. When confidence in monetary facts collapses, the "facts" themselves suddenly disappear. Much the same applies to citizenship, government, marriage and many other things that people in our own culture consider to be "real". The concept of symbolic culture draws from semiotics, and emphasises the way in which distinctively human culture is mediated through signs and concepts. In sociology, Emile Durkheim, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz and many others have emphasised the symbolic aspect of distinctively human culture.

Evolutionary emergence

30,000-year-old cave hyena cave painting

It was once thought that art and symbolic culture first emerged in Europe some 40,000 years ago, during the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition – often termed the 'symbolic explosion' or 'Upper Palaeolithic revolution'. Some archaeologists still adhere to this view. Others now accept that symbolic culture probably emerged in sub-Saharan Africa at a much earlier date, during the period known as the Middle Stone Age.^[10] The evidence consists of traditions of ground ochre with strong selection for the colour red, examples of so-called ochre 'crayons' which appear to have been used for purposes of design, probably on the body, and geometric engravings on blocks of ochre. All this apparently formed part of a cosmetics industry dated to between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.^[11] One theory is that this constitutes evidence for a ritual tradition.^[12] A bone apparently engraved with six lines from ~120 kya is one of the oldest deliberate abstract manifestations produced hominins.^[13] In addition, from about 100,000 years ago, there are pierced shells which appear to show signs of wear, suggesting that they were strung together to make necklaces. The controversial theory of female cosmetic coalitions interprets the ochre tradition as evidence that the world's first art, as an aspect of symbolic culture, took the form of personal ornamentation and body-painting.^[14] It was initially countered that pigment-only decorative systems are merely individualistic display, not necessarily indicative of ritual, whereas the bead traditions testify to language, institutionalised relationships and full-scale ritual and symbolic culture.^[15][16] More recently, however, those making this criticism have conceded that the evidence for ochre pigment use, stretching back towards 300,000 years ago, must indeed be recognised as the earliest durable media testifying to a collective ritual tradition.^[17]

See also

• Behavioral modernity
• Ochre
• Prehistoric art
• Blombos Cave
• Origins of society
• Timeline of evolution
• The Human Revolution (human origins)

References

1. Marshack, A. 1972. The Roots of Civilization. The cognitive beginnings of man's first art, symbol and notation. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
2. Chase. P. G., 1994. "On symbols and the palaeolithic". Current Anthropology 35(5), 627-9.
3. Watts, I., 1999. "The Origins of Symbolic Culture", in R. Dunbar, C. Knight. C. Power, (eds) The Evolution of Culture: An Interdisciplinary View, Edinburgh University Press.
4. Geertz, C. 1973. Interpreting Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
5. Knight, C. 2010. The origins of symbolic culture. In U. Frey, C. Stormer and K. P. Willfuhr (eds), Homo Novus - A Human Without Illusions. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pp. 193-211.
6. Durkheim, E., 1965 [1912]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York (NY): Free Press.
7. Hoffmann, D. L.; Standish, C. D.; García-Diez, M.; Pettitt, P. B.; Milton, J. A.; Zilhão, J.; Alcolea-González, J. J.; Cantalejo-Duarte, P.; Collado, H.; De Balbín, R.; Lorblanchet, M.; Ramos-Muñoz, J.; Weniger, G.-Ch.; Pike, A. W. G. (2018). "U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art" (PDF). Science. 359 (6378): 912–915. Bibcode:2018Sci...359..912H. doi:10.1126/science.aap7778. PMID 29472483. S2CID 206664238.
8. Hoffmann, Dirk L.; Angelucci, Diego E.; Villaverde, Valentín; Zapata, Josefina; Zilhão, João (2018). "Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals 115,000 years ago". Science Advances. 4 (2): eaar5255. Bibcode:2018SciA....4R5255H. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aar5255. PMC 5833998. PMID 29507889.
9. Chase. P. G., 1994. "On symbols and the palaeolithic". Current Anthropology 35(5), 627-9.
10. Henshilwood, C. and C. W. Marean 2003. The origin of modern human behavior. Archived 2020-07-30 at the Wayback Machine Current Anthropology 44(5): 627-651.
11. Knight, C., C. Power and I. Watts, 1995. The Human Symbolic Revolution: A Darwinian Account. Archived 2020-08-01 at the Wayback Machine Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5(1): 75-114.
12. Watts, I. 2009. Red ochre, body painting, and language: interpreting the Blombos ochre. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 62-92.
13. Prévost, Marion; Groman-Yaroslavski, Iris; Crater Gershtein, Kathryn M.; Tejero, José-Miguel; Zaidner, Yossi (20 January 2021). "Early evidence for symbolic behavior in the Levantine Middle Paleolithic: A 120 ka old engraved aurochs bone shaft from the open-air site of Nesher Ramla, Israel". Quaternary International. 624: 80–93. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2021.01.002. ISSN 1040-6182. S2CID 234236699. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
14. Power, C. 2010. Cosmetics, identity and consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 17, No. 7-8, pp. 73-94.
15. Henshilwood, C. S. and B. Dubreuil 2009. Reading the artifacts: gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 41-61.
16. Kuhn, S. L. and Stiner, M. C. 2007. Body ornamentation as information technology: towards an understanding of the significance of beads. In P. Mellars, K. Boyle, O. Bar-Yosef and C. Stringer (eds), Rethinking the Human Revolution, Cambridge: McDonald Institute Research Monographs, pp. 45-54.
17. Kuhn, S. L. 2014. Signaling Theory and Technologies of Communication in the Paleolithic. Biological Theory 9 (1): 42-50.