Human Culture and Evolution

Our class places great emphasis on the human capacity to adapt the natural world to suit our needs in ways that other animals are incapable of. Out of all the animal species out there, ours' can live in a broader range of environment than any other, mainly because of technological culture. One could argue that we have modified the environment we live in faster than we have physiologically evolved. However there is also evidence that we have also evolved to adapt to our culture. This article from the NYT is about the complex relationship between human physiology and culture.

South African Symbolic Art from 60k y/a

Symbolic thought is one of the key distinctions between animal and human intelligence. The artifacts from South Africa described in this BBC article are not the oldest examples of symbolic art found by archaeologists, and the meaning of the inscriptions on these ostrich shells is debatable. However they are older than most cave paintings and suggest the very ancient origins of the human psyche.