ABSTRACT
When and why did symbolic behaviour become ‘an integral part of adaptation’ (Chase and Dibble 1987:285)? Can we model within a neo-Darwinian framework preadaptations to ritual and other symbolic activity? Few theories of the origin of symbolic cognition have ventured predictions which are testable against symbolic evidence. This chapter is in two parts. The first aims to model selection pressures promoting quasi-ritual collective behaviour in late archaic Homo sapiens. The second examines some of the model’s predictions in the light of Southern African archaeological and ethnographic data.
