ABSTRACT
Something dramatic happened to humanity about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. Suddenly, the pace of human life, of cultural evolution, accelerated rapidly. Scientists have called these changes a “cultural explosion,” but a better term is probably a series of “sparks,” where rapid cultural change took place in one area but not in others. One such spark was the development of new stone technologies in sub-Saharan Africa by 75,000 years ago, another the fi rst appearance of art in Europe about 40,000 years ago, a third the fi rst settlement of Australia by 45,000 years before present. Only after about 30,000 years ago, during the late Ice Age, did rapid cultural change take hold in all parts of the world. This chapter describes the rapidly changing late Ice Age world of about 50,000 to 15,000 years ago. We show how humans fi rst adapted to extreme arctic climates and developed highly specialized forager cultures that subsisted off coldloving animals such as the mammoth and steppe bison. We discuss also the radiation of Homo sapiens throughout the Old World, and then turn to one of the most controversial subjects in modern archaeology-the fi rst settlement of the Americas ( Figure 4.1 ).
