CARTA: Combinatorial Technology and the Emergence of the Built Environment with Larry Barham

UC San Diego (Audio)

This talk provides a deep time perspective for assessing the behavioural implications of the creation of the earliest known structure and the technologies used in its making. Evidence for the earliest structure appears relatively late, about 500,000 years ago in Zambia, and before the evolution of Homo sapiens. The next oldest structures were made by Neanderthals in Europe, 176,000 years ago. The site in Zambia preserves rare evidence for the shaping and fitting together of two tree trunks to make a stable framework. The process of combining parts to make a whole reflects a conceptually new approach to technology, one which remains central to everything we make as humans, including structures. Did the invention of combinatorial technology require the use of language to discuss and evaluate diverse ways to form new constructs and constructions? This question arises from the extended planning and expertise needed in the making of combinatorial tools. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40160]