Natural Environments and Human Health. Alan W Ewert
Читать онлайн книгу.
did not. Now called a universal developmental task, Judy DeLoache (2010) found that children begin to be able to engage in dual representation at about 18 months and reliably at 3 years of age for some tasks and later for other areas. She defined dual representation or symbolic reasoning as the ability for a person to attribute characteristics and meaning to things that do not really have them. As children develop symbolic reasoning they learn emotional intelligence or how to understand one another’s intentions and motivations. This understanding of intentions and motivations allows for cooperation and community building.
Beginning about 50,000 years ago cultural universals or key elements deduced from archeological evidence have been shared by all groups of people since. In addition to the use of complex language, these cultural elements include use of natural resources (humans’ geographic range expanded, they used different hunting techniques for different species, and began to use marine resources—fish and shellfish), technology (finely made tools, including bone tools, projectile point, special purpose tools, composite tools, and tools with blades and backed scrapers, and the control of fire, including cooking and seasoning foods), social organization (having myths, spiritual practices, and/or religion, expanded exchange or barter networks, organized group hunting, settlements with living spaces and hearths, systematic burial of adults and children, care for the elderly and infirm, game playing, and music), and art (systematic use of jewelry for decoration or self-ornamentation, the use of ochre and then other pigments, and the creation of figurative art such as cave paintings, petroglyphs, and figurines). Hunting and using reindeer was more common than previously, which is why the period beginning 50,000 to 40,000 years ago is sometimes referred to as the Reindeer Age. There still is no evidence of warfare.
There was an upsurge of visual art and music during the sacred cycle stage. The earliest flutes were found during this stage and current research shows that peak experiences of music, present in all human communities, releases dopamine, which emotionally engages the reward system in the brain (Salimpoor et al., 2011). Seasonal rites, initiation rituals, and other ceremonies related to the participation in the sacred ceremonies of life were reflected in cave art (Noble, 1993). The earliest figurative art found is the Venus of Schelklingen and thousands of other wood and bone carvings of female figures have been unearthed. The earliest known ceramic is Venus of Dolní Věstonice, from about 30,000 to 25,000 BCE. These artifacts serve a referential function and given the plethora of female artifacts it seems logical to conclude that they displayed awe and respect for femaleness, birth, and natural systems.
The artifacts, including burial rituals, seem to indicate an understanding of the importance of cycles and the female procreative energy. In some areas children and women were given preferential treatment to be buried inside the settlements in specific relationship to certain parts of the home (Naumov, 2007). They were buried in the fetal position thought to honor the birth and death cycle. Deduced from thousands of artifacts it seems that the female womb was sacred as well as a life-generating deity that was nature herself (Noble, 1993). As both mystery and source of power, the female body was a metaphor for nature; the womb was ever able to renew herself with the cycle of birth. These artifacts give form to the axiom that we intuitively love what is born.
Medina (2008) provides evidence that our brains are wired for flexibility and improvisation, thought to be a consequence of living in the ever-changing natural environment. The evolutionary milestone, the prefrontal cortex, housed in the frontal lobe and controlling executive functions including problem solving, maintaining attention, and inhibiting emotional impulses, allowed for the sacred cycle stage. Humans now were even better equipped to learn through experimentation and adapt to changing natural environments.
With the description of the time period there could be many interpretations of their WorldView in regard to the natural environment and because the population was dispersed there may have been concurrent WorldViews. Putting together the evolution of symbolic reasoning, the long childhood needed for learning, and female carvings and other artifacts in addition to tools, these people’s WorldView may have included awe and respect for nature and natural processes, including childbirth, as well as a shared sense of care and cooperation among humans and with natural systems. Their regard for nature might have contributed to positive outcomes when learning through experimentation, another trait we carry in human brains. The values-of-belonging combined with the enchanted universe cosmological story was still part of many cultures; many possibly added the regenerative universe and reciprocity with nature as foundational for cosmological stories. Cave paintings symbolize their value for natural systems, life in general, and birthing and children in particular. Like other parts of nature, human birth and regeneration were revered. Nature’s cycles (stars, seasons, and migratory paths) generated a rhythm for life.
Any story made up about humans in the sacred cycle stage is theory, including that these people were the first to exhibit cultural creativity, implying that earlier Homo sapiens did not. Published descriptions of the sacred cycle people tell us about the WorldViews of the academicians of the present perhaps more than the people of that time period. For example, of the two main theories (i) that this shift in behaviors occurred gradually over hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution as Homo sapiens accumulated knowledge, skills, and culture and (ii) that the language and settlements occurred more like a revolution or sudden event as the result of a genetic mutation or major biological reorganization of the brain that brought forth languages, scientists have labeled the second theory the Great Leap Forward showing a bias that the increase in technology is synonymous with cultural progress. There is a current cultural bias to see early humans in a survival mode with nature. While these people were active, faced environmental challenges, and had no technology, there is no reason to believe that they thought of themselves in a survival mode. They had the time and space for enough art that numerous artifacts survived.
Early humans and the sacred cycle stage are not usually associated with cultivating plants. However, new research sheds light on possible practices that may have occurred before what has commonly been recognized as agriculture, including tending certain plants to increase species diversity, selectively harvesting specific parts of a plant so it grows back prolifically, and replanting sensitive seeds (Turner et al., 2000). The agricultural stage discussed next marks a new relationship with plants.
Agricultural stage
The third stage occurred when humans moved from a primarily nomadic hunting and gathering society to an agricultural one. Toward the end of the behavioral modernity stage people began to harvest wild grains, which may have helped to lead to farming. This development was possible because the climate became more temperate and therefore people and animals could shed their nomadic lifestyle, build permanent homes, and accumulate material goods. The evolution of symbolic reasoning helped people have the ability to form cooperative relationships, which contributed to larger settlements. Along with permanent homes came the ability to save grain for winter or as insurance in case of a drought or other weather-related challenges. During this stage the social structure changed and people could differentiate into different occupations. There was a growth in population, putting people in closer contact than in earlier stages.
The propensity toward cooperation that was the most likely characteristic of the beginning of this stage encouraged reciprocal actions, though sometime during this stage a great shift in beliefs about power and control and the natural world seemed to occur. Leaders of some settlements controlled the group activities while other settlements continued to be egalitarian. There seemed to be a split where some people continued with the cooperation and care notions that included the natural world, while another WorldView evolved to be the dominant Western culture that understood agriculture in terms of power and control, and used food surpluses not only to survive but also to dominate other humans. Both of these WorldViews are motivated by self-preservation even though the way to go about self-preservation is close to opposite. Flinders (2002/2003) said that people who continued with the values-of-belonging maintained their intimacy with nature and retreated from cultures based on aggressiveness, cunning, and greed.
Human brains have a great deal of diversity in how they interpret sensory information and two people experiencing the same event easily can learn different pieces of information and life lessons. This is why police detectives expect people who saw