Somewhere between 25,000 to 30,000 years ago the fully modern human brain had become fully elaborated in our distant ancestors. The fully modern brain features a large dome at the top of our heads with along with a very slightly angled forehead. In our distant ancestors they had almost no forehead at all.

This fact makes keeping the ratio consistent from the very beginning of our K-waves very difficult. Therefore I began the K-wave at 176,000 years ago and then kept it virtually flat till approximately 80,000 years ago. Our common cognitive wiring is what defines the relative uniformity for K-waves and the development of our analytic portions of our is why there is an aberration in the earliest K-wave uniformity. After this the hunter-gatherer eras K-wave is in the same ratio as the two subsequent economic eras.

In rendering the K-wave in this way the knee in the curve reflects what cognitive archeologists have remarked about our family's history. Even though the humans prior to 40,000 years ago were biologically human, the sudden explosion in tool improvements, construction of musical instruments (flutes) and other evidence in human thought around the world almost suggests we were a different species. What they are referencing is the knee in the curve which is where even today the maturation in core technologies becomes visible to everyone. The fact that humanity produced so much of it that archeologists actually find this evidence should come as no surprise to us. Steve Mithen in his seminal book - The Prehistory of the Mind, remarks that beginning around 60,000 years ago the archeological evidence builds till it explodes around 40,000 years ago. I believe that the evidence Mithen references is the Update period in world view for the hunter-gatherers.

Starting around 40,000 years ago a steady drumbeat in world view was produced and some of it survived for archeologists to have found it. From this point forward there would be no secession in the evidence for world view recording from our distant hunter-gatherer ancestors.

How do we know that the carvings, necklaces and painted images are expressions for world view instead of simply ritual for everyday hunting parties and the like? This answer was resolved by David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce in their book: Inside of the Neolithic Mind. They documented that the vast majority, around 90% of images created by the ancient hunter-gatherers were of powerful and or lethal animals. Those animals comprised a very small portion of their diet, if any at all, based on the remains found in refuse piles belonging to early humans. Therefore it was the power of these animals which were the focus of early humans. Also since there was almost no depiction of humans in the images, it was clear that they saw something significant in the power and the deadliness of these animals. As they hunted, humans were also hunted, there was no distinction in their world between a human animal and the other animals because humanity had not yet reached the top of the food chain.

Another support for the formation and expression of world view is in the images which people thousands of miles apart created. This uniformity in images is not only a testament to the common wiring in our brains but is also a distinct support for these images being world view and not their daily grocery or laundry lists. Humanities survival guides are after all the sum of thinking explaining both the seen and unseen factors in the world.

Finally the S shaped curve begins to lift off in the Update Period which is typical for world view formulation graphs for the agricultural era. The world view Transition Periods land where they logically should in relation to K-waves phases. Therefore we are likely on the right track even if we are can not map out the specifics as we can with the subsequent economic eras.

Around 11,000 years ago the first Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) sites began. These sites feature wild cereals and therefore were a kind of plant husbandry. As the cold Pleistocene weather gave way to the warmer Holocene, clearly humanity had begun to adapt to the potential in harvesting wild growing plants. In the outgoing Hunter-gatherer era this is emblematic of the Undercurrent Periods which though relatively short in time span serve to point towards a new type of human economy. That economy would be one of agriculture.

I have included the following two links for additional detail in world view and brain evolution for the hunter-gatherers.

Homogenous world views of the hunter-gatherers

Cognitive evolution of the human brain

Next stop onto the Agricultural Era.

Onto Section 5 - The Agricultural Era or return to the Index