| The dividing lines between evolutionary time and historical time are
a bit vague and even more arbitrary than many of our other, also rather
arbitrary distinctions. At least it seems so to me since the gray area
of "prehistory" figures increasingly prominently in accounts
of the emergence and development of human consciousness. I employevolution
in the title of this page in its historical sense. Hence it is a generic
term that covers phyogeny, ontogeny, prehistory, and
history,and to describe any more or less systematic change in human
biology, psychology, or culture. More strictly speaking, (phylogenetically
relevant) evolutionary time must be invoked whenever we are speaking of
changes that have been deemed sufficient to lead to "speciation"
or even noticeable morphological changes in an apparent line of descent.
Thus the differences between Homo habilis and Homo erectus or even between
so-called "archaic" forms of Homo sapiens (such as the Neanderthal
people) and "modern" Homo sapiens are conventionally deemed "evolutionary".
Given some morphological changes that have occurred since the emergence
of hominid cultures, broadly conceived, we might equally describe this
evolution as "cultural-evolutionary". Prehistory is a grey area
used to refer to times prior to the development of writing, but with reference
to the sorts of interests associated with history, that is, the activities
and products associated with human culture. Prehistory may thus be said
to span a time between 2-3 million years ago (i.e., with the emergence
of the genus Homo) to the present although the precise meaning of
"present" varies from one part of the world to another. The notion
of "present" is a conveniently elastic term to cover the psychological
moment to all of history at least when one is explicitly discussing geological
epoques. The beginning of history and beginning of the end of prehistory
the is sometimes taken to be the date of 3100 BC determined for creation
of the cuneiform tablets from Uruk IV in Mesopotamia. History is the study
of the same cultural activities and products as prehistory but with written
documents as a major and often exclusive source of evidence. Thus, history
begins much later in many other parts of the world. France and England,
for example, do not "enter history" until the Roman conquests
some 2000 years ago. By the twentieth century most of the cultures of the
world were just beginning to enter history. It is far to say that history
is barely in the process of beginning. Hegel's claim that he and his contemporaries
were at the end of history in the early nineteenth century is rather ironic.
It seems such a shame. We had hardly got started. Hegel was making a point
about consciousness but given our increasing destructive activities in
the intervening years Hegel may have been more right than he knew or intended.
We may well be at the end not only of history but also of evolution in
both the broad and narrow senses employed here. Well, we do not appear
to have much time so we might as well get on with it.
The focus of Paleopsychology is slightly different from that of Evolutionary Psychology and Sociobiology (EPS) (See related pages). In some respects they might be viewed as two sides of the same coin. EPS attempts to explain contemporary human behaviour by reference to plausible evolutionary scenarios and arguments based on "fitness" or "adaptation" models. Paleopsychology attempts to generate psychological explanations, based on current psychological theory and research, for archaeological evidence. EPS attempts to explain the present in terms of the past. Paleopsychology attempts to apply psychology to better understand the past. |
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