Harryshill wrote: I would speculate that they were far too busy trying to survive to have time for such things.
Daylight hours being spent on hunting and gathering.
You can of course apply that argument to the Neolithic (if not to most periods in human evolution) but that (trying to survive) hasn’t stopped any of us from producing some of the most astonishing and enduring monuments – on a shoestring budget you might say.
But I take your point, life must have been unbelievably hard but not without some ‘premium’ time, surely. We know they buried their own with ceremony, had the time and the inclination to decorate shells and wear them as jewellery, made clothes and tools and even had an understanding of natural medicines. What else they knew, and may have achieved, is still a closed door to us but the possibility that they may have been responsible for some cave art really is very exciting.
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