Deep Prehistory 2.0
In Deep Prehistory 1.0, I laid out my thoughts about the earliest phase of human history, between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago, and related the events of that period to my theory that history has been shaped by a succession of visions of the nature of existence.
In the entries linked below, I start digging into more technical questions of how the first visions might have arisen and how the interactions among them might have set up the recurring pattern of replacement that persists to this day.
The first set of entries, done in late 2012 and early 2013, develops the idea that we humans have a sophisticated capacity for creating mental maps of relationships among objects, events, and people, These maps are the basis of the visions, and the succession of visions grows out of the tension between their practical and analytical aspects and our intense urge to grasp existence as a unified whole.
The second set, done on and off in the course of 2013, goes further into the influence of those tensions — tensions between mature and adolescent patterns of thought, between problem-solving and mysticism, between the tendency to hold onto what already exists and the impulse to push on to something new.
The third set, which began in mid-2014, starts over again at the dawn of human history but draws on the latest scientific findings to apply new insights to the question of the origin of the visions.
Mapping Reality
- Talking the Talk
- Map-Makers and Story-Tellers
- The End of the Dreamtime
- The Troublemakers
- The Way Things Used to Be
- The World Turns Cold
Innate Tensions
- Forever Young
- Problem-Solving
- Fire Hackers and Cosmic Dreamers
- Reconsiderations
- Culture Hacking at the Dawn of Time
How Old Is Old?
- Searching for the Dawn
- Masters of Space and Time
- Dreams of the Dead
- The Rules of the Game
- Not In the Rules
- Picking Things Apart
- “Complex cognition shaped the Stone Age hand axe”
- The Importance of Stone-Throwing
Ancient Rhythms
- A Clash of Instincts
- The Birth of Romance
- Geeks, Rebels, and Weirdos
- An Age of Magic
- A Small Adjustment
- The Era of High Strangeness
- A Living Universe