Climate of Change (11 page)

Yet if modern man was as smart then as he is now, and expanded into Eurasia 100,000 years ago with an increasing population, how could he have waited more than 50,000 years before developing his arts and technology and moving into Europe? In other times, in other regions, he has shown the capacity to expand explosively, filling an entire continent within one or two thousand years. Indeed, in the past two thousand years human population has jumped from a few million to six billion. Could something have happened to set him back? As it happens, this is more than possible: human population seems to have fluctuated considerably throughout its existence. Two hundred thousand years ago there may have been 100,000 people; but 100,000 years ago there may have been only 10,000 people. So at the time mankind began to spread into Eurasia, his population may have been sparse. It surely increased rapidly thereafter, in the great new territory.

Then, a quarter of the way around the world, Mt. Toba erupted in Sumatra 74,000 years ago. This was one of the worst volcanic events in several hundred million years, spewing enormous amounts of dust into the atmosphere. It would have dropped summer temperatures by as much as twenty degrees Fahrenheit, making a volcanic winter several years long. The modern humans, adapted to warm conditions in Africa, would have been ill-prepared for this. Plant and animal life would have
declined precipitously, adding hunger to the rigors of cold weather. Population would have crashed, perhaps as much as 99 percent, leaving isolated, widely spaced families or groups scattered across Asia, the survivors scratching for survival. Established trade routes would have been lined by the bones of those who had once prospered.

In fact mankind may have become an insignificant part of the landscape, extinct through much of it, as repeated severe climate fluctuations made mini-ice ages and beat them back. Similarly horrendous volcanic events occurred in America, encouraging the ice age. We have seen nothing of this magnitude in recorded history; Mt. Pinatubo dropped global temperature by only one degree, mitigating a record heating trend. The European Neandertals, however, were cold adapted; this was their kind of weather, and they expanded after taking a similar hit at the time of the Toba eruption. Until new waves emerged from Africa to assimilate the fragments and reunify the species. One of these may have been the Cro-Magnons, 50,000 years ago. Only then did the moderns resume their progress and take Europe.

This chapter shows an earlier and unsuccessful effort to penetrate Neandertal land. The more advanced folk were moving out to the fringes, encountering the physiologically identical but socially primitive prior occupants, and their impact was insufficient to transform that society sufficiently. So the tougher Neandertals prevailed, being physically better adapted to the rigorous climate of Europe. There does seem to have been some trade between the two peoples, but no interbreeding; they were different species who surely were capable of crossbreed sex, and would have tried it by raping captive women. But not of reproduction, as recent DNA typing has established. The last common ancestor of Neandertal and modern mankind seems to have been about 600,000 years ago; thereafter they went their own ways, genetically.

Why didn't the Neandertals advance their technology when they saw it in trade items, such as the tighter clothing the moderns made? For this we must understand Neandertal psychology, which is both unknown and perhaps self-evident. We resemble them in many ways. They may have been the original conservative “If it was good enough for my grandfather, it's good enough for me” folk, resistant to change,
as their stone artifacts demonstrate. We do the same in certain respects. Consider the typewriter keyboard: I, being a progressive thinker, use the superior Dvorak layout. Most others refuse to change from the designed-to-be-inefficient QWERTY layout. It would pay the rest of the world to follow my example and change to the clearly better keyboard, but like the Neandertals, it simply does not. It is a similar story in weights and measures, as much of the English-speaking world clings to confusing archaic systems instead of converting to the efficient metric system. So we are not so different. Had the Neandertals been open to change, they would have been formidable indeed. But they thought they didn't need to.

Yet it may be more than that. The brain of Neandertal was as large as that of mankind, but differently configured. He did not think the same way we did. One conjecture is that he was short in the reasoning section and long in the memory section. He may have had a virtually eidetic memory for the relevant things of his landscape, with a specific name and location for every tree with edible fruit, every patch of ground where edible tubers grew, every bend in the river where fish were plentiful, and every mountain slope where berries ripened in season. So where we would say, “I found ripe apples on a tree beside the river's second tributary, an hour's walk northeast,” he might say, “TreeZilch ready,” and others would know exactly where to go for what, and would get there first.

He had a huge mental data base, and hardly needed the flexibility of language and thought that our kind requires. Indeed, he may not have needed the cooperation of others of his kind, so could be pretty much a loner in his territory. He seems not to have been social in the way we were; family units may have been more typical than the larger campsite shown here. He hunted, killed, and ate much more meat than we did, eating the small kills in the field. The ultimate individualist.

His tools were similar to ours, but the proportions were different; he made, used, and threw away hunting equipment at ten times the rate our ancestors did. So just as a memorized thing does not need description or figuring out—after all, you know where your house is, and what use it is to you, and so do your family members, so the directive
“Come home” needs no further definition—Neandertal needed no clarification. But this also meant that Neandertal had little need of imagination or reasoning, and was extremely set in his ways. When he established a camp, he stayed there year round, until he had hunted it out and had to move on.

Our kind, in contrast, moved around more, having summer camps and winter camps, giving the wild creatures less time to become wary. Neandertal: we out-hunted him, in the end, and marginalized him, and he probably slowly starved to extinction. He was well off for a very long time, and would probably still be in Europe if he hadn't been displaced by a cousin species with a way that turned out to be better in the end. But the advantage of our reasoning ability took some time to manifest. Not until we learned how to use the enormous potential of our changing brain did we actually prevail against Neandertal or
Erectus.
It was as if we had a powerful new software program and didn't fully realize what it could do. So we were using our computer brain mainly to play games, as it were, instead of to design jet planes. Some things become obvious only in retrospect.

There is also a question about sex. Modern mankind is virtually the sexiest creature on Earth. The only other is our closest relative, the Bonobo chimpanzee, where sex is an ongoing social event. They really do make love, not war. But the Bonobos do not have sexual literature, pictures, movies, pornography, and legal complications. They just do it without much consideration. So I think we are the ones who are most obsessed with sex. Why? Because it is to a fair degree a basic socializing mechanism. When conditions are difficult and creatures are confined without other entertainment, sex becomes paramount. It is seen in zoo animals, and it works, so long as certain rules are followed, such as not indulging with the partner of another person, or hurting your own partner. So it is a way to get through a long cold winter without sacrificing sanity. Our ancestors did not have the diversions of books or television. Thus sex evolved not merely for reproduction, but for diversion in otherwise dull times. The fact that broad power failures lead to increased births nine months later indicates that sex remains effective.

So was rape a way to start a marriage? Yes, in certain cultures, and it still is, as discussed in
Chapter 1
. We of a more enlightened culture prefer equality and consensual sex, but as with other aspects, often brutal power is the decisive factor. Discrimination against women is perhaps the most common social element today, as men seek and exercise power over them. So we are still not that far ahead of the Neandertals, socially, in some respects.

Modern man thrust generally eastward, driven by continuing population/resource pressure, but the terrain was formidable. The ice age held the northern regions in thrall, and many of the mountain ranges were glaciated. The climate was punctuated by sharp changes, with warm periods followed by devastatingly cold periods. The best land was by the coast and great rivers, for there the soil was richer, supporting more plants and animals, and the extremes were not as great. But there were always those who pushed into the hinterlands, driving back
Homo erectus,
who had lived there almost two million years.
Erectus,
also called Archaic Man, was by this time a different species, distinct from both Neandertal and our own line. But to our ancestors, both of these other variants of mankind were simply the Others, to be displaced from the best hunting and foraging territories.

The time is 60,000 years before the present era. The place is what is now Afghanistan, northwest of India and Pakistan.

“Now let me make sure I have it straight,” Rebel said. “You got along fine with Crenelle, but it wasn't serious, but her brother Harbinger raped Haven and got her with child, and when the baby died, she dumped him and came home. Now you think you like Crenelle after all, so you're
returning to her, even though she won't take you seriously unless you rape her, as Hero was supposed to.”

Craft nodded wearily. Rebel was a year younger than he was, and actually the same age as Crenelle, but she was an entirely different creature. She was wild and beautiful and independent, and she loved danger. He had expected to make this journey alone, but she had insisted on coming with him, and actually she was good company and considerable help. “It's in their culture. They think marriage should begin with a rape. Hero wouldn't accept that, and neither did I. But I just can't forget her. So I'll try to—to rape her. If she lets me. But you had better be wary of Harbinger, unless he has found another woman to marry.”

“I came along to explore new territory, and to see that you don't get into mischief, dear brother. I mean to be wary of everything.”

“We are likely to be in close quarters, and Crenelle and I will be having frequent sex. That's going to give Harbinger ideas.”

“Well, he won't get any ideas about me.” She paused, pondering. “Remember, you made my knife for me, and taught me how to use it.”

And use it she would, if so moved. Craft well understood the use of any weapon he made, but hoped never to use one against a human being. Rebel, in contrast, could use a weapon with enthusiasm, when she felt it necessary.

The region was becoming familiar. Craft hoped that Crenelle was still there, and still unmarried. Otherwise his long journey was for nothing. He wished that he had realized how he felt, before leaving her. But of course he had had to see Haven safely home.

“And there's a tribe of Others in the area,” Rebel continued. “You traded with them, and helped one of their children.”

“They enabled us to survive the winter,” Craft agreed. “There's no need to fight them.”

“Yet most of our kind calls their kind beast men, and tries to drive them away.”

“They are just living and hunting and taking care of their children, the same as we are. We should have no quarrel with them.”

“Is it true that their children are as strong as one of our women, and their women are stronger than our men?”