Symbolic culture, or non-material culture, is the cultural realm constructed and inhabited uniquely by Homo sapiens and is differentiated from ordinary culture, which many other animals possess. Symbolic culture is studied by archaeologists,Marshack, A. 1972. The Roots of Civilization. The cognitive beginnings of man's first art, symbol and notation. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Chase. P. G., 1994. "On symbols and the palaeolithic". Current Anthropology 35(5), 627-9.Watts, I., 1999. "The Origins of Symbolic Culture", in R. Dunbar, C. Knight. C. Power, (eds) The Evolution of Culture: An Interdisciplinary View, Edinburgh University Press. social anthropologistsGeertz, C. 1973. Interpreting Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Knight, C. 2010. The origins of symbolic culture. In U. Frey, C. Stormer and K. P. Willfuhr (eds), Homo Novus - A Human Without Illusions. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pp. 193-211. and sociologists.Durkheim, E., 1965 . The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York (NY): Free Press. From 2018, however, some evidence of a Neanderthal origin of symbolic culture emerged.
Examples of symbolic culture include concepts (such as good and evil), mythical constructs (such as gods and underworlds), and social constructs (such as promises and football games).Chase. P. G., 1994. "On symbols and the palaeolithic". Current Anthropology 35(5), 627-9.
Evolutionary emergence
It was once thought that art and symbolic culture first emerged in Europe some 40,000 years ago, during the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition – often termed the 'symbolic explosion' or 'Upper Palaeolithic revolution'. Some archaeologists still adhere to this view. Others now accept that symbolic culture probably emerged in sub-Saharan Africa at a much earlier date, during the period known as the Middle Stone Age.Henshilwood, C. and C. W. Marean 2003. The origin of modern human behavior. Current Anthropology 44(5): 627-651. The evidence consists of traditions of ground ochre with strong selection for the colour red, examples of so-called ochre 'crayons' which appear to have been used for purposes of design, probably on the body, and geometric engravings on blocks of ochre. All this apparently formed part of a cosmetics industry dated to between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.Knight, C., C. Power and I. Watts, 1995. The Human Symbolic Revolution: A Darwinian Account. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5(1): 75-114. One theory is that this constitutes evidence for a ritual tradition.Watts, I. 2009. Red ochre, body painting, and language: interpreting the Blombos ochre. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 62-92. A bone apparently engraved with six lines from ~120 kya is one of the oldest deliberate abstract manifestations produced hominins. In addition, from about 100,000 years ago, there are pierced shells which appear to show signs of wear, suggesting that they were strung together to make necklaces. The controversial theory of female cosmetic coalitions interprets the ochre tradition as evidence that the world's first art, as an aspect of symbolic culture, took the form of personal ornamentation and body-painting.Power, C. 2010. Cosmetics, identity and consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 17, No. 7-8, pp. 73-94. It was initially countered that pigment-only decorative systems are merely individualistic display, not necessarily indicative of ritual, whereas the bead traditions testify to language, institutionalised relationships and full-scale ritual and symbolic culture.Henshilwood, C. S. and B. Dubreuil 2009. Reading the artifacts: gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 41-61.Kuhn, S. L. and Stiner, M. C. 2007. Body ornamentation as information technology: towards an understanding of the significance of beads. In P. Mellars, K. Boyle, O. Bar-Yosef and C. Stringer (eds), Rethinking the Human Revolution, Cambridge: McDonald Institute Research Monographs, pp. 45-54. More recently, however, those making this criticism have conceded that the evidence for ochre pigment use, stretching back towards 300,000 years ago, must indeed be recognised as the earliest durable media testifying to a collective ritual tradition.Kuhn, S. L. 2014. Signaling Theory and Technologies of Communication in the Paleolithic. Biological Theory 9 (1): 42-50. Meyocks (2026) has proposed that such symbolic capacities may have substantially deeper roots, arguing that 'cognitive crypsis'—the capacity for representational disguise developed for ambush hunting approximately one million years ago—established the cognitive architecture for later cosmetic traditions, suggesting that ochre body-painting represents a continuation of ancient predatory camouflage strategies rather than a sudden cultural innovation.
See also Behavioral modernity Ochre Prehistoric art Blombos Cave Origins of society Timeline of evolution Cognitive revolution
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