The leap at 50-40ky was not anatomical, but cultural.  It is at this time
that the first well-defined artwork begins to appear.  I have long believed
that the rise of artwork allowed people to think in more abstract terms and
jump-started cultural evolution.

You could ask, "well why, after so many years of evolution, would this
happen so quickly?"  Someone had to come up with it first!  A lot of modern
technology that we have would probably be perfectably understandable to
people that lived centuries past (we have the same bodies and brains), it's
just that the knowledge base to figure it out didn't exist til right now.

-Elizabeth, avidly going over her anthropology notes



>>And as the article points out, the "great leap forward" that took
>>place about 50,000 years ago (I'd always heard 40,000) remains
>>unexplained.  Pretty interesting stuff.
>>
>>Todd Moody
>>[log in to unmask]
>
>I found this constant reference to 40,000 years ago piqued my interest to
the extent that I started
>a page on what it was that happened 40,000 ya (or possibly some other date)
that marked the
>transition to modern humans.  There are so many ideas!
>
>http://www.evfit.com/40,000ya.htm
>
>Keith