Pleistocene bow-hunting in Africa and the human mind

Abstract

Advances in genetic research and palaeoneurology, together with a better understanding of the African archaeological record, demonstrate that aspects of the sapient mind evolved in Pleistocene Africa. Complex, bimanual technologies, operated over a distance – such as bow-hunting – may provide a partial window into human cognitive evolution. I report on recent interdisciplinary research, drawing on: (1) the development of the human precuneus as the brain region that facilitates visuo-spatial integration; (2) sport psychology and cognitive-motor neuroscience; and (3) neuro-genetic adaptations towards human attention. This research highlights the role of the precuneus and attention in modern archery, and the variation in the genetic development of attentional resources in African Homo sapiens in comparison with the Neanderthals and Denisovans of Eurasia, which may explain why bow-hunting was an African Pleistocene invention.

Significance:

The bow-and-arrow may have been invented in sub-Saharan Africa by ~80–60 ka. Complex technologies of this time depth have the potential to inform about the evolution of the human mind. I highlight the precuneus as the brain region, and at least 14 ‘attention genes’ selected for in the Homo sapiens genome, that may have facilitated early African bow-hunting.