When Did Modern Behavior Evolve?

Scientists often use the phrase “anatomically modern humans” to describe the point when our ancient ancestors looked like us. But when did humans become behaviorally modern?

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[NewMessage]

I had no idea hashtagging had such a long history.

[danielm.]

Asking when humans became behaviourally modern feels like the anthropological equivalent of asking when a collection of sand grains becomes a pile of sand...

[westtech]

Flutes on the other hand were invented shortly after Uncles, so we could give our nieces and nephews gifts that make noise at 3:00 AM

[dakotamorehead]

I remember some quote from a lady who claimed she believed one of the first important markers in a peoples advancement was a healed femur. To show that care for another and the ability to collaborate in such a physical manner was essential to the first etchings of a society.

[rin_okami]

...."Crosshatch pattern", guys.

[qwertyuiopst]

A huge part of 'behaviorally modern' is _learned behavior_, and every bit of that learned behavior had to first be discovered/invented - and probably several different times (and it also took a long time for all that learning to become 'sufficient'). I'm tempted to argue that we had the biology for being 'behaviorally modern' before we crossed the threshold into 'modern behavior'.

[daniyalahmed]

Whenever Hank host’s it, it’s a must watch. I watch scishow because of him.

[TheRealMirCat]

When Monoliths taught us we could use bones to break other bones

[MrThatguyuknow]

This is a question where you get a different answer depending on what you're looking for although I argue even homo erectus was pretty up there. They were capable of fairly impressive tools, in some evidence even boats, and still looked very little like modern humans. I'd say a very important factor overlooked is just how sociable we were at any given time. That is the core of what really shaped humans and lead us into civilization. Human "domestication" as seen by our skull size shrinking and facial features becoming more adolescent is a good clue as to when, but more importantly the trade of red ocher (beyond it's use) is a good benchmark. It's a very old and physical encapsulation of humans slowly laying out the foundations of what we are today.

[westtech]

Them: These are the earliest evidence of abstract thought - Me: these are the earliest evidence of students doodling in class...

[TakoyakiStore]

I seem to recall a documentary I saw over 10 years ago on the bottleneck period of ancient humans around 70, 000 years ago. Something that was brought up was that apparently in a cave on the African coast that had been occupied by humans around that same 70, 000BP time anthropologists found scratch marks on the cave walls. They theorized that an ancient tribe that lived in the cave was trying to work out the tide cycles so they could hunt and gather seashore life at low tide safely. If that's true then that pushes abstract thinking to around 70, 000 years ago.

[phoule]

4:20 hashtags from 110, 00 years ago were the first annoying tweets

[TheFuturistTom]

I've been watching Sci Show Psych for some time. I liked their videos. That is why I decided to create my own sci-fi/futurist Channel 👍🙂

[littlesnowflakepunk]

Getting existentialist lately, love it

[feedbackzaloop]

Well, first you have to ask "where" and "if": it seems that even now not all can make tools, compose meaningful sentences or be artistic beyond hashtagging

[NewMessage]

A lot of us are still acting like we're still in the caves.

[antiisocial]

Ok . This was very interesting! Please do one on the evolving nature of societal behavior or whatever you call it when a structured language started affecting us, when we started wearing clothes for decoration instead of for protection, when we decided that rotating a cat over a fire until they died wasn't the coolest block party ever (I don't like cats either but that's too far!) or how social media is affecting our society.

[FirstPersonSciPod]

Behaviour and neuroscience go hand in hand! There's a great podcast that just came out by campfire chats- the forest fleur- on the neuroscience of bigfoot!!

[fuliajulia]

This just made it glaringly obvious to me what a blip humans have been time-wise on the Earth's stage.

[cade]

Hank is the end result of human evolution