Margaret Mead's origin of civilization
 

endnote, 529: "Margaret Mead [...] suggested that the first sign of 'civilization' in human history was not tool use but a 15,000-year-old skeleton that showed signs of having healed from a broken femur. It takes six weeks, she noted, to heal from such an injury; most animals with broken femurs simply die because their companions abandon them; one of the things that makes humans so unusual is precisely that we take care of one another in such situations."
see also Romito 2, a 10,000-year-old burial that demonstrates that a "community of hunter-gatherers [...] took pains to support this individual through infancy and into early adulthood" (14)
> from David Graeber and David Wengrow's Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)

> tagged with #anthropology, #human_behavior, #timeline

> created December 23, 2021 at 2:39:53 PM


> part of unfinished everything


search unfinished everything


unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

selection, arrangement, and original text available for creative reuse under this licensing arrangement

authors' quoted words are their own.


home |@jpb.bsky.social