The 100th Monkey Effect?

[Ichingcarpenter]

A method of Stone Age tool production is believed to have its origins in Africa but findings of a new study challenges this notion with evidence that suggests different populations around the world independently developed their tool-making skills during the Paleolithic Era.

Scientists have argued that a tool-making technology known as the Levallois technique was invented in Africa and that the method eventually spread to Eurasia following the migration of humans from Africa. An analysis of stone artifacts in Armenia, however, suggests otherwise.

In a new discovery described in the journal Science on Sept. 26, a group of researchers examined almost 3,000 stone artifacts that were excavated from Nor Geghi 1 (NG1), an archeological site in Armenia that was preserved by two lava flows. By analyzing and dating the volcanic ash between these lava flows, the researchers found that the artifacts at the site existed between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago, the era associated with the earliest Levallois tools in Africa.

The researchers also found that the people who lived in the area thousands of years ago used both Levallois and a more rugged tool-making method called bifacial technology at the same time providing the earliest evidence that these technologies existed together and suggesting that the people there may have gradually developed Levallois technique from bifacial technology.

"We wouldn't have found this mixture if the Levallois technology had simply replaced the old method," said study researcher Daniel Adler, from the University of Connecticut in Storrs. "The communities probably worked out for themselves how to make bifacial tools and then it was a short step to the Levallois method."

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/16534/20140926/stone-age-tools-did-not-originate-from-africa-toolmaking-skills-developed-independently-worldwide.htm

Nature: Stone Age groups made similar toolmaking breakthroughs

Different palaeolithic populations around the world might have developed a crucial toolmaking skill independently. This conclusion, based on the analysis of hundreds of artefacts from a recently excavated archaeological site in Armenia, weakens a long-held theory that Stone Age people in Eurasia learnt sophisticated techniques from migrating African tribes. The work is published in Science1.



Early Stone Age populations made their tools much in the same way that Michelangelo would have made his David — by chipping away at a piece of stone until the required shape emerged. Such tools are known as bifacial.

In the so-called Levallois technology, named after the Levallois-Perret suburb of Paris where it was first described, the toolmaker first chisels a suitably shaped core from a stone and then slices off flakes from it. The flakes are the tools — lighter to carry, and probably more efficient to make.

Chipping away at the truth

http://www.nature.com/news/stone-age-groups-made-similar-toolmaking-breakthroughs-1.16002




The 100th Monkey Effect:


The hundredth monkey effect is a studied phenomenon[1] in which a new behavior or idea is claimed to spread rapidly by unexplained means from one group to all related groups once a critical number of members of one group exhibit the new behavior or acknowledge the new idea.

The Snow Monkeys of Japan were studied by scientists for a period of over 30 years on the island of Kosima. Beginning in 1952 scientist began to drop Sweet Potatoes in the sand. The monkeys liked the Sweet Potatoes but didn’t care for the unpleasant taste of the sand. That was until a 19 month old female found that she could solve the problem by washing the sand off in the salty ocean water, improving the taste of the potato.

She then taught this trick to her mother and soon after her playmates learned this, who in turn taught it to their mothers as well. This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by numerous monkeys on the island. Between 1952 and 1958 the younger Monkeys would figure out this technique and would teach it to their elders. The adults who did this with their children themselves learned this Cultural Improvement, however some older adults did not right away.

Here’s where is starts to get interesting…

In the autumn of 1958 something startling took place, a massive increase of snow monkeys began washing their sweet potatoes. The exact number was not known, however the hypothetical number given was 99, as to when the 100th monkey learned how to wash their sweet potatoes a critical mass of innovation accrued. This added energy of the hundredth monkey somehow created a conscious break through, to where almost everyone in the troop were washing their sweet potatoes.

Here’s the REALLY interesting part…



Something even crazier that the scientist were not expecting to happen accrued.THE CULTURAL INNOVATIONS JUMPED ACROSS THE SEA!!!

The monkeys across the other islands started washing their potatoes in the ocean as well, and in great number almost as if it was understood on a higher level of consciousness.

This experiment brings to light the idea of a Collective Consciousness, where as if it is only a few number of individuals know a new idea or way of life, then it remains the conscious property of those individuals, but at the critical mass of the “100th Individual” the awareness becomes the conscious property of all.

http://www.mindopenerz.com/the-100th-monkey-effect-a-critical-mass/

See also
The Global Consciousness Project - Princeton University

http://www.theavalonfoundation.org/docs/gcpannounce.html


I don't know myself but I'd thought I'd throw these thoughts out to you for consideration

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Kicking. Thank you. nt

[Jim Lane]

2. The "hundredth monkey" effect is a New Age urban legend

Some monkeys figured out the benefits of washing sweet potatoes and taught others, that's all. In particular, the startling "jumping across the sea" effect, supposed evidence of a collective unconscious, has not actually been observed.

A summary of the debunking:

An analysis of the appropriate literature by Ron Amundson, published by the Skeptics Society, revealed several key points that demystified the supposed effect.

Unsubstantiated claims that there was a sudden and remarkable increase in the proportion of washers in the first population were exaggerations of a much slower, more mundane effect. Rather than all monkeys mysteriously learning the skill it was noted that it was predominantly younger monkeys that learned the skill from the older monkeys through observational learning, which is widespread in the animal kingdom;[8] older monkeys who did not know how to wash tended not to learn. As the older monkeys died and younger monkeys were born the proportion of washers naturally increased. The time span between observations by the Japanese scientists was on the order of years so the increase in the proportion was not observed to be sudden.

Claims that the practice spread suddenly to other isolated populations of monkeys may be called into question given the fact that at least one washing monkey swam to another population and spent about four years there and also the monkeys had the researchers in common. Amundson also notes that the sweet potato was not available to the monkeys prior to human intervention.[1][8]

(From the "Hundredth monkey effect" article in Wikipedia)