Thread by @Keilmesser

1/9 #Colonial #Victorian tropes of #primitive and #civilised are never funny @BBCNews @BBCWorld. They were actively used to justify colonialism.

Small-scale societies are as complex as large states, and values and morals are #HumanUniversals. Also, #Neanderthals were smart!

2/9 #Hunter-gatherers live in small groups but have large social networks. San societies in southern #Africa maintain these by exchanging ostrich eggshell beads across hundreds of kilometers. And they have been doing this for over 30,000 years.
pnas.org/content/117/12…

3/9 #Aboriginal societies in #Australia have complex ways of transmitting knowledge across space and time. Their #OralHistories preserved information on the impact of #SeaLevelRise at the end of the last #IceAge over 10,000 years.
scientificamerican.com/article/ancien…

4/9 #RockArt #ethnography testify to the complex religions and mythology of #HunterGatherer societies. The San in southern #Africa maintained a complex shamanic religion for thousands of years.
bradshawfoundation.com/south_africa/s…

5/9 And complex ideology is very much in evidence in the #RockArt of the original #CaveMen, the #CroMagnons in #Palaeolithic #Europe.

#Picasso is even (apocryphically?) rumored to have said ‘we have learnt nothing’ when visiting #Lascaux
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

6/9 #Neanderthals were as big-brained as ourselves. They used their intelligence to produce complex #technology. They not only produce versatile stone tools, they use chemistry too. For example in distilling birch bark tar to use as glue. pnas.org/content/116/44…

7/9 They also had social #norms and #values. They cared for fellow group members, allowing them to recover from sometimes gruesome injuries. humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human…

8/9 And increasing suggestions of their use of #jewellery, construction of non-utilitarian structures in deep caves and involvement in the production of #RockArt suggest a mental experience that may not have been much less complex than that of ourselves. pnas.org/content/118/33…

9/9 So, @BBCNews, using a ranking of primitive, civilized and evolved is not funny.

(Although it is still better than holding #CheeseAndWine #parties in violation of one's own rules. One wonders how that ranks in terms of civility).

Also, #Neanderthals are cool.
The End.