Radical or progressive evolution? The case of “Savant syndrome”
 

Paul Trehin January 2004

Homo Sapiens Sapiens apparition dates approximately 120,000 to 150,000 years. Its physical appearance as well as the anatomical observations, from which one could deduce the volume and the form from his brain, shows that he/she was extremely similar to us (Picq 2003). One can think that we form only one species.

However, a debate rages in the field of the palaeoanthropology : was the cultural evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens progressive or on the contrary relatively sudden? (Appenzeller1998).

Advocates of the second theory, a major change in human brain capabilities (Klein 1999, Mithen 1999, Tattersall 2001), use as corner stones of their analysis the sudden apparition, around thirty to forty thousand years ago, of art forms completely unknown before as for example in Chauvet Cave (Valladas et al 2001). Some very old artefacts had shown that human beings were interested in art, or at least had an attraction for aesthetics( Lorblanchet 1999), collecting and sometimes even modifying pebbles or stones with particular marks, at times resembling human shapes like the Berekhat Ram figurine (Bahn 1998), or the “Mask” of la Roche-Cotard (Marquet, Lorblanchet 2003).

Other authors think, on the contrary, that the evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens was progressive.  "I simply cannot conceive of the Grotte Chauvet paintings appearing out of nothing," (Bahn, quoted in Appenzeller 1998).  One even sees the start of a dispute on the dates of the oldest artistic paintings and drawings, such as those found in the Chauvet Cave (Hogan 2003), "If the French are right, it would be as if they had found a Renaissance painting from the early Middle Ages," (Pettitt 2003 quoted in Delve 2003). What this analysis forgets to take into account it is that even the most recent of these forms of Palaeolithic art (Rouffignac, Combarelles, Niaux) appeared well before the much more schematic drawings and engravings of the Neolithic era. This doesn’t mean that Neolithic culture was less advanced from a general population point of view. The complexity of the stories told by the schematic drawings of the Mesolithic and the Neolithic shows a wealth of culture, but more oriented towards telling and communicating rather than fidelity to the model. One other valid argument comes from taphonomy : it is because we did not find older artworks yet that we speak about a sudden apparition of art (Bednarik 1994). Other authors also point out that the theory of sudden cognitive change in the 50,000 BP period is inconsistent with the spread of culture out of Europe before that time period (Raimanova et al, 200?).

The assumption "Savant syndrome”, which I developed in another paper, still in the writing[1], makes it possible to refute these two interpretations of art and culture evolution: there may have been no sudden cultural evolution, and the Palaeolithic naturalistic art style may bear no relation with the cultural evolution. In fact it may be argued that art expression and overall societal culture are on two different axes.

Here is in a few words the summary of the "Savant syndrome” assumption :  Within the population of "modern men" today, there are individuals who have exceptional competences in certain fields (Treffert 1989), amongst other things in drawing, without ever having learned how to draw. For example Nadia (Selfe 1977), a young child with autism also with “savant skills”, was drawing, at age four, horses that have nothing to envy to those of Chauvet Cave, Rouffignac or Niaux drawings. There are several such cases documented with truly exceptional drawing abilities and, in some cases, sculpture abilities[2] even though their subjects of inspiration may be other than animals, for example, Stephen Wiltshire draws extraordinary views of architectural sceneries (Wiltshire 1987, 1989).

If we admit that we belong to the same human species ever since the apparition of "modern man" on earth, it is probable that the cognitive variations were of the same magnitude during the Palaeolithic times as the ones we observe today. It is hence possible that, as is the case today, individuals with "Savant syndrome", hence exceptional cognitive capabilities, existed during the upper Palaeolithic and could have been the initiators of a form of realistic and naturalist art. The comparison between the drawings carried out by the people who have what is called "Savant syndrome" and the completely remarkable representations of the artists of the Aurignatian, through to the Magdalenian, makes it possible to observe very many correspondences of styles (Humphrey 1998), methods and behaviours. The fact that most individuals with "Savant syndrome" happen to be people with autism (Treffert 2000) would also give some elements of answers to some of the many questions Palaeolithic art still poses to the specialists of prehistoric art, such as why would people make drawings deep down in caves ? How did they memorise the animals shapes in details all the time it took them to access the depth of the caves ? How did they manage to draw animals with perfect proportions, in places where they had no way to step back to see the whole picture ? etc.

Using this hypothesis of individuals with "Savant syndrome", the apparently sudden apparition of art in upper Aurignatian would not be the result of a general cultural evolution of our species, but the fact of a very small number of individual “cognitive accidents”, independent of the ambient culture, although prone to make it evolve. This assumption leads us to think that  only a few individuals isolated in space and time had exceptional drawing competences, just like the individuals with "Savant syndrome" which we know today, competences which one hardly starts to understand some of the mechanisms in recent researches (Hermelin 2001, Treffert & Wallace 2004).

As it is the case that the prevalence of "Savant syndrome" is extremely rare, the manifestations of their talents could only be noted when a sufficiently large population of Homo Sapiens Sapiens was able to remain long enough in a particular geographical area Further more, the “Savant skills occur in an exceedingly narrow range of abilities” (Treffert 2000), so drawing abilities are just one of the possible savant capabilities. In view of the rather small populations of the upper Palaeolithic period, such cases would have been extremely rare; perhaps several hundreds of generations may have gone without any cases able to express themselves. This is something that could explain the often very long period between parietal art manifestations, sometimes several thousand years apart. And indeed examples of decorated caves are becoming more frequent in the late Magdalenian period than in the previous periods, this could simply be linked to the larger population. It could even be possible that earlier exceptional naturalistic drawing dating long before Chauvet, made by individuals with “Savant Syndrome”, could be found sometimes in future archaeological researches. That should be however a rather difficult hunt given the very small population of Homo Sapiens Sapiens before 50,000 years ago, it would probably have to be found in Africa or in the Middle East where Homo Sapiens Sapiens were 100K to 50K years ago.

But that art production would have nothing to do with the cultural evolution of the average population, even though such exceptional talents, which exist in other domains than just drawing, may have triggered new ideas in the groups where one was present.

The apparition of art would not correspond thus to a generalized evolution of cognitive competences, the so called "cognitive Big Bang". It would not upset either the order of things with regard to the evolution of art. These completely exceptional competences in drawing and other visual arts upset much more our traditional theories about of the development of cognitive competences of the child...

On this basis, separating general human evolution from art manifestations, one can attempts to rebuild another chronology of the cultural evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, physiologically and neurologically identical to us, with his "cognitive accidents" as evoked above, but who, for the great majority of the population, would have continued to evolve in a very progressive way during the expansion of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, although more rapidly than its predecessors Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Ergaster, Homo Heidelbergensis and even of his/her Neandertal cousin.

I believe that the major difference between Homo Sapiens Sapiens and his predecessors or cousin Neanderthal, and with that respect of Neanderthal to his own predecessors, was a higher competence in imitation (Stamenof, Galese 2002). I have developed the idea of a typology of imitation capabilities according to the complexity of the model and the distance of the imitation from the model. A draft text on imitation, in English, is also available on my website (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/gilles.trehin.urville/quelques_idees_sur_les%20memes.htm).
It is likely that early on, the modern man imitated the stone splitting techniques of his predecessors, in particular the Acheulean type, improving slightly on them over time. Then, arriving in contact with the Neanderthal, borrowed from them the most advanced in this field : the Levalois techniques.

I know this goes against the current view that it was likely that Neanderthal borrowed its advances stone splitting technique from Homo Sapiens Sapiens (Lewis-Williams 2002), but this view is quite in question these days, with a revised analysis of the Neanderthal capabilities (Arsuaga 2001, Baffier 1999, Jaubert 1999). It is thus possible, on the contrary, that meeting with Neanderthal could have been initially the basis for enrichment of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, this last profiting from the longer semi sedentary culture of the Neanderthal.  The great difference between Homo Sapiens Sapiens and his Neanderthal cousin was probably residing in a greater freedom in the imitation of the gestures of their models, allowing them more quickly to improve the techniques and the tools.

It is interesting to note that imitation is very peculiar in the case of autism. People with autism have great capabilities for exact imitation (echolalia, for speech and echopraxia for mouvements), but have great difficulties for pragmatic imitation, that is a useful imitation adaptable with some degree of variation in the context.

The first type of perfect imitation, coupled with a fantastic visual memory could be at the origin of innate drawing abilities.

The poor pragmatic imitation often induces people with autism to “invent” a “solution” rather than imitating. In the case of language, people with autism are known for creating neologisms (Szatmari 1995). In most cases unfortunately the “invented solution” is not as efficient as the one developed through years of experience by the “model”, but sometimes a truly new solution comes out of this process… If it is observed by open minded people, it could be picked up and be at the origin of progress. 

In these domains too; people with autism, in particular those with “Savant skills” but not only them, could have created new tools or new methods or even new words which would have then followed the usual path of evolution. I consider these individuals as the necessary cultural perturbators that have challenged “good old ways of doing things”. I think that they are the missing element in the theory of memes, the element that may provide an answer to exceptional advances without the need for a major and sudden cognitive evolution.

Questions and comments welcomed…

trehinp@aol.com

Paul Trehin

 

Bibliographical references :

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Jessica Kinsley Publishers, London 2001

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