1. Introduction

Modern evolutionary theory, like physical and cultural anthropology is barely two centuries old. However, 19th century views of human ancestors, and extant stone age (Paleolithic and Neolithic) cultures, as 'primitive' are today considered politically-incorrect, western, Eurocentric elitism, born of the evolutionary notion of 'progress' especially in science, technology and economics, but also in other areas such as law, ethics and morality. However, it may be equally misguided to view ancient cultures as 'the same' as ours or to dismiss the concept of progress entirely. Can we say the ancients employed rational analysis of the physical world, when the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that they produced cultures so manifestly different from ours?

At the present juncture, paleontology, anthropology and evolutionary psychology mostly focus on materialistic Darwinian evolutionary models that seek to understand developments in physical brain size, brain function and behavior in terms of adaptations and selective pressures that took place in the ice age: i.e. before 10,000 B.C. However, such approaches have yet to adequately explain the emergence of our most human 'psychological' traits - self-consciousness and language, even if it is now possible to understand which areas of the brain are 'activated' by language and other faculties in extant humans (Joseph, 2001) . A more fruitful approach may be to consider how human development (ontogeny) is as much a psychological process as it is a phenomenon of physical growth, or as stated by Anderson (1995, p. 134-135) "psychological advances were not accomplished in the classic evolutionary sense. Rather they reflect movement….every bit as inherent as the physical one that creates the brain, the heart, and the muscles…" Thus, the evolution of our young (~150,000 year old) species may be better understood through a thoughtful understanding of our psychological maturation (sensu Anderson) or 'evolution of consciousness' expressed as much through art, language/literature and religion/spirituality, as through technological and economic manipulation of the physical environment. Whether physical evolution drives psychological evolution, or vice versa, is perhaps of less importance than to recognize that the two are intimately interrelated: see Trut (1999) for an exposition on the interplay of behavior and physical development in evolution.

Given that newborn infants lack language and self consciousness, and that humans consider themselves the only species manifesting well-developed self-consciousness the following conclusion is inescapable: humans became self conscious at some point in their history or prehistory (phylogeny) just as the individual becomes self conscious during ontogeny (Zahavi et al. 2004; Lockley 2010). This conclusion points to the importance of some psychological variant of the biogenetic law, that 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' (Haeckel, 1866). Although Haeckel has been criticized for his errors and data manipuilation, in principle the biogenetic law can claim to be a pivotal precursor to the now- thriving field of evo-devo (Hobfeld and Olsson, 2003). In the 19th century the anthropological notion that our ancestors were child-like often carried the derogatory implication that they were primitive, emotional and lacking in reason and intellectual maturity (and children were often treated accordingly as 'incomplete,' immature adults).

However, as a species, humans manifest a number of remarkable juvenile traits, such as hairless bodies and extended periods of play (Verhulst, 2003). Ironically in the biological fields of 'heterochrony' and the 'evolution of development' (evo-devo), where such biological traits are well understood, such juvenilization traits, which 'retard' development, thereby preventing overspecialization (early aging or gerontomorphism) can be considered 'progressive' or novel evolutionary developments: see Trut (1999) for further observations. What lessons might we learn from changes in our own scientific paradigms? Obviously our scientific theories change as our consciousness evolves. Just as juvenile behavior is only juvenile, when viewed from the adult perspective, so ancient cultures cannot be labeled as advanced or primitive, without understanding the context in which they are viewed, and admitting our own prejudice for regarding ourselves as advanced and progressive. While present scientific hubris is often self-congratulatory on the subject of our technological achievements, our science fiction mythology readily speculates that future races (species) will regard us as primitive. In the short exposition which follows, we take these considerations into account as we look at the consciousness and culture of our ancestors from this psychological/consciousness perspective.

2. Before the 'World' Began

Humans are obsessed with origins, whether pertaining to the universe, the first unicellular life, vertebrates, mammals or our own human species. While our present self-consciousness allows us to experience existence, this same condition makes us wonder what it is like not to be self conscious. [Although this is rather silly, because one cannot experience 'non-experience,' one can nevertheless be curious about 'other' experience, especially spiritual epiphany, which humans have a long history of exploring and reporting, not least because spiritual gurus have made intriguing references to immortality]. The philosophical psychologist or theologian might observe that such obsessions with origins are a natural consequence of the mysteries of life and death, or the 'fact' that most of our evolutionary history pre-dates self consciousness. Given that our species had an origin (birth) and may die (go extinct), our interest in survival (also embedded in Darwinian evolutionary theory) is an understandable consequence (projection) of our perceived mortality. Perhaps, the only way round the perceived finality of mortal existence is to postulate immortality, a subject which has again preoccupied humanity for millennia. [Here one may distinguish between the psycho-spiritual and physical meanings of such intimations]. In biological terms immortality is not an altogether unrealistic, concept. Some biologists speak of immortality to characterize the asexual reproduction of countless identical clone generations. Even at the more complex level of sexual reproduction evolution, closely related generations and species transform one into another, so that while one may be lost another incarnates in its place. [Transformation and transmutation, are historical synonyms for evolution, and so could arguably be considered synonyms of reincarnation]. Are these preoccupations delusional, because in reality we are unequivocally and physically mortal? Or do they indicate an intuitive grasp of deeper non-material or spiritual realities that can be better appreciated by understanding the evolution of consciousness- or Consciousness in the Universe?

3. When Humans Became Self-Conscious and the 'World' Began

One might argue that it is almost self-evident that the emergence of human self consciousness, coincided with the origins of language and the first perception of what we call the 'world.' Abundant evidence from child development studies shows that this happens in most normal development (ontogeny). Rare cases of feral children and abnormal development severely compromise the quintessential human traits of language, self consciousness and their experience of the world (Newton, 2003). Normally, we speak of the child beginning to 'explore the world.' Such explorations involve self-referential language and emotional experience leading to cognitive understanding and meaning. Without language and self consciousness, the child's psychological experience would not be fully or healthily human. Indeed, as we have seen, the child's experience is not always easily conveyed to adults due to linguistic limitations. Likewise, the non-human experience of animals cannot be conveyed to humans linguistically, even if other non-self-conscious means of communication may be effective to varying degrees. Guldberg (2010), for example, points out that the ability of apes to use sign language, and recognize themselves in mirrors is very limited and too often seriously misinterpreted.

Commentators on the evolution of culture and language, have made the often compelling case that various ancestral cultures, through symbols, art and texts, have clearly recorded their experience of coming into the world of sensory perception and physical matter. By burying their dead such ancestral cultures also appear aware to have been aware of their mortality (Joseph, 2001). At such crucial stages in the evolution of consciousness and culture, there is a marked emphasis on fundamental spiritual questions pertaining to origins and the immortality of the soul. It is interesting that children very often also ask these same profoundly metaphysical life and death questions at a very early age (~3-4 years).

4. The Discovery of Mind

In a classic study of the evolution of Greek literature and culture Bruno Snell makes the compelling case that what we might call the modern European mind, evolved in a series of steps from the time of Homer (~12th century BCE) through the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (6th-4th centuries BCE). During this span of time, roughly equivalent to the duration between the contributions of Thomas Aquinus and Albert Einstein, we witness the Discovery of the Mind (sensu Snell 1953). In less than a millennium, the Greeks discovered their inner souls and what it meant to be "individual" men and women. They carved proud statues of themselves, not just of the Gods. Put another way they developed a species of self-consciousness, discussed herein, that we would recognize as progressively-more characteristic of the modern human condition.

What evidence did Snell glean from his intimate knowledge of Greek literature? From the outset Snell (1953, p. v) stresses that the emergence of mind involved the "rise of thinking" (or intellect) which heralded "nothing less than a revolution" because "the existence of the intellect and the soul are dependent on man's awareness of his self" (op. cit. p. ix). Thinking of course involves the ability to make abstract internal representations of the world, and it is well known through Child Development studies that the thinking faculty 'arises' at a relatively late stage: i.e., at around 5- 7 years, with the advent of what Piaget (1976) calls the Concrete Operations stage.

Snell argues that we fail to grasp the ancient Greek mind if we 'think' people thought the way we do today. In a series of carefully argued steps Snell unravels what "the Greeks at any given time know about themselves." (Snell 1953, p. xi). Snell notes that Aristarchus was the first to notice that in Homer the word (soma ), meaning body, is never used with reference to a living being (p. 5). Rather, Homer locates the vital "secret of life" in the mobile limbs, and the word thymos sometimes translated as 'soul' has, according to Snell, a more physical meaning of (e)motion: i.e. that which provides motion for the limbs. When used to describe "the escatological soul which flies off at the moment of death" (p. 11) it refers to the death of an animal. In contrast psyche often meaning "breath of life," and also translatable as 'soul,' is regarded as an animating force characteristic of humans that, at death, is seen to leave the body through the mouth. Noos, again having the connotation of 'soul' has yet another meaning closer to the faculty "in charge of intellectual matters," realization or seeing/perception (Snell, 1953, p. 12-13). Thus "Homeric man" has three 'organs' - thymos (motion/emotion), psyche (life) and noos (perception) - regarded as functions, not as physical entities.

By the time soma was used in reference to living bodies, Heraclitus (540-480 BCE) had used psyche to refer to the soul of a living person. Thus, arose the first distinction between the physical body and a radically different soul quality, which ever since has given us debates about mind-body duality. Before this, in the time of Homer, however, the soul had no depth or intensity and the "proper dimension of the spiritual receives no attention" (Snell, 1953, p. 19) nor has "Homeric man …yet awakened to the fact that he possesses in his own soul the source of his powers…" Thus, he does not regard himself as the source of his own decisions. Until he could do this he had not transplanted the external deity within himself as his own soul, and so the world could have little deep meaning. To the extent that individuals did this, they and their communities gained spiritual potential (potency) and, correspondingly, the Gods lost their power. This internalization of the divine, spiritual faculty is commented on by Jung in is interpretation of how the Old Testament Job "recognized God's inner antinomy…[it] allowed Job (man) to attain a divine numinosity" (Lockley and Morimoto, 2010 p., 260). When humans began to discern the moral and spiritual dimensions of events in their lives, they no longer attributed their fates to the Gods, and they began the philosophical process of evaluating morality (truth, beauty, goodness, virtue honor etc.,). They could as Snell puts it "toil for the sake of responsibility and justice" (op. cit. 102). This shift was often accompanied by a loss of awe and wonder, which various commentators have since alternately lamented or justified as necessary, perhaps even inevitable, as the capacity to distinguish good from evil arose. Clearly this distancing of the individual from the Gods (the invisible divine dimension of the universe) led to a greater burden of responsibility, loneliness, angst and the religious tradition of the "fall." So at first, according to Snell, we find a literary tendency to dialogs dealing with nostalgia for lost loved ones, but later, we encounter the monologue and the full expression of individual angst. Determining one's fate with no guidance from omniscient gods led almost inevitably to the wrenching drama of Greek tragedy arising from the dilemmas involved in making difficult decisions.

As noted by Rochat (2003) the development of "self awareness is a dynamic process" unfolding and "oscillating" not just in early life but throughout our ontogeny. In reading Greek literature and Snell's interpretations we see how our own decisions "oscillate" constantly as we apply moral, judgments to life situations. However, we must remember that the intellectual repertoire of the Greeks differed from our own, and that we would hardly find the justifications for their decisions satisfying to our morality. According to Barfield (1926, 1965, 1967) whose literary knowledge rivals, and whose interpretations, often parallel Snell's, it took time for thought to separate from perception, and so free the soul. Thus, Barfield holds there is no shred of evidence that the early Greeks interpreted life's events by rational or intellectual analysis, which requires the abstract and objective faculty we call "imagination." Likewise, Snell (1953, p.90) states that what we call myths were "accepted as reality' and that "what we would ascribe to the imagination, to an intellectual effort…. Homer… traces to actual experience." (op cit. p. 137).

Long (1984, p. 6) espouses much the same position when he states that " The Greek myths and Hindu traditions tell of gods and demi-gods walking the earth ... yet no one has ever seriously suggested that this was precisely how it was .." Jaynes (1976, p. 75) clearly echoes these interpretations when he states that Greek soldiers "did not have subjectivity as we do" [they] "had no awareness of [their] awareness of the world, no internal mind-space to introspect on." As a result they were "noble automatons who knew not what they did" fighting wars effectively "directed by hallucinations."

5. Self-Consciousness, Mind-Body and Heaven - Earth Dualism

Long (1984) should perhaps have cited Snell, Barfield and Jaynes on the authenticity of Greek experience. However he is on the same track when arguing that "neither the Greek myths, the bible or the early Sanskrit texts ... mentions that the accounts do not stand for exactly what they say. .. Central ... to all religious traditions are the unqualified references to the gods and demi-gods with miraculous powers participating in human affairs ..." (op. cit , p. 7).

In this vein of "heaven and earth dualism" we can cite from the much celebrated Nag Hammadi manuscripts: "the soul turned, at one time, toward matter: she fell in love with it, and, burning with desire to experience bodily pleasures, wishes no more to be separated from it. Thus the world was born. From that moment the soul forgot herself; she forgot her original dwelling, her true center, her everlasting life…" (Chwolsohn, 1856; cited in Doressse, 2005)

Vitaliano (2000) is cogent in stating that: 'dualism is the act of severance, cutting (con-scire) the world into seer and seen, knower and known ... with the occurrence of the primary dualism, man's awareness shifts from the non-dual universal consciousness to his physical body."

The momentous implication of this conclusion is that, like infants, before they become self conscious, our early human ancestors not only had little concept of an inner self (soul) but they did not even recognize or identify with their physical, sensory bodies. Obvious as it may seem on reflection, we have to agree with Jung that self-awareness is an essential a pre-requisite for recognizing the physical existence of the body. Thus, as humans became aware of the physical world they still retained strong psychic ties to the non physical, non-sensory "spiritual" or psychic world from which they were just emerging. This in turn implies an abrupt emergence of sensory experience. Again biology and psychology confirm such experiences, not only at birth (when sight and other senses first function, but also with the advent of self consciousness at the toddler stage and in the many accounts of spiritual experience, including Near Death and Out of Body experience which, in the latter case, cross back from the world of physical to non-physical sensory experience: i.e. into the realm Vitaliano calls "non-dual universal consciousness."

Difficult as it may be for materialistic paradigms to accept that human evolution is not adequately or fully explained as a process of physical/anatomical evolution, caused by individual subjects interacting with objects in a dualistic world full of selective pressures, much evidence points to the fact our most characteristic attributes of our species (language, awareness of our existence in a physical, sensory world) came about as the result of a "fall" into self-consciousness quite late in our species history. These emergent psychological or consciousness faculties appear to be an inherent part of psychological maturation processes (sensu Anderson, 1995) with no simple, obvious or easily measured physical correlates such as changes in brain anatomy (brain waves and energy fields not withstanding). This is not to say that there are not intriguing expositions on the evolution of language in and of itself (Deutsher 2005), and in relation to neuroanatomy (Joseph, 2001). But again it seems the faculties of consciousness and language 'activate' or 'emerge' independent of any easily defined physical/anatomical changes. Thus, given the increasingly ambiguous meaning that modern physics gives to the concept of 'physical matter' it seems unlikely that explanations for the evolution of human consciousness will center on any strictly physical/material phenomena.