Robert Arp - 1001-Ideas-That-Changed-the-Way-We-Think

whatsoever—someone in the discussion will inevitably make a comparison to Adolph Hitler or the Nazis.

I hope that you find as much joy in reading these 1,001 ideas as I did when the contributors submitted them to me to edit. As a final thought, I will leave you with a quotation from a speech given in 1963 by the United States’ thirty-fifth president, John F. Kennedy, that I recall from a class on the U.S. government during my teenage years: “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.”

Ancient World

Pre 500 CE

A painting from the tomb of Ramses I (c. 1290 BCE), showing the Egyptian pharaoh with the gods Harsiesis and Anubis. Images like this one were common in Egyptian funerary art.

Archaeologist Steven Mithen has put forward the theory that, around 30,000 years ago, our hominin ancestors’ mental modules opened up, and ideas and information began to flow freely between them—a process that he termed “cognitive fluidity.” It is likely that the first ideas that humans came up with had a practical application, as in the case of the Levallois Technique for shaping flint tools. Early humans then applied creative thought to develop ideas such as clothing, jewelry, anthropomorphism, and Paleolithic cave art. Later, with the rise of the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, countless abstract concepts were formed in areas such as mathematics and philosophy.

c. 1,600,000 BCE

Human Control of Fire

Homo erectus

Harnessing fire in order to use its properties as a practical tool

Controlling fire has been a hallmark of human culture since before the existence of modern Homo sapiens. Early people obtained fire from natural sources, later developing a variety of methods to create fire artificially. The ability to create, control, and use fire remains essential to human civilization.

The first exposure that early humans had to fire most likely came from wild fires and forest fires sparked by lightning. While destructive and potentially deadly, they provided early access to the tool, although it was not a force that people could control, much less create at will. There is evidence to show that as early as 1.6 million years ago Homo erectus groups had harnessed fire to some extent, and by 400,000 to 250,000 BCE there is clear evidence that Homo erectus could control and perhaps even create it. By 125,000 BCE, well after the emergence of modern Homo sapiens, human use, control, and creation of fire were widespread and common.

“Fire, though it may be quenched, will not become cool.”

Ovid, ancient Roman poet

Humanity’s mastery of fire had an immediate and profound impact on its evolution. Fire gave people protection from wild animals, allowed them to illuminate the darkness, gave warmth to fend off the cold, enhanced their ability to fashion tools, gave them the ability to cook food, and served as an effective deterrent against insects and pests. Fire was so useful in the preparation of food that humans became the only animal that could nutritionally thrive by eating cooked but not raw food. Fire’s importance in culture is so marked that the word itself became a ubiquitous metaphor used to describe ideas such as romantic love, conflict, destruction, and intense desire. MT

c. 800,000 BCE

Cannibalism

Unknown

The practice of humans eating the flesh of other humans

Markings on these human bones, which date to around 12,000 years ago, are thought to indicate cannibalism.

The earliest evidence of cannibalism comes from butchered bones found in the Grand Dolina cave in Spain, dating back to c. 800,000 BCE. These bones suggest that the practice existed among members of western Europe’s first known human species, Homo antecessor, and similar findings from later periods show that it continued with the emergence of Homo sapiens and other hominid species. There are several theories as to why cannibalism first arose: one hypothesis suggests that it may have been a result of food shortages; another that it may have functioned as a form of predator control, by limiting predators’ access to (and therefore taste for) human bodies.

Cannibalism persisted into modern times in West and Central Africa, the Pacific Islands, Australia, Sumatra, North America, and South America. In some cultures, human flesh was regarded as just another type of meat. In others, it was a delicacy for special occasions: the Maoris of New Zealand would feast on enemies slain in battle. In Africa, certain human organs were cooked in rites of sorcery because witch doctors believed that victims’ strengths and virtues could be transferred to those who ate their flesh. In Central America, the Aztecs are thought to have sacrificed prisoners of war to their gods and then eaten their flesh themselves. Australian Aborigines ate their deceased relatives (endocannibalism) as a mark of respect.

“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs (1988)

The colonization of these regions between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries by European Christians made cannibalism taboo. However, it occasionally still occurs in extreme circumstances. GL

c. 650,000 BCE

Clothing

Unknown

Garments, fabrics, or other coverings worn by humans over their bodies

The materials that early humans used to create the first clothing were probably those they found around them, such as pliable grasses, plant leaves, and animal skins. Because these materials decompose so easily it is difficult to determine when humans first created clothing. Researchers studying human lice have suggested that clothing could have become widespread as early as 650,000 years ago, while other studies suggest an origin of about 170,000 years ago. These time periods correspond to either the beginning or the end of an Ice Age, indicating that clothing may have first developed as a way of coping with colder climates.

The first items of clothing were most probably fairly crude in their construction, draped around the body and tied with sinew. The development of the needle around 35,000 years ago by Homo sapiens allowed the creation of more complex clothing—garments that could be layered and tailored to fit certain parts of the body. It has been hypothesized that this technology may have been what enabled Homo sapiens to flourish as a species over the Neanderthals, who were more adapted to the cold biologically and thus did not have the impetus to refine the cutting and sewing techniques that were needed for warmer clothes.

“Clothes can suggest, persuade, connote, insinuate, or indeed lie …”

Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (1975)

Although clothing may have been created out of necessity initially, it has since become far more than a means of adaptation to the environment. Throughout history it has been used to protect a wearer from the elements, but also as a way to convey nonverbal information, such as signaling differences in wealth, class, sex, or membership of a particular group. MT

c. 600,000 BCE

Honoring the Dead

Homo heidelbergensis

The practice of paying respect to a deceased person through specific rituals

The 60,000-year-old burial tomb of a Neanderthal man in the

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