THE HUMAN BRAIN AS A PREADAPTIVE FACTOR IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE

The central idea of preadaptation is the development of genetically inherited potentials making possible the utilization of a new environment (Huxley, 1943). The term is quite often used in reference to a set of variables present that make possible survival during drastic climatic changes. A classic example would be the presence of rudimentary lungs and lobed fins in the Crossopterygians of the Palezoic which facilitated the transition of the vertebrates from an aquatic to a terrestial habitat (Romer, 1945). Preadaptation is most probable in a large, highly variable population. The preadapted segment, small in the beginning, expands rapidly, accompanied by wholesale destruction in the rest of the popula-tion (Simpson, 1944). Preadaptation does not oppose natural selection but goes along with it, taking advantage of accumulations of small, relatively unimportant mutations. The known time of man on earth is accompanied by a series of drastic climatic changes during the fluctuation of the glaciations in the Pleistocene. Our earliest evidence for man coincides rather closely with the initiation of the climatic change