In his analysis of the longevity of prehistoric, paleolithic cultures, Gregory Curtis speculates what is was about the structure of such civilization that was so durable that their societies maintained such profoundly similar lifestyles for a span of 25,000 years, whereas modern or "classical" society underwent drastic changes throughout the last 4,000 years. Curtis hypothesizes that this is in large part due to the acceptance of answers dedicated to the same questions we today instinctively ask ourselves. I don't necessarily believe that the answers such cultures allocated to these questions were as sound as Curtis makes them out to be; I don't think that our modern answers are any more or less sound, and furthermore, I don't think that their mindsets were as tenacious as Curtis infers from their art because of the soundness of their logic. With so few people in the world, especially in comparison with recent numbers of population, and means of survival very accessible, cultures in separate areas had space to diverge in the directions of their development- not to say they took off in many different directions; that does not seem to be the case during that large period of time- but if it had been, they would not likely have come into contact with each other in a matter that would cause either war or cultural competition. Curtis deconstructs their art to signify strikingly similar widespread culture and philosophy. Even if philosophies had been highly varied between these societies, the chances of them sharing and/or comparing ideas was slim. If they had, I believe that an influx in development would have been the result, and by the same line of reasoning, I believe that population growth was the cause of our rapid expansion and all ensuing change. Once these numbers reached the point which ignited the mental and technological development that followed, our unavoidable encounters and subsequent contemplations of ideologies presented to us by foreign cultures as responses to the questions shared by all of humanity caused collective human civilization to take off with such momentum.
From all of this, I deduct that it took as much time as it did for population to grow and for culture to expand with it, and that the more people exist in the world, the larger a thought pool there is for understanding the world. Every brain has the capacity for more individual thought, and as our numbers continued to collect on this Earth, observations were built upon observations, therefore our conscience widened, our perceptions advanced, and the options became so numerous that the questions themselves grew more tenacious than the answers presented for them thus far. In summary, it wasn't the answers of these ancient societies that were so satisfactory, but the circumstances in which they could maintain their life were the source of their endurance.
I agree with your argument, and i would like to add that the environment may have played a key role especially in Europe. The climate would have been much colder and harsher during that 25,000 year period that Curtis speaks about and made it much harder and infective to have more more population than a hunter gatherer society could handle especially in that environment.
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