Abstract

The frontal feedback model argues that the sudden appearance of art and advancing technologies around 40,000 years ago in the hominid archaeological record was the end result of a recent fundamental change in the functional properties of the hominid brain, which occurred late in that brain's evolution. This change was marked by the switching of the driving mechanism behind the global, dynamic function of the brain from an "object-centered" bias, reflective of nonhuman primate and early hominid brains, to a "self-centered" bias, reflective of modern Homo sapiens and perhaps late Homo erectus brains. Such a change in the global-functional properties of the brain was provided for by the progressive enlargement of the primate frontal lobe throughout its evolution. In late-developing hominids, this progressive enlargement effectively succeeded in reversing the preferred direction of information flow in the highest association areas of the neocortex from a caudo-rostral bias to a rostro-caudal bias. It was this reversal specifically that provided for the ability of humans to use symbolic thought in the creative expression of art, language, and the development of advancing technologies. Part 2 discusses the specific changes in the brain that occurred as a result of the reversal and how those changes were and are manifested as human abilities and experience