What is creativity?

The ability for creative thinking is often attributed to people we consider great thinkers. Also artists like dancers, musicians, and painters are often depicted as creative geniuses. But research into creativity shows that creativity is not limited to these exceptional people but rather it’s a general mental ability of combining or melding symbolic representations, or fragments thereof, into distinct categories (Wynn, Coolidge & Bright, 2009; Österberg, 2012; Österberg and Köping Olsson, 2018, 2021). In cognitive science, creativity is understood as part of a package of mental executive functions that use memory and perception to experience the future and that is called prospection (Gilbert and Wilson, 2007; Spzunar et al. 2014). Since creativity is a general human capacity, why do we have it and how did it emerge?

The emergence of visible life

One way to approach this question is to look at the history of Earth, its climate, and the emergence of our species as interrelated phenomena that culminate in the emergence of the human capacity for creativity. For most of Earth’s history, the diverse life we see today did not exist. This was the Precambrian time, when the  Earth was a hostile place. But half a billion years before the present (later “Mya”), a significant change in climate occurred, which saw a sudden explosion, called the Cambrian Explosion, of complex plants, fish, and insects emerging as new species on Earth. The geologic eon following the Cambrian explosion is called the Phanerozoic, meaning “visible life”. It’s still going on and is divided into several parts, each representing significant changes in climate (Cohen et al. 2013/2020).

The emergence of mammals

66 Mya an asteroid hit what is now Mexico. The debris from the collision blocked sunlight, cooling the Earth. We know this story because it represents the fifth so-called extinction; the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, or at least the ones that did not evolve into birds. The asteroid caused a climate change, marking the transition from the Mesozoic era (145- 66 Mya) to the Cenozoic era (66 Mya – ) – the age of mammals – although Coolidge and Wynn (2018) would argue that all living mammals have a common ancestor, dating ~50 Mya, meaning mammals were roaming around in the age of the dinosaurs. We know that the way one interprets a story can change by the way the message is presented (Tversky and Kahneman, 1981);What can be framed as a disastrous extinction for the dinosaurs was an evolutionary opportunity for  mammals. It was this extinction that opened up the niches that mammals would later take.

The emergence of humans

9-8.5 million years ago, two supervolcanic eruptions occurred in what is now Wyoming, USA (Knott et al. 2020). This coincided with the starting point of the human lineage (Pickford, 2006; Pobiner, 2016). The super eruptions in Wyoming occurred during an epoch called Miocene (23.03-5.33 Mya). During this era, Earth continued to cool, the connections between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic closed, causing the Messinian salinity crisis. 

The refilling of the Mediterranean was marked by another climate change, from Miocene to Pliocene (5.33-2.58 Mya). Mann (2018) concluded that during the Pliocene, our ancestors started to eat animal source food. Findings from the Afar region in northern Ethiopia lead Jessica Thomson and her research team to propose The Human Predatory Pattern (HPP), that for about 3.6 million before the present, our ancestors, Australopithecus ‘Lucy’ afarensis, used stones to crush bones from big dead animals to reach nutrient dense bone marrow. This predatory pattern changed the shape of their hands, and the nutrient dense food allowed for an expansion of their brain, from the occipital lobe to the frontal lobe, and a corresponding reduction of their guts (Aiello and Wheeler, 1995; Thompson et al. 2019). Not long after that, 2.8 Mya, our genus – Homo – emerges on the scene (Villmoare et al. 2015). Homo erectus had a brain twice the size of Lucy. But it took another million years, and another change in climate, from Pliocene to Pleistocene (2.58 Mya), for the next big [mental] change to occur.

The emergence of cognition 

By applying cognitive archeology – the study of  human cognitive evolution by using cognitive-science theories as a framework to interpret archaeological remains, like changes in technologies – Coolidge & Wynn (2016; 2018) suggest that social and spatial cognition emerged ~1.8 Mya. This means that our ancestors could leave their ‘home turf’ to discover other areas and return. Social cognition refers to our abilities in social coordination or rhythmic synchronization of behavior (Borrie, 2017; Dunbar, 2009). With grammatical language yet to emerge ~200 000 before the present (Pagel, 2017), dancing is thought to have played an important role for prosocial behavior (Hattori, & Tomonaga, 2020; Ravignani & Cook, 2016). About one million years later, symbolic thinking was established (example). But there was no evidence they could not yet think ‘outside the box’.

The first fossil traces of our specific species – Homo sapiens sapiens – dates to ~300  000 years ago (Hublin et al. 2017). 100 000 years later we see the first evidence of the introduction of grammatical language, the executive functions, and theory of mind – the ability to understand that other people have independent viewpoints about things (Coolidge & Wynn, 2018; Pagel, 2017, 2019).

The emergence of creativity

However, size is not everything. Neubauer et al. (2018) show that a re-wiring of the brain occurred 100 000 – 35 000 before the present. Ambrose (2010) suggests that this rewiring occurred after two other super Volcanic eruptions that occurred ~70 000 ago, and that almost wiped out the human species. The rewiring resulted in a new mental capacity: constructive memory (Schacter & Addis, 2007); a key ingredient of creativity.

The first known manifestation of creativity is said to be the Lion-man, which dates ~40 000 years back in time (Lobell, 2012; Wynn, Coolidge & Bright, 2009). The figurine, which measures thirty centimeters from head to toe, has a human body and a lion’s head. To make such a combination, one must be able to mentally combine different non-related symbolic mental representations – in other words: imagination (Kosslyn & Miller, 2013).

Conclusion

Humans are biological organisms who are sensitive to social influences. About 541 million years ago a huge climate change occured that opened the door for visible life. 66 million years ago saw an asteroid wipe out the dinosaurs, starting the age of mammals. 9-8,5 million before the present, two super volcanic eruptions occurred, causing a climate change. Not long after that, our lineage emerged. A change in the climate, from Miocene to Pliocene, ended the Messinian salinity crisis, and our ancestors adapted by putting animal source food on their plates. This started an expansion of their brains; a bigger brain gave room for new mental capacities: social cognition, symbolic thinking, and grammatical language. But our ancestors could not yet think outside the box. It wasn’t until ~70 000 years ago, with two other super volcanic eruptions, which coincided with a rewiring of their brains. The result was constructive memory which made it possible to plan and elaborate scenarios forward in time. The reason we can exchange ideas can be traced to the emergence of social cognition and events that happened millions of years ago. The adaptation to the changes in the climate is the reason why we are the species we are today.