40.000 Years of Human Challenges: Perception, Conceptualization and Coping in Premodern Societies

Challenges can be/form/represent starting points of development and change, stagnation and progress as well as success and failure. At least since the appearance of anatomically modern humans in Western Eurasia about 40,000 years ago, both individuals and communities have developed practices to overcome various forms of challenges, challenges we still face today. For a better/deeper understanding of present as well as future challenges and possible solutions, the diachronic and cross-cultural study of short- and long-term developments over the aforementioned time period offers promising data that have so far been ignored in the discussion. Only such a long-term perspective makes it possible…