Charles Darwin taught us that not all change is good. In this case not all biological change is good. Genetic mutations occur, those that increase the chances of the mutant’s survival are called adaptations - everything else is a zoological curiosity, or in the case of humanity, a disorder or disease.
One thing that plagues psychologists and cognitive scientists among many questions, is the underpinning purposive question of the human brain. Why do we have such relatively big bags of goo in our skulls? Darwin provides a framework within which to pursue this explanation - evolutionary adaptation and natural selection.
Geoffrey Miller found that simple competitive natural selection does a poor job of explaining why, in mere evolutionary-moments our brains went tripled in size from the chimpanzee like Homo erectus brains to the contemporary Homo sapien sapien.
Robin Dunbar proffers a social selection explanation. Primates are highly social animals - an adaptation more strongly held across the genus than any other. Socialization increased rates of survival. Dunbar observed that one can predict the size and intensity of social interaction by the proportions of the brain in primates. Specifically, the closer primates become to humans the greater and more complex their social systems.
Miller said that a great deal of our adaptation occurs because sexual selection - the same force that compells Peacocks to grow such extravagant and costly tail-feathers. Creativity, Miller singles out, is an adaptation primarily of reproduction rather than survival. This points to our state of nature being artists not warriors - as comforting observation as any.
Miller also observes something quizzical. Brain size tripled between 2.5 million years ago and 200,000 years ago. Yet, in all this time, innovation was non-existent. The same stone and bone tools developed by our sloped-brow ancestors were used by our contemporaries. This occurred up to the point where our cranial accretion ceased - then and only then did innovation spark. Fire creation and control, cave painting, spears, hunting groups, nomadic tribes all happened following the emergence of our modern brains.
This perhaps, is unsurprising to any parent of a young-adult or someone who was a young-adult not so long-ago. Gerontology shows us that during periods of mental development and growth there are severe and often crippling disruptions in mental activity - mood swings, hormonal oddities and other fluctuations distort the creative process.
Anyone who has attended a high-school art showing knows this.
During adolescence, contemporary humans go through a developmental stage that refines and expands the cortical regions, particularly the frontal lobe. This region of the brain is responsible for planning, complex visualization and impulse control
Like a building undergoing renovations, this region of the brain becomes disrupted and chaotic as it matures - leading to the compulsive, risky behaviour we typically associate with our youth. It’s also why mental disease, like Manic Depression or Schizophrenia, becomes triggered in late adolscence.
This is the first same region that was being developed and expanded during our ascension to Homo sapien sapien.
So, perhaps we as a species were in our teenage years during this time. Spending our time listening to rock music and being angry at australopithecus instead of mastering flame or building housing.