Symbolic culture

Symbolic culture is the ability to learn and transmit behavioural traditions from one generation to the next by the invention of things that exist entirely in the symbolic realm. Symbolic culture is usually conceived as the cultural realm constructed and inhabited uniquely by Homo sapiens and is differentiated from ordinary culture, which many other animals possess. Symbolic culture is studied by archaeologists, social anthropologists and sociologists. Recently, however, some evidence of a Neanderthal origin of symbolic culture has emerged . Symbolic culture is the ability to learn and transmit behavioural traditions from one generation to the next by the invention of things that exist entirely in the symbolic realm. Symbolic culture is usually conceived as the cultural realm constructed and inhabited uniquely by Homo sapiens and is differentiated from ordinary culture, which many other animals possess. Symbolic culture is studied by archaeologists, social anthropologists and sociologists. Recently, however, some evidence of a Neanderthal origin of symbolic culture has emerged . Examples are concepts such as good and evil, mythical inventions such as gods and underworlds, and social constructs such as promises and football games. Symbolic culture is a domain of objective facts whose existence depends, paradoxically, on collective belief. A currency system, for example, exists only for as long as people continue to have faith in it. When confidence in monetary facts collapses, the facts themselves suddenly disappear. Much the same applies to citizenship, government, marriage and many other things that people in our own culture consider to be 'real'. The concept of symbolic culture draws from semiotics, and emphasises the way in which distinctively human culture is mediated through signs and concepts. The symbolic aspect of distinctively human culture has been emphasised in sociology by Emile Durkheim, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz and many others.