The attention people give one another is not something to be taken for granted. We use tools and techniques to direct attention, to make complex things understandable, and to create something together. Learning from one another is a human recipe for success. For at least two million years, humans have been creating conditions that expand their attention. About 100,000 years ago, they began to consciously leave their mark. Was that the foundation of art?

PD Dr. Miriam Noël Haidle is the research coordinator of the ROCEEH research center at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.