If, as per E. Loder’s article, migraines confer the following advantages on the sufferer:
1. Elevated sensitivity to change (social, environmental, other), and2. Lowered susceptibility to environmental habituation, and
3. Heightened sense of caution in new situations,
this would be an adaptive benefit particularly to human females in hunter gather societies, sicne the incidence of mgiraine among humans is higher among females than males (2-3x). One can envisage group behaviours evolutionarily emerging of deferring to the decision of the migraineur upon arriving at a new locale, or indeed consulting the migraineur as to whether to move locales – the migraineur would naturally be a voice for caution, but such in-built advantages as above may also provide the potential of elevated status for the migraineur – the adaptive benefits of elevated status need hardly be stated.
Males, as hunters in societies in which there is a gendered division of labour, would need to be less inclined to display such caution: hunting requires spontaneous movement into new locales in which there may often be concealed dangers and elevated levels of caution do not make for a successful hunter necessarily. However, among females, who in gender-divided societies often choose the habitation site and have children in tow during foraging missions, such elevated cautionary perceptions would be adaptive.
While I’m not suggesting that migraineurs are the source of symbolism, it is to be noted that once symbolic behaviour begins, migraineurs are especially well-placed to take advantage of this innovation, for two reasons:
1. Ritualistic modes of behaviour means that those individuals whose advice is commonly sought for changes of locale and potential dangers-in-the-moment upon arrival in a new locale would now be consulted ritualistically during other times when the abstract notion of ‘change’ is beginning to be considered.
2. Since the earliest symbolic expressions appear to have an entoptic character – geometric lines, dots etc – migraineurs, particularly migraineurs who experience the aura phenomenon, are well-placed to become makers of such artefacts, coming as they do with a much greater experience of entoptic imagery, of such strength during or immediately preceding a migraine attack that it often obscures vision during even daylight. Such experiences could be turned to an individual’s advantage in an emerging symbolic culture in which entoptically-marked artefacts aid in mediating social interaction within and across groups.
Thus migraineurs in the Middle Palaeolithic during which formative symbolic behaviours emerge among humans become adept at the new socially-mediated symbolic discourse as consultants on life change and as manufacturers of symbolic objects.
Males, as hunters in societies in which there is a gendered division of labour, would need to be less inclined to display such caution: hunting requires spontaneous movement into new locales in which there may often be concealed dangers and elevated levels of caution do not make for a successful hunter necessarily. However, among females, who in gender-divided societies often choose the habitation site and have children in tow during foraging missions, such elevated cautionary perceptions would be adaptive.
While I’m not suggesting that migraineurs are the source of symbolism, it is to be noted that once symbolic behaviour begins, migraineurs are especially well-placed to take advantage of this innovation, for two reasons:
1. Ritualistic modes of behaviour means that those individuals whose advice is commonly sought for changes of locale and potential dangers-in-the-moment upon arrival in a new locale would now be consulted ritualistically during other times when the abstract notion of ‘change’ is beginning to be considered.
2. Since the earliest symbolic expressions appear to have an entoptic character – geometric lines, dots etc – migraineurs, particularly migraineurs who experience the aura phenomenon, are well-placed to become makers of such artefacts, coming as they do with a much greater experience of entoptic imagery, of such strength during or immediately preceding a migraine attack that it often obscures vision during even daylight. Such experiences could be turned to an individual’s advantage in an emerging symbolic culture in which entoptically-marked artefacts aid in mediating social interaction within and across groups.
Thus migraineurs in the Middle Palaeolithic during which formative symbolic behaviours emerge among humans become adept at the new socially-mediated symbolic discourse as consultants on life change and as manufacturers of symbolic objects.
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