Demographic Changes as Triggers for the Loss of Skills during the Lower Palaeolithic Levant

Locke’s publication "An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding" [1] may mark the first modern elaboration of
the definition of the human mind as born without innate ideas
so that any knowledge is determined only by experience:
"Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper,
void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be
furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store, which the
busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an
almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of
reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from
EXPERIENCE; in that all our knowledge is founded, and from
that it ultimately derives itself" [1]. Locke's conception of
memory is that of a white paper, or a 'storehouse' of ideas, so
that human memory is defined as an internal mental process
aimed to store perceptions, impressions, and ideas. However,
if memory is conceived as a 'container' of knowledge then by
definition we assume that it can accumulate only to a limited
volume. Clearly, such notion raises a problematic assumption,
as it determines that some knowledge needs to be removed
or forgotten in order for new knowledge to be preserved.