People often wonder where the cultural explosion came from. It seems
art, and advanced tools, and richer language and cultures seemed to pop
up out of nowhere at the same time tens of thousands of years ago.

Noone really knows why. I think it is this:

Somebody asked a question.

Think about it. At some point in time human beings had language. They
could use it to give commands to each other in order to hunt or maybe
even tell stories to each other.

But no one had invented the word "How" or "Why" yet. Noone had ever
asked another person a question. The only way their culture could grow
is when they observed stuff.

And then that all changed. Someone asked a question.

What is more, they realized that noone had an answer to some of those
questions so they did something pretty cool.

They made one up.

Think about it. There has to be sometime in our species' development
when this happened for the first time.

They didn't just take commands, they didn't just listen to stories; but
they found understanding in what they were doing, and they could make
up their own stories.

The result was they could ask "Why do I do it this way? Can't I do it
in a new better way?" which lead to rapid advances in tool making. And
another result was art.

Culture could now grow deeper and richer and in new dimensions.