Who says we did evolve to appreciate aesthetic beauty? I think this is a misunderstanding of what it is to adapt to a niche. Culture started after modern humans arrived on the scene. Therefore, it's not an adaptive behavior. Darwin and Wallace had some very deep disagreements about this subject. Wallace argued that an aria proves the divine exists, because all features have to be adaptive. There's no advantage to singing an aria, therefore, the ability must have been instilled by God. Darwin, on the other hand, argued that some abilities are non-adaptive, and can be co-opted in certain circumstances. This is eminently more reasonable, as it doesn't require divine intervention at the exact moment modern humans appeared. I think it's far more likely that we evolved complex intelligence to solve food and shelter problems, and a side effect is that we are able to find beauty in creation.
We know some apes have culture, so, do we have a strong reason to believe pre-humans had no culture? I was also under the impression humans have evolutionary adaptations which came after the first Homo Sapiens (maybe skin pigmentation, or finger wrinkling?).Culture started after modern humans arrived on the scene. Therefore, it's not an adaptive behavior.