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Paleoanthropology and language

  • Ian Tattersall
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New Perspectives on the Origins of Language
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch New Perspectives on the Origins of Language

Abstract

Unwritten language leaves no material traces, so whether or not a particular fossil hominid possessed language must be inferred from proxy evidence. This leaves a great deal of room for argument. My contention here is that the intimate feedback between language and symbolic cognition strongly implies that the possession of language may only be confidently inferred from the material products of symbolic minds. Such products include geometrical and realistic imagery, items of symbolic bodily adornment, highly complex multistage technologies, and even radical alterations in the tempo of change itself. Evidence in these categories is known from African sites dating from the later Middle Stone Age, ca. 80 kyr ago, and possibly earlier. However, even the most ancient such sites considerably postdate the appearance in the same continent of Homo sapiens as an anatomically distinct entity, at some point around 200 kyr ago. The first anatomically modern peopleappear to have possessed behavioral repertoires not unlike those of contemporaneous nonsymbolic hominids such as Homo neanderthalensis, strongly suggesting (1) that symbolic cognition, and by extension language, were acquired by Homo sapiens well within its tenure, and (2) that at this point the anatomical structures necessary for producing modern speech had already been in existence for a considerable time, having been acquired initially in another context entirely. What is more, the neural substrate that permits symbolic thought was clearly already present, having presumably been acquired in the major developmental reorganization that gave rise to Homo sapiens as a distinct anatomical entity. The biology, after all, must have been in place to allow the behavior to be expressed. But the immediate impetus to the acquisition of symbolic thought appears necessarily to have been cultural rather than biological. Most likely, this stimulus was the invention of language, which, as an externalized attribute, could have spread with particular rapidity through a biologically enabled population.

Abstract

Unwritten language leaves no material traces, so whether or not a particular fossil hominid possessed language must be inferred from proxy evidence. This leaves a great deal of room for argument. My contention here is that the intimate feedback between language and symbolic cognition strongly implies that the possession of language may only be confidently inferred from the material products of symbolic minds. Such products include geometrical and realistic imagery, items of symbolic bodily adornment, highly complex multistage technologies, and even radical alterations in the tempo of change itself. Evidence in these categories is known from African sites dating from the later Middle Stone Age, ca. 80 kyr ago, and possibly earlier. However, even the most ancient such sites considerably postdate the appearance in the same continent of Homo sapiens as an anatomically distinct entity, at some point around 200 kyr ago. The first anatomically modern peopleappear to have possessed behavioral repertoires not unlike those of contemporaneous nonsymbolic hominids such as Homo neanderthalensis, strongly suggesting (1) that symbolic cognition, and by extension language, were acquired by Homo sapiens well within its tenure, and (2) that at this point the anatomical structures necessary for producing modern speech had already been in existence for a considerable time, having been acquired initially in another context entirely. What is more, the neural substrate that permits symbolic thought was clearly already present, having presumably been acquired in the major developmental reorganization that gave rise to Homo sapiens as a distinct anatomical entity. The biology, after all, must have been in place to allow the behavior to be expressed. But the immediate impetus to the acquisition of symbolic thought appears necessarily to have been cultural rather than biological. Most likely, this stimulus was the invention of language, which, as an externalized attribute, could have spread with particular rapidity through a biologically enabled population.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Introduction ix
  5. Part 1. General perspectives and issues on language origins
  6. Historical, Darwinian, and current perspectives on the origin(s) of language 3
  7. The origin of language as seen by eighteenth-century philosophy 31
  8. Cognitive and social aspects of language origins 53
  9. Part 2. At the roots of language
  10. Reconstructed fossil vocal tracts and the production of speech 75
  11. Paleoanthropology and language 129
  12. Material culture and language 147
  13. Gestural theory of the origins of language 171
  14. Part 3. Communication and language origins
  15. Primate communication 187
  16. FoxP2 and vocalization 211
  17. Brain lateralization and the emergence of language 237
  18. Sensorimotor constraints and the organization of sound patterns 257
  19. Symbol grounding and the origin of language 279
  20. Part 4. Linguistic views on language origins
  21. Sound patterns and conceptual content of the first words 301
  22. Brave new words 333
  23. On the origin of Grammar 379
  24. Arbitrary signs and the emergence of language 407
  25. On the relevance of pidgins and creoles in the debate on the origins of language 441
  26. Part 5. Computational modeling of language origins
  27. Modeling cultural evolution 487
  28. How language emerges in situated embodied interactions 505
  29. Emergence of communication and language in evolving robots 533
  30. Evolving a bridge from praxis to language 555
  31. Index 579
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.144.05tat

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Introduction ix
  5. Part 1. General perspectives and issues on language origins
  6. Historical, Darwinian, and current perspectives on the origin(s) of language 3
  7. The origin of language as seen by eighteenth-century philosophy 31
  8. Cognitive and social aspects of language origins 53
  9. Part 2. At the roots of language
  10. Reconstructed fossil vocal tracts and the production of speech 75
  11. Paleoanthropology and language 129
  12. Material culture and language 147
  13. Gestural theory of the origins of language 171
  14. Part 3. Communication and language origins
  15. Primate communication 187
  16. FoxP2 and vocalization 211
  17. Brain lateralization and the emergence of language 237
  18. Sensorimotor constraints and the organization of sound patterns 257
  19. Symbol grounding and the origin of language 279
  20. Part 4. Linguistic views on language origins
  21. Sound patterns and conceptual content of the first words 301
  22. Brave new words 333
  23. On the origin of Grammar 379
  24. Arbitrary signs and the emergence of language 407
  25. On the relevance of pidgins and creoles in the debate on the origins of language 441
  26. Part 5. Computational modeling of language origins
  27. Modeling cultural evolution 487
  28. How language emerges in situated embodied interactions 505
  29. Emergence of communication and language in evolving robots 533
  30. Evolving a bridge from praxis to language 555
  31. Index 579
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Heruntergeladen am 17.9.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/slcs.144.05tat/html
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