[language] [Fwd: Re:Question on dates for human language and writing]

[H.M. Hubey]

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Jeff McKee" wrote:

> However, Phillip Tobias demonstrated that _Homo habilis_ had the
> neural requirements for language -- i.e. their brains had
> well-developed Broca's area (the speech area, also developed in
> australopithecines) AND Wernicke's area (the association area used in
> human-like communication, NOT found to be devloped in australopithecines).

Recent brain imaging studies have shown that while Broca's and Wernicke's
areas are necessary for language processing, they are by no means
sufficient. Their presence in developed form would NOT imply the presence of
full-fledged language.

> Given the variety of vocal communications used by other animals,
> including the baboons I observe at my fossil sites in South Africa,
> communication and language must be thought of along a continuum.  The
> dividing point depends on one's definition of language.

Not a continuum in the formal, mathematical sense, but certainly a discrete
scale. I take the presence of Deacon's symbolic symbol system as a
sufficient condition (the dividing point) for full-fledged language (1997).
I suspect this must have been preceded by a relatively complex communication
system based on concatenation of indexical signs and using simple syntax, a
proto-language.

> I'd bet my bottom dollar that early Homo, and certainly Homo erectus,
> crossed the divide from communication to language with some syntax.

My speculation is a little more detailed than Jeff's. I suspect that
proto-langauage and language co-evolved with an increase in brain size. I
would put the beginnings of the memetic revolution (Blackmore 1999) at the
time of the transition from australopithecines to Homo habilis (or early
Homo erectus) approximately 1.8 million years ago. This would include the
advent of proto-language, as well as the manufacture and use of stone tools.
During this time brain capacity increased from about 350-400 cc to about 600
cc. (The increase of brain size from ~600 cc to ~1000 cc during the reign of
Homo erectus occurred proportionately with a corresponding increase in body
size.)

I would put the arrival of full language at about a half-million years ago
during the transition between Homo erectus (~1000 cc) and the larger brained
species (Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, archaic Homo sapians,
~1250 cc). Brains are hugely expensive, using an order of magnitude more
energy than their weight or volume would justify. This expense must be
evolutionally justified by some genetic or memetic fitness benefit, in this
case language.

This scenario leaves us with an obvious question. If language appeared about
a half-million years back, why the introduction of symbolic culture only no
more than 100,000 years ago or so (in Africa, rather than 40,000 years ago
in Europe with the Cro-Magnon (McBrearty and Brooks 2000)). Some modern
hunter-gatherer cultures offer an answer. Though their cultures are
symbolically quite complex with rich kinship systems, myths, and technology,
they would leave almost nothing of this in the archeological record. I
suspect that rich symbolic cultures date back about a half-million year or
so.

Stan



Blackmore, S. 1999. The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deacon, T. W. 1997. The Symbolic Species. New York: Norton.
McBrearty, S., and A. S. Brooks. 2000. The revolution that wasn't:a new
interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human
Evolution 39:453-563.
--
Stan Franklin     Dunavant University Professor
Computer Science             phone 901-678-3142
Univ of Memphis                fax 901-678-2480
Memphis, TN 38152          franklin at memphis.edu
USA                www.cs.memphis.edu/~franklin



News in Brain and Behavioural Sciences - Issue 90 - 22nd March, 2003
http://human-nature.com/nibbs/issue90.html







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