LL-L "Evolution" 2010.08.17 (03) [EN]

Tue Aug 17 21:00:13 UTC 2010

=====================================================
*L O W L A N D S - L - 17 August 2010 - Volume 03
*lowlands.list at gmail.com - http://lowlands-l.net/
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
Archive: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)
Language Codes: lowlands-l.net/codes.php
=====================================================

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>

Subject: LL-L "Evolution" 2010.08.17 (01) [EN]

>   From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
>             Subject: LL-L "Evolution" 2010.08.16 (02) [EN]
>

> What a brilliant observation!  Though I don't think this is an
> 'instead of' so much as as an 'addition' to the argument. The process
> of building up a sequence of actions to produce a desired effect may
> still have contributed largely to the creation of sequencing of
> thought - but it is so very possible that that thought might have been
> manifested by hand signs/gestures + speech/communication whether
> silent or not. And I can well understand that in certain circumstances
> silence would be imperative i.e. when stalking and gestures vital for
> communication,

Even more so when fine control of mouth movements hasn't been developed
yet.

What I'm saying is that sophisticated language may have developed even
before speech.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>

Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2010.08.15 (06) [EN]

Beste Marcus, Roger & All:

Subject: LL-L "Resources"

From: Roger:

p. 16-18 Jean-Marie Hombert (director of the CNRS and linked to the
university of Lyon) dates, in an interview, the *origin of modern
languages* (with
a complex syntax) *70.000 to 55.000 years ago*, based on the hypothesis that
for crossing sees and oceans a spohisticated level of language is supposed
to be necessary. Distances over see over 100 km needed a developped form of
communication for preparing food for more than 3 days etc.

Mark:

Will someone please tell the good J.M. Hombert that that hypothesis is a
one-legged troll! Crab-eating macaques have done the trip. So have a lot of
other small-to-medium animals, & we may riguorlously rule out the
Wallace-Line. I myself have certainly fasted for longer than three days, &
frequently walked well over 100Km, on two occasions simultaneously; & it is
nothing to brag about. Such an interval is no unbreachable divide throughout
the length of the History of Man. Such 'accidental' exploration is on record
for many islands in the South. Pacific (an appropriate place to start one
should suppose).

Another string of (Roger's) thought:
If *Homo sapiens* had the brains 150,000 years ago why did it take him so
long to develop extensive knowledge and why was the development so rapid in
the most recent period?

Mark:

A good point, & is it necessarily true? The fact that we know of nothing
else doesn't mean there was no previous flowering of civilisation. We have
had a few 'Dark Ages'. It is no great extrapolation to postulate another
really big one pre-dating the Wurm. I am a catastrophist. I am willing to
accept there may well have been just such a 'Cultural Winter). It would fill
in certain anthropological gaps & answer some objections so vociferously
raised by E von Daniken & his lot.

Mark:Now I'm getting testy: Is this Marcus?

There was no relevant genetic evolution of the brain since a very long time
ago. Well, there are studies that suggest a connection between brain
performance <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence> [measured
as 'intelligence'] and
race<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence>,
but even when we omit the methodological problems (educational penetration,
the irrelevance of 'mathematical logic' as measured in IQ tests to
nature-bound people like the Bushmen of Africa who do the worst performance
in IQ tests)...

Mark:

Huh??? According to my late Uncle Jannie, a mining engineer & amateur
anthropologist, all 'native recruits' were checked for their potential as
shift-bosses, according to an IQ-test that weeded out nine in ten Bantu.
Bushmen qualified across the board, & that was better than us Whiteys or
Hottentots managed. I have heard work-psychologists agree that no IQ-test is
trustworthy, particularly at the higher readings. While I readily concede a
connection between race & intelligence, it is noteworthy how little
mother-wit is needed in the generality of the population for incredible
cultural progress to be made & sustained, given only a modicum of smarties.
Take a cross-section of our 21st-Century Huminity & dump them on a desert
island & let's see if they can muster enough cultural leaven & technical
know-how to sustain even a 16th-Century life-style... I doubt. A single,
slow, planet-wide catastrophe, hitting only the economically active
generation over the span of a generation could so easily kick us back into
the Stone Age.

Marcus:

Is curiosity a wholly social phenomenon? Why did nobody invent the wheel
before 6000 BP? A wheel is less useful without streets or draft animals, but
even to a stone-age man living in the flat steppe a pushcart is useful e.g.
to transport his tent, isn't it? Did they have so few belongings that they
could transport it on their backs and carts were just unnecessary?

Mark:

You are right there. But do you know that they knew & used wheels in South
America? On children's toys!

Marcus:

You note that the arms race of technology, the beginning of agriculture and
the end of the Ice Age coincide. You may not see the connection but I do,
for our Culture alone. The end of the ice age is a very important event with
far-reaching consequences world-wide, & I am certain agriculture preceded
the same. The agriculturally interesting areas were just in different
regions. So how did the end of the ice age trigger the development of
agriculture?

No, Marcus, it merely triggered our record of it of our nascent beginnings
at the close of the Wurm. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
How much did that great hand of Ice across the World wipe away in its
sweeping stroke down to the bedrock of all our temperate regions? I reckon a
whole lot.

(Is this still on-topic on Lowlands-l? Sorry, if not ;-) )

Mark Dreyer

=========================================================
Send posting submissions to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
Send commands (including "signoff lowlands-l") to
listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands.list at gmail.com
http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=118916521473498<http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#%21/group.php?gid=118916521473498>
=========================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20100817/c987d616/attachment.htm>