# Introduction to Paleoanthropology/Origin of Language


record (following Philip Chase\'s criteria):

-   Regularity of use indicating purposeful and repeated activity;
-   Yet repetitive behavior alone is not enough, because by itself not
    indicative of symbol use: Ex. Actions of individuals working without
    a system of shared meaning
-   Therefore patterns need to be complex and learned linguistically
    rather than by observation or mimicry;
-   Finally such behavior becomes symbolic, if it intentionally
    communicates thoughts, emotions, belief systems, group identity,
    etc. Material expressions of culturally mediated symbols:
    -   intentional burial of the dead, with grave goods;
    -   figurative and abstract imagery;
    -   pigment use;
    -   body ornamentation.

Important effort to clarify definition and category of data we are
dealing with. Yet if we follow these criteria, most artefacts from Lower
(Acheulean) and Middle Paleolithic (60,000-50,000 years ago) are ruled
out, because of lack of evidence for repeated patterning and
intentionality.

## Contribution of evolutionary psychology to origins of art

Is intelligence a single, general-purpose domain or a set of domains?
Evolutionary psychologists answer: set of domains, which they call
\"mental modules\", \"multiple intelligences\", \"cognitive domains\";
these \"mental modules\" interact, are connected;

Anatomically modern humans have better interaction between modules than
other animals; therefore, able to perform more complex behaviors;

Four cognitive and physical processes exist:

-   making visual images
-   classification of images into classes
-   intentional communication
-   attribution of meaning to images

The first three are found in non-human primates and most hominids. Yet,
only modern humans seem to have developed the fourth one.

For Neanderthals, intentional communication and classification were
probably sealed in social intelligence module, while mark-making and
attribution of meaning (both implicating material objects) were hidden.
Only with arrival of modern humans, connection between modules made art
possible by allowing intentional communication to escape into the domain
of mark-making.

### Problems with data and chronology

We could easily look at this transition in a smooth way: The passage
from one industry to the next, one hominid to the next, etc.
Evolutionary paths well structured and detailed, as in textbooks, but a
bit too clear-cut, that is simplistic and reductionist.

After 1.8 million years ago, when *H. ergaster/erectus* moved
out-of-Africa, the picture of human evolution becomes much more complex.

Situation due to several reasons:

-   many more hominid species appear connected to global colonization
    and relative isolation;
-   many cultural variations observed, illustrated by various stone tool
    industries, subsistence patterns, etc.

Overall, presence of differentiated cultural provinces in Africa and
Eurasia which have their own evolutionary pace.

Dates don\'t seem to reveal a clear-cut divide between the Lower and
Middle Paleolithic and don\'t fit anymore in a specific and rigorous
time frame:

-   H. erectus disappeared in most places around 300,000-200,000 yrs
    ago, although still found in Java up to 50,000 yrs ago;
-   Archaic modern humans (Neanderthals) appeared around 130,000 yrs ago
    in Europe;
-   Archaic modern humans (H. sapiens sapiens) appeared some time
    between 200,000 and 100,000 yrs ago in Africa;
-   Acheulean stone tools were still in use beyond 200,000 yrs ago in
    many areas;
-   The lithic industry (Mousterian) characteristic of the Middle
    Paleolithic appeared around 250,000 yrs ago in some areas (SW Asia);
-   Subsistence patterns (hunting/scavenging), use of fire, habitats
    were still the basis of cultural adaptations in the Middle
    Paleolithic.

By focusing on a transition happening only at 50,000 yrs ago would be
overlooking some major human innovations and evolutionary trends that
took place earlier and on a much longer period.

We need to focus more on *H. heidelbergensis* and its material culture
and other behavioral patterns to realize that the transition was not at
50,000 years ago, but between 600,000 and 60,000 yrs ago.

### The revolution that wasn\'t

\"Revolution\" is in this context the Upper Paleolithic Revolution, with
the development from 50,000 yrs ago of *Homo sapiens sapiens*,
considered the only species anatomically AND behaviorally modern.

By \"modern human behavior,\" we mean:

-   Increased artifact diversity;
-   Standardization of artefact types;
-   Blade Technology;
-   Worked bone and other organic materials;
-   Personal ornaments and \"art\" or images;
-   Structured living spaces;
-   Ritual;
-   Economic intensification, reflected in the exploitation of aquatic
    or other resources that require specialized technology;
-   Expanded exchange networks.

By overlooking and even not considering recent discoveries from the
1990s regarding the periods before 50,000 years ago, we are misled to
consider the evidence after that date as the result of biological and
cultural revolution.

Recent observations in Africa, Europe and Asia from sites between
600,000 and 250,000 years ago (Acheulean period) seem to document very
different patterns: \"The Revolution That Wasn\'t\".

### Evidence in the Lower Paleolithic

#### Stone tools: blade technology

-   Blade technology appeared and disappeared at different points in
    time. Earliest evidence to date: Kapthurin Formation (Kenya)
    550,000-300,000 BP

#### Bone tools

-   Swartkrans (South Africa)
-   Makapansgat (South Africa)
-   Drimolen (South Africa)

#### Wooden tools

-   Schöningen (Germany) 400,000 years ago: Spears

#### Use of pigments (ochre)

-   Kapthurin Formation (Kenya) 550,000-300,000 yrs ago
-   Twin Rivers Cave (Zambia) 400,000-200,000 yrs ago
-   Pomongwe (Zimbabwe) 250,000-220,000 yrs ago
-   Terra Amata (France) 300,000 yrs ago
-   Becov (Czech Republic) 250,000 yrs ago

#### Artistic expression

-   Pech de l\'Azé (France) 400,000 yrs ago: Engraved bone
-   Sainte-Anne I Cave (France): Engraved bone
-   Bilzingsleben (Germany) 300,000 yrs ago: Large engraved rib
-   Singi Talav (India) 300,000-150,000 yrs ago: Occurrence of
    non-utilitarian objects (Quartz crystals)
-   Zhoukoudian (China): Occurrence of non-utilitarian objects
-   Birket Ram (Israel): Human figurine
-   Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania): Figurine
-   Makapansgat (South Africa): Human figurine
-   Tan-Tan (Morocco) 500,000-300,000 yrs ago: Human figurine

#### Mortuary practices

-   Atapuerca (Spain) 350,000 yrs ago: H. heidelbergensis

#### Seafaring

-   Flores Island (Indonesia) 780,000 yrs ago

## Origins of language

Sometime during the last several million years, hominids evolved the
ability to communicate much more complex and detailed information (about
nature, technology, and social relationships) than any other creatures.

Yet we, cannot reconstruct the evolutionary history of language as we
reconstruct the history of bipedalism because the ability to use
language leaves no clear traces in the fossil record. Therefore, there
is no consensus among paleoanthropologists about when language evolved.

But from new information learned from DNA testing by at the Institute
for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, the very stable gene FOXP2
(this is the gene that makes speech possible) suddenly changed
approximately 250,000 years ago, 2 of the molecular units in the
715-unit DNA sequence abruptly changed. Neanderthals did not have this
modification in their gene sequence, whereas Homo Sapien Sapiens did
have this modification and were much more articulate .

We are going to try to clarify the current situation by reviewing the
recent evidence on the topic, focusing on specific criteria that could
reveal essential information on early forms of language:

-   brain capacity
-   brain asymmetry
-   vocal apparatus

### The intellectual and linguistic skills of early hominids

#### Australopithecines

Reconstruction work on australopithecines indicates that their vocal
tract was basically like that of apes, with the larynx and pharynx high
up in the throat. This would not have allowed for the precise
manipulation of air that is required for modern human languages. The
early hominids could make sounds, but they would have been more like
those of chimpanzees.

#### H. ergaster/erectus

##### Brain capacity

Their average cranial capacity was just a little short of the modern
human minimum, and some individual erectus remains fall within the human
modern range. It is difficult to be certain what this fact means in
terms of intelligence.

##### Brain asymmetry

Paleoanthropologist Ralph Holloway has looked at the structure of *H.
erectus* brains. He made endocasts of the inside surfaces of fossil
crania, because the inside of the skull reflects some of the features of
the brain it once held.

One intriguing find is that the brains of *H. erectus* were
asymmetrical: the right and left halves of the brain did not have the
same shape. This is found to a greater extent in modern humans, because
the two halves of the human brain perform different functions. Language
and the ability to use symbols, for example, are functions of the left
hemisphere, while spatial reasoning (like the hand-eye coordination
needed to make complex tools) is performed by the right hemisphere. This
hints that *H. erectus* also had hemisphere specialization, perhaps even
including the ability to communicate through a symbolic language.

##### Vocal apparatus

Further evidence of language use by *H. erectus* is suggested by the
reconstruction of the vocal apparatus based on the anatomy of the
cranial base. Even though the vocal apparatus is made up of soft parts,
those parts are connected to bone; so the shape of the bone is
correlated with the shape of the larynx, pharynx and other features. *H.
erectus* had vocal tracts more like those of modern humans, positioned
lower in the throat and allowing for a greater range and speed of sound
production. Thus, erectus could have produced vocal communication that
involved many sounds with precise differences.

Whether or not they did so is another question. But given their ability
to manufacture fairly complex tools and to survive in different and
changing environmental circumstances, *H. ergaster/erectus* certainly
could have had complex things to \"talk about\". Therefore it is not out
of question that erectus had a communication system that was itself
complex, even though some scholars are against this idea.

## Summary

Scientists struggle with the definition of human behavior, while dealing
with evidence dating to the early part of the Lower Paleolithic (7-2
million years ago).

Definition of modern human behavior is not easier to draw. The answer to
this topic should not be found only in the period starting at around
50,000 yrs ago. Evidence now shows that the period between 500,000 and
250,000 years ago was rich in attempts at elaborating new behavioral
patterns, either material or more symbolic.

On another level, beginning about 1.6 million years ago, brain size
began to increase over and beyond that which can be explained by an
increase in body size. Some researchers point to evidence that suggests
that from 1.6 million years to about 300,000 years ago, the brain not
only dramatically increased in size but also was being neurally
reorganized in a way that increased its ability to process information
in abstract (symbolic) way. This symbolism allowed complex information
to be stored, relationships to be derived, and information to be
efficiently retrieved and communicated to others in various ways.

Before 200,000 yrs ago, what is the relationship between *H. erectus* and *H. heidelbergensis*?

*H. heidelbergensis* seems to be the author of these new behavioral
patterns, not *H. erectus*. *H. heidelbergensis*, especially in Africa,
shows therefore evidence of new stone tool technology (blades), grinding
stone and pigment (ochre) processing before 200,000 years ago. These new
patterns connected with *H. heidelbergensis* could therefore be seen as
critical advantages over *H. erectus* in the human evolutionary lineage.

## References

-   *How Humans Evolved*, Robert Boyd and Joan B. Silk, (1997)
-   *Biological Anthropology*, Michael Park, (2002)
-   *Physical Anthropology*, Philip L. Stein and Bruce M Rowe, (2003)

