A Resolution To The Language Paradox

A resolution to the language paradox Toby M Pearce
Abstract
One of the most important questions in human cognitive evolution concerns a disparity between
two types of evidence for the emergence of language. A number of fossil discoveries suggest that
the evolution of human language was a gradual one that occurred over a considerable timespan.
Other types of evidence lead in this direction too, and there is reason to believe that some form of
language has been an integral part of hominid life for perhaps for as long as two million years.
A most profound change occurs at 60,000-30,000 years ago, however. Before this time, evidence
of modern behaviour is notably lacking from the archaeological record. After this time, its presence
is pervasive. Partly because it is symbolic in nature, the evolution of modern behaviour has been
associated with advances in language, which is itself inherently symbolic. One is therefore left with
the paradox of having evidence for both the long and gradual evolution of language, as well as its
recent and catastrophic emergence.
A possible resolution to this language paradox is offered through the introduction of a philosophical
theory devised by Peter Carruthers (1996). An explanation for the origins of modern behaviour
cannot come from the development from language per se, because language had already evolved.
Instead, modern behaviour was made possible because language took on an executive (i.e.
causal) role in cognitive activity. Changes in cognitive architecture allowed the manipulation of
items of conscious, inner speech, and it was this that caused the origins of modern human
behaviour.
It is hoped that the study of the archaeological origins of modern behaviour will benefit from such
an engagement with the contemporary study of the mind, and that other interdisciplinary work will
be encouraged.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank everyone in my family for providing me with both practical support and spiritual
belief. I also owe a great deal to everyone who made the journey through this year’s cognitive
evolution programme with me. The opportunity to share ideas with such great people, from such a
variety of backgrounds, did nothing less than open my eyes. I would also like to thank my
supervisors, Steven Mithen and John Preston, for keeping me on track. Steven in particular, taught
me the value of interdisciplinary work, and gave me the courage both to attempt it myself, and to
call for other archaeologists to do the same. I owe much to Peter Carruthers, whose philosophical
work is drawn upon extensively in the latter sections of the work. Finally, I would like to thank the
Haberdashers company for providing me with financial support this year, and for having the vision
to encourage work of a purely scholarly, rather than vocational nature.
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Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 5
2. The case for continuity................................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Fossil evidence............................................................................................................................... 9
2.2 Primate language......................................................................................................................... 14
2.3 The social origins of language...................................................................................................... 16 ,
2.4 The evolution of grammar.............................................................................................................21
2.5 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................... 29
3. The case for sudden change........................................................................................................ 30
3.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................... 30 ,
3.2 The origin of anatomically modern humans.......................................................................... 31
3.3 The relationship between the origins of modern anatomy and modern behaviour......................34
3.4 The Upper Palaeolithic transition......................................................................................... 37 ,
3.5 Language and the Upper Palaeolithic transition.................................................................... 46 ,
4. Inner speech................................................................................................................................. 58
5. Drawing things together................................................................................................................ 69
5.1 Inner speech and the Upper Palaeolithic transition................................................................ 69 ,
5.2 Discussion........................................................................................................................ 77 ,
5.3 Concluding remark............................................................................................................ 81
References.......................................................................................................................................
83
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Introduction Chapter 1
No one doubts that language is an important human attribute. It is used by every people-group
currently in existence (Pinker, 1994), and studied by a variety of academic disciplines. Yet, just one
group of people – archaeologists – have struggled hardest to explain its origins. This makes some
sense, for it is archaeologists who can produce the most direct evidence of the evolution of
language. Furthermore, being such a fundamental human attribute, archaeologists have justifiably
attempted to answer another of their great questions – what caused the relatively sudden
appearance of modern behaviour in the archaeological record – in terms of the origins of modern
language.
Although the idea of linking the appearance of modern behaviour to the origins of modern language
makes a good deal of sense, increasingly, there are problems associated with this approach. A
number of fossil specimens have been used to claim that hominids before the Middle to Upper
Palaeolithic transition – a period that signifies the appearance of modern human behaviour (see
Foley & Lahr, 1997) – were equipt with the apparatus to use language (e.g. Arensburg et al, 1989;
Kay et al, 1998). Furthermore, theoretical work has suggested that there may have been reason for
hominids to use this apparatus for vocal communication (Aiello & Dunbar, 1993; Dunbar 1993;
1996). To make matters worse, it is possible to construct an argument not only that language
evolved significantly before modern behaviour appeared in the record, but that it evolved gradually,
beginning perhaps as early as two million years ago, over a relatively long period of time. However,
it is generally agreed that comprehensive signs of modern behaviour only begin to appear in the
Upper Palaeolithic transition that occurred within the last 100,000 years, and that they do so
relatively suddenly. It is therefore becoming harder to explain this Upper Palaeolithic transition in
terms of the development of modern language.
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In fact, though, even without this problem, the way in which language gives rise to modern
behaviour has rarely been specified by archaeologists in as much detail as one might like. For
example, language is itself a symbolic code, but the way in which it bestows upon its users the
ability to employ other types of symbolism such as items of personal adornment, the inclusion of
gravegoods in burials, or art (all of which are seen in the Upper Palaeolithic), needs to be
explained, rather than taken for granted. Part of the problem comes from the fact that
archaeologists have often been reluctant to acknowledge the complexities of language, and to
engage with the issues that surround its study. The relationship between language and other types
of thought has been the subject of major debate within philosophy and psychology (Fodor, 1983;
Luria, 1982; Remez et al, 1981; Vygotsky, 1934). One of the most basic elements of the debate
concerns whether or not language is involved in the construction of thoughts, or whether it merely
communicates existing thoughts (e.g. Carruthers, 1996; Dennett, 1991; Fodor, 1975; Hunt &
Agnoli, 1991; Pinker, 1994; Searle, 1993; Whorf, 1956). Archaeologists need to take this debate
seriously, because it affects the type of behavioural changes that could possibly be associated with
the evolution of language. Moreover, except for their own inhibitions, there is little to stop
archaeologists from contributing to the debate as well as learning from it.
The general aim of this thesis is to demonstrate how one might approach the task of furthering the
relationship between archaeology and the study of modern human cognition. The substantive issue
to be considered is this language paradox. There are two reasons why it has been chosen. Firstly,
it is, almost by its very nature, ripe for interdisciplinary study. As the psychologists Hunt and Agnoli
have suggested, “language is too human a discipline to be confined to a single discipline” (1991,
p.387). Secondly, and as it will hopefully be demonstrated, the archaeological problems involved
with studying language origins are real. It is at present unclear how further archaeological work will
provide a resolution to the problems unless it begins to engage with related work from other
disciplines.
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Although projects of this interdisciplinary nature have been undertaken previously (e.g. Deacon,
1997; Bickerton 1995), their archaeological content has too often been left wanting. (There are
however, some notable exceptions. See Noble & Davidson, 1996, of Mithen, 1996a for two, very
different examples). It is hoped that this thesis will not make the same mistake. The first two
chapters will therefore be devoted to a detailed examination of the nature of the problem. The first
will provide an extensive defence of the gradual evolution of language. This will involve a
discussion of fossil data, attempts to teach language to non-human primates, and a discussion of a
possible social origin of language (Aiello & Dunbar, 1993; Dunbar 1993; 1996). To make the case
even more substantial, work from contemporary linguistics will be drawn upon to show how
grammar, as well as vocabulary, might have evolved gradually. This is important, because some
scholars have suggested that hominids may have used a type of watered-down protolanguage with
a large vocabulary, but no grammar (Bickerton, 1990; 1995). By contrast, this thesis will suggest
that if language evolved gradually at all, then it would have been grammatical from almost the
beginning.
The third chapter will discuss the archaeological evidence for the beginnings of modern behaviour.
In attempting to support the idea of an Upper Palaeolithic transition, it will hopefully be
demonstrated that in contrast to language, modern behaviour appeared abruptly, and relatively late
in the archaeological record. Support will not be given, however, to the proposal that modern
behaviour emerged simultaneously in a number of geographically distinct areas, and well after the
speciation of anatomically modern humans (e.g. Klein, 1995). Instead, it will be argued that modern
human behaviour may have evolved at approximately the same time as the modern human
anatomy, but that it did not appear in the archaeological record until later, because population sizes
not large enough to sustain it. In any case, there will then proceed an examination, and critical
analysis of some attempts to associate the appearance of modern behaviour with linguistic
developments. The chapter will conclude by suggesting that language may well have been a
necessary condition for the emergence of modern behaviour, but that it cannot have been
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sufficient. Some further cognitive change(s) would have been required in order to grant
anatomically modern humans a behaviourally modern status.
The following chapter will introduce a philosophical theory that will suggest what such a change
might have been. Following Peter Carruthers (1996; 1998a; 1998b), it will be argued that modern
humans, and modern humans alone, are able to think consciously, in natural language. That is to
say, they are conscious because they are able to use items of inner speech not just to express
existing thoughts, but to generate those thoughts in the first place. This claim will be supported in a
variety of ways, including data derived from introspection studies suggesting that people
themselves believe that they think their conscious thoughts in natural public language (such as
English of French). Relevant psychological evidence will also be discussed. In addition, a further
theory of consciousness proposed by Dennett (1978, 1991) that has the potential to undermine
Carruthers’ claims will be treated, and some reasons offered for preferring Carruthers’ theory over
Dennett’s.
In the final chapter, an evolutionary scenario for Carruther’s model of consciousness will be
presented. According to this scenario, language could well have evolved gradually, but hominids
would not initially have been able to use inner speech, and would not therefore have been
conscious in the way that Carruthers describes. A further change may have allowed hominids to
employ conscious inner speech, and it will be suggested that it was this final change that gave rise
to the Upper Palaeolithic transition. In this way, a possible resolution to the language paradox will
be offered; language may well have evolved gradually, but its fundamental importance in terms of
both human cognition, and the Upper Palaeolithic transition, can still be acknowledged.
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The Case for Continuity Chapter 2
Fossil Evidence
Fossil evidence has often been called upon to inform the question of early hominid speech. It is
one of the most direct sources of information available on the subject, if not necessarily the easiest
to interpret. The literature on the subject often reveals deep disagreements about the significance
of particular fossils (Culotta, 1993; DeGusta et al, 1999 –vs– Kay et al, 1998; Gibbons, 1992).
Since the brain is the ultimate co-ordinator of language, it would be a good place in which to start.
Figure one provides an illustration of the brain, and notes some of the more important regions.
Figure 1: An illustration of some of the more important brain regions.
Note Broca’s area, to the left of the illustration.
(Calvin & Gemann, 1994)
Broca’s area has been associated with language (Balasubramaniaan, 1997; Friederici, 1996). It
was originally studied by Paul Broca, who noted over a hundred years ago the speech difficulties
that arose in those who had suffered damage to that particular area of the brain (Broca,
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1984/1970). Because it is located in the outer regions of the brain, its size is represented by an
indentation on the skull. It therefore shows up in endocasts, so that the relative size hominid
Broca’s area provides a potential source of information about language origins (Falk, 1983; Tobias
1987). More recently however, it has been argued by some researchers that aphasias 1 traditionally
associated with Broca’s area might actually involve damage to a more extended part of the frontal
cortex (Friedland et al, 1993; Damasio, 1989). Additionally, there has been some controversy about
the precise way in which Broca’s area is implicated in language processing (Grodzinsky, 2000;
Maratsos & Matheny, 1994). Archaeologists certainly need to be aware of these developments,
and to understand that the relationship between Broca’s area and language processing is likely to
be more complicated than was once thought. Nevertheless, since no one has claimed that Broca’s
area is not implicated in language processing at all, it may still be legitimate to associate any
progressive enlargement of Broca’s area in the fossil record with developments in hominid
language.
In the Australopithecines, Broca’s area is no larger than that possessed by today’s chimpanzees. It
is only with the arrival of the genus Homo that enlargements occur. The famous KNM-ER 1470
fossil is nearly two million years old. Its Broca’s area is larger than that of the typical
Australopithecine, suggesting that this, and other Homo habilis individuals possessed an important
anatomical requirements for human language (Falk, 1983; Tobias 1987). The later Homo erectus
Nariokotome boy also had a large Broca’s area (Begun & Walker, 1993; see also Walker &
Shipman, 1996). In the Neanderthals, Broca’s area is even more pronounced (Holloway 1981).
This suggests that Broca’s area was a steady component of the Homo anatomy, present in the
genus as a whole.
1
This is the general term used to describe a group of language disorders that result from damage to the left cerebral
hemisphere.
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Another anatomical feature thought to betray the presence of language can be found in the human
throat. It is the tiny hyoid bone. It lies directly above the larynx, and is attached only to the soft
tissue surrounding it, not to any other bones (so that it might move relatively freely in the throat).
The reason that it provides a good indicator for the quality of speech is that sounds are produced in
the cavity above it. The bigger the cavity, the more potential there exists for vocalisation. In modern
human adults, the hyoid bone – and therefore the larynx – is low in the neck, and ideal for speech.
By contrast, it is much higher in both modern human infants and non-human primates (Arensburg
et al, 1989; Deacon, 1997). This severely restricts the range of vocalisations available, which in
turn limits both the effectiveness and sophistication of speech.
A Neanderthal from Kebara, Israel, possessed a modern looking hyoid bone (Arensburg et al,
1989). Not only did its size and shape appear modern, but when discovered, its position in the
throat also appeared modern. If the bone had not undergone post-depositional movement, this
suggests that Neanderthals may have had a big vocal cavity (Arensburg et al, 1989). However,
there has been some criticism of the measurements that Arensburg’s team made (Laitman et al,
1990), and most commentators continue to see the hyoid debate as open (e.g. Culotta, 1993).
What this demonstrates most, is that the search for the origins of language in the fossil record is a
precarious and difficult business. Often, extreme and conclusive statements do not fit with the data;
it is too ambiguous.
A less cited, although equally debatable attempt to specify the fossil origins of language employed
study of the hypoglossal canal (Kay et al, 1998). In mammals, the hypoglossal canal transmits the
nerve that gives rise to movements of the tongue (Gray et al, 1980). Animals with larger
hypoglossal nerves – such as modern humans – have much more control over the movements of
their tongue. And given that the tongue plays an integral role in the formulation of sounds, the size
of the hypoglossal nerve has significant implications for speech (Deacon, 1997). If vocal abilities
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evolved gradually, then one would expect to find along the course of human evolution a
progressive enlargement of the hypoglossal nerve and presumably the canal that surrounds it.
Kay and colleagues measured the size of the canal of African ape, early human, Neanderthal, and
anatomically modern human specimens (Kay et al, 1998). They documented an increase in the
size of the canal during the course of human evolution. The Australopithecine africanus and Homo
habilis specimens (from Sterkfontein, South Africa) were no bigger than were those of pygmy (Pan
troglodytes) and common chimpanzees (Pan paniscus). There was however in two middle
Pleistocene specimens (from Swanscombe and Kabwe), such a significant enlargement in the size
of the canal that they fell within the range of modern humans. Neanderthal specimens (from La
Ferrassie, and La Chapelle aux Saints), along with an anatomically modern human specimen
(Skhul 5), were also within modern human ranges. The authors therefore suggested that human-
like speech abilities might have evolved as early as 300,000 years ago (op. cit. p. 4519).
At least, it did for a while. Nine months after its publication, an equally convincing rebuttal of its
findings was published in the same journal (DeGusta et al, 1999). Two substantial challenges were
advanced. The first centred on the assumption that the size of the hypoglossal canal correlated
with the size of the hypoglossal nerve, so that the former, which survives in the fossil record, would
provide an index of the latter, which does not. This, apparently, was an incorrect assumption.
DeGusta and his colleagues took measurements from a series of human cadavers. They found that
the size of the canal correlated neither with the size of the nerve, nor the number of axons that it
contained. In modern humans at least, the size of the canal says very little about the size of the
nerve that it houses2.
2
It is important to note though, that this does not necessarily mean that Kay and his colleagues were wrong to make the
assumption that they did, for while there is no within species correlation, it does not necessarily follow that there are no
interesting between species differences. This is also the case for differences in brain size within and between hominid
species.
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It is perhaps more worrying that when DeGusta and colleagues remeasured the fossil canal sizes,
their results differed significantly, finding even the Australopithecine specimens to be within the
modern human range. This may have been because their measurements, unlike the previous ones,
accounted for oral cavity size. When it was held constant in relation to hypoglossal canal size,
species differences disappeared. Their implication was that hypoglossal canal size was an
unreliable indicator of language evolution.
Such debates are commonplace in the search for human origins. Science is, after all, merely work
in progress. However, these two papers provide a powerful reminder about the dangers inherent in
the research. Although only one year past between the publication of the papers, that was time
enough for at least one author to draw inference from only the first paper, without the correcting
benefit of the second. In a major 1998 publication, Bar-Yosef wrote, “there seems to be growing
agreement that humans have used language since at least since 400-300 ka (Kay et al, 1998)”
(Bar-Yosef, 1998, p.154). Of course, there was little chance for him to have considered De Gusta
et al’s paper; it had not been published.
In fact, if there is to be growing agreement that hominids have been using language for that period,
then it is unlikely to be found in the fossils alone. Some scholars even suggest that fossil evidence
should not be used to trace the origins of language in hominids at all. Noble and Davidson, for
example, consistently stress that mistaken assumptions are involved in the business of inference
from hominid anatomical evidence. In a typical passage, they state that
“present-day knowledge concerning biological irreducibles such as the presence of a hyoid
bone of particular dimensions shows what may be necessary, but not what is sufficient, to
support certain modern behaviours, and can throw no light on the reasons for evolutionary
change” (Noble & Davidson 1991, p. 238).
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However, their scepticism is unwarranted for the following reason. Modern vocal tracts – even
those that belonged to the Neanderthals – have important reproductive costs. They supply less
oxygen to the lungs, limiting physical activity and strength. Neanderthals, like other hominids who
had gone before them, were physical beings who relied more upon brute force for survival than did
modern humans (see Mellars, 1989b). Many Neanderthal bones display significant injury, which
suggests that Neanderthals were coming into very close contact with big animals (Stringer &
Gamble, 1993). Attempting to overcome them animals with force was a dangerous practice,
making physical demands on all those who practiced it. This is an adaptive cost. Furthermore, the
design of a modern human vocal tract means that the risk of fatal choking is increased (Lieberman,
1989). This is a fact that has been recognised from the very beginning of evolutionary thinking.
Darwin, in his Origin of Species, notes this: “every particle of food and drink which we swallow has
to pass over the orifice of the trachea, with some risk of falling into the lungs” (1859, p.191). This is
also an adaptive cost. Having a modern vocal tract must carry benefits that outweigh these costs.
Quite simply, it is difficult to imagine what benefits other than the ability to produce an increased
range of vocalisations might have been granted by these evolutionary changes. The question then
becomes not whether or not the Neanderthals were speaking to each other, but how many words,
and how much grammatical knowledge would have been necessary to offset the dangers and costs
of having an anatomically modern throat?
Primate language
To support the tentative conclusion offered from the fossil record – that language evolved before
the Upper Palaeolithic transition – it would be necessary to provide complimentary types of
evidence. The first ground that should be covered concerns attempts to teach human-like language
to animals. There have been numerous attempts to teach language to animals. Efforts have been
made to teach parrots (Pepperberg 1983, 1990, 1992), pigeons (Epstein, et al, 1984), and even
dolphins (Herman et al, 1984) to speak (the dolphins were taught to use ‘click-like’ words), but the
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majority of work has been with chimpanzees (Furness, 1916; Gardner & Gardner, 1969 Hayes &
Hayes, 1951; Kellogg & Kellogg, 1933; Rumbaugh, 1977; Rumbaugh, Gill, & von Glaserfeld, 1973;
Terrace, 1979; 1993). Despite the scepticism of some scholars (Terrace 1979; Thompson &
Church, 1980), a number of projects have been at least partially successful in helping animals to
acquire a lexicon of up to several hundred words, and a basic knowledge of certain aspects of
grammar (Rumbaugh et al, 1973). Perhaps the most experienced language using chimpanzee is
Kanzi, trained by Savage-Rumbaugh and colleagues (Savage-Rumbaugh et al 1993). Kanzi’s most
impressive achievement was that she was able to understand novel sentences. When given
commands such as “put the ball in the refrigerator”, or “put the snake on the hat”, she was able to
carry out the appropriate action. Not only did this demonstrate that Kanzi was able to match words
to objects, it also displayed knowledge of the order of the words, too (she knew that snakes do not
wear hats). Furthermore, in her own communication, Kanzi ordered her words in a specific and
reliable way, uttering objects before agents, or goals before actions. This demonstrates an
elementary grasp of syntax.
Kanzi’s grasp of English is not complete, however. Most notably, she lacks the ability to produce, or
even understand, closed-class items (Kako, 1999). Closed-class items are those that do not in
themselves convey meaning, such as plural or gender markers. However, when added to open-
classed words, which do convey meaning, they make language more powerful and expressive
(Morrow, 1986). The following example conveys some sense of the importance of closed-class
words (Talmy, 1988, cited in Kako, 1999, p.4):
“A rustler lassoed the steers.
Note what this sentence is telling us: A person whose vocation is the illegal acquisition of
cattle (although not a person who we know, or have been talking about; otherwise we would
see THE Rustler) at some point in past deployed a large, looped rope to capture a group of
steers that we know or have been discussing (although we don’t know how many, just more
than one).”
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The ability to employ closed-class items gives language much of its power and richness, and it is
this ability that Kanzi, and all other animals, lack. Nevertheless, Kanzi’s abilities are surely a
positive testament to what chimpanzees can under certain circumstances achieve. Some scholars
have suggested that animals’ language abilities are meagre, and demonstrate that language is a
uniquely human endowment (Bickerton, 1995; Chomsky, 1965; Deacon, 1997), but their
conclusions may be too harsh. The reason that chimpanzees and other animals do not use a
human-like language in the wild, and have difficulty acquiring one in captivity is that they have
never evolved the capacity to do so. Since chimpanzees’ brains are simply not adapted to cope
with human language, it is surprising that they should learn language as well as they do. What this
means is that if chimpanzees can acquire not only a vocabulary, but some aspects of syntax too,
Since chimpanzees have a propensity to use language that far outstrips their actual use in the wild,
this may also have been the case for the very earliest hominid species. Then, once the
environmental or social conditions required more vocal communication, hominids would – gradually
– have begun to use language, as if they had been waiting to do so. This suggests that the
evolution of language was gradual.
The social origins of language
Just such a possible scenario for the origins of language has been offered by Robin Dunbar. He
has argued in a series of papers that the original function of language was social – to maintain
group cohesion (Aiello & Dunbar, 1993; Dunbar 1993; 1996). His analysis essentially revolves
around group sizes and brain sizes in non-human primates. It starts with the observation that the
mean group size in any primate species is positively correlated with the size of their neocortex 3
(Dunbar 1992). Although big group sizes are of adaptive benefit – a bigger ecological area can be
exploited, and it is easier to ward off predators (Wrangham, 1987) – neocortical size places an
3
The neocortex is in cognitive evolution an exciting part of the brain; it is there that most higher level cognitive activity is
conducted.
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upper limit on the size of the group. It provides the cognitive and social skills necessary to maintain
group cohesion. Primate species with small neocortices such as Gibbons, Dunbar observes, are
only able to live in small social groups. Those species with larger neocortices, such as
chimpanzees, are able to live in relatively large social groups because they have the cognitive skills
necessary to keep a large group together.
By gathering together mean group sizes from various species of non-human primate, together with
their mean neocortex size, Dunbar was able to calculate a regression line. This provided an
estimate for the expected human group size, given the size of a typical human neocortex. Since
compared to other primates, humans have relatively huge brains, their expected group size was
much bigger than were those of other primates.
To test the prediction, the size of actual human groups was examined. Modern day hunter-gatherer
groups for example, often consist of between 100 – 200 people – approximately what might be
expected. Dunbar also managed to find in modern societies a series of imaginative and quite
curious social groups of approximately the expected size. 20 th century Russian armies are
apparently made up of groups of 139 soldiers, and academic research specialities rarely consist of
more than 200 members. Even Neolithic villages in Mesopotamia consist of between 150 – 200
members, which is supposed to provide support for the idea that human group sizes are subject to
similar constraints to primate group sizes.
Before proceeding with his argument, something should perhaps be said about the methodology
that Dunbar has used here. For one thing, he has collected a very strange collection of human
groups indeed! One gets the impression from their diversity, that there may be many more human
groups that are either too big, or too small to fall within Dunbar’s limits. In addition, Dunbar himself
notes that human neocortex sizes lie well beyond the range in which the regression calculation is
based (Dunbar, 1993, p.682). In order to justify the extrapolation needed to calculate human group
17
size, it would need to be demonstrated that there was no reason to think that the linear relationship
between group size and neocortex size within the calculated range should not extend beyond that
range. However, little attempt is made to do this. It could be argued for example, that hominids
learned to use their control group sizes in a novel, and more effective manner, so that less
neocortex is required to maintain group cohesion. The relationship between group size and
neocortex size would therefore become non-linear, making it much more difficult to predict human
group size. (In fact, such a change in the method of cohesion is just what Dunbar goes on to
suggest).
However, while this would affect the regression calculation, it would make little difference to
Dunbar’s overall argument. It would not matter to Dunbar if bigger group sizes were maintainable
with a given neocortex size, because he only needs to demonstrate that, for a given neocortex
size, a minimum group size can be sustained. In order to provide a significant challenge to
Dunbar’s methodology, it would be necessary to demonstrate that as evolution took place,
hominids became less rather than more efficient at maintaining group stability, so that for a given
neocortex size, mean group size would be smaller. It is quite difficult to see where such an
argument would come from.
Whatever the size, primate groups maintain the cohesiveness essential for their existence through
grooming. It can take hours, but is needed. Some species, such as the papio papio baboons,
spend as much as 19% of their time grooming. Importantly, the amount of time that a species
spends grooming is tightly linked to the size of the group that that species can maintain. Large
groups require much more grooming time than smaller ones. However, no species spends more
than about 20% of their time grooming, because that would leave too little time for other equally
important activities such as foraging, eating, and sleeping. In this way, the amount of available
grooming time places a limit on the potential group size. Any group wishing to sustain more
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members would have to find a more effective way to groom. Human groups are so big that were
they maintained purely by physical grooming, then it would take nearly half of their time to keep
groups from falling apart into smaller ones. This would be too time consuming, and yet such large
hominid groups do exist. They must then, have overcome this limitation.
Dunbar suggests that language evolved as a more economical way of grooming. To begin with, the
vocalisations associated with grooming might have been similar to the purrs of a cat while it is
being stroked, or the non-linguistic vocal sounds used by humans such as sighing or laughing.
These kinds of sounds can release endorphins in our bodies, much the same as stroking and
grooming releases endorphins in non-human primates (Dunbar, 1996, p.36). Vocalisations would
have tended to be rhythmical and repetitive, and there may well have been more emphasis on the
way in which things were said than on actual content. It may even have been similar to the
babbling sounds produced by infants before they learn the meaningful sounds that are words. (The
transition from babbling to speech in infants will be considered later in the chapter).
Later, as pressures on hominid groups increased, the meaning of the sounds themselves would
have become greater, and would have enabled individuals to exchange social information.
Language would have become more content-meaningful, although still largely social in nature. A
great passage from Desmond Morris on the nature of this chatter deserves to be quoted at length.
This kind of socially cohesive gossip, he says is akin to
“the meaningless, polite chatter of social occasions, the ‘nice weather we are
having’ or ‘have you read any good books lately’ form of talking. It is not
concerned with the exchange of important ideas or information, nor does it reveal
the true mood of the speaker, nor is it pleasing aesthetically [presumably unlike
the rhythmical vocalisations that had gone before it]. Its function is to reinforce the
greeting smile and to maintain social togetherness. It is our substitute for social
19
grooming. By providing us with a non-aggressive social preoccupation, it enables
us to expose ourselves communally to one another over comparatively long
periods, in this way enabling valuable bonds and friendships to grow and become
strengthened”. (Morris, 1967, p. 204).
Language would not have immediately have replaced physical grooming. It would have existed
along side it, acting as its compliment. Indeed, humans today still groom each other with
handshakes, pats on the back, and hugs (although perhaps not as much as they should). However,
unlike physical grooming, language would have enabled individuals to exchange information about
other members of the group. They need not even be physically present at the time. As language
and the social groups evolved, the style of grooming may well have become more complex, more
effective, and eventually useful in non-social situations. Dunbar’s social grooming idea not only
gives language a convincingly humble origin, but also maps out the evolutionary advantages for its
subsequent development.
One critical and interesting issue that Dunbar’s model raises is the question of when, exactly, in
human evolution, language first became a necessary part of the grooming process (Aiello &
Dunbar, 1993; Dunbar, 1996, ch.5). Based on cranial capacities of hominid fossils (as are most of
Dunbar’s calculations), it is most unlikely that any of the Australopithecines would have needed to
employ vocal grooming to maintain their group cohesion. The average cranial capacity of an A.
africanus, for example, was 452 mm3 (calculated from Aiello & Dunbar, 1993, table 1) – not
significantly bigger than that of chimpanzees. With the slight rise in cranial capacity that
accompanied the very beginnings of the genus Homo, the transition from physical to vocal
grooming may have begun, although it is unlikely that it would have been especially notable. With
Homo erectus, cranial capacity rose significantly, to over 1000 mm 3. By this time, pressure placed
on time resources by grooming requirements would have become increasingly critical. Language
would have become an increasingly important tool. And Neanderthals, whose brains were often
20
bigger than those of modern humans, would, should Dunbar be right, have been relying on
language for social interaction every bit as much as modern humans.
It is interesting to note that Dunbar’s time scale for language evolution converges well with that
provided by the fossil record. Both lines of evidence suggest that it is unlikely that the
Australopithecines would have been any more vocal than would modern non-human primates; they
would not have needed to, and they would have been physically constrained. Both lines of
evidence place the beginnings of language at roughly two million years ago, with the origins of the
Homo genus. Because both quite independent sources of evidence paint a broadly similar picture
means that, it is possible to be much more confident about their conclusions. Language evolved
gradually.
The evolution of grammar
It seems unlikely then, that reliance upon vocalisation was limited to Homo sapiens. But is it
possible to speculate about the sophistication of this communication? Can the analysis be taken
any further, or must researchers be content with knowing merely that an number of hominid
species were making use of vocal communication without really knowing how sophisticated their
language might have been? Is there any reason, for example, to think that the earliest languages
might have ordered their words in an organised fashion? In other words, did they have a grammar,
and if they did, just how complicated was it?
Some scholars have suggested that hominids before Homo sapiens might have spoken with some
kind of protolanguage (e.g. Bickerton, 1990; 1995). However, for others this is too vague, and
disappoints their desire to really understand what the earliest forms of language might have been
like. In fact, it is possible to provide a much more satisfying and comprehensive picture. To achieve
this, it is crucial to understand that language – emphatically – is not an absolute entity. It is simply
21
not legitimate to suppose that an individual either does or does not possess language. And neither
is it helpful, as some have done (Bickerton, 1990; 1995; Noble & Davidson, 1996) to suggest that
an individual does or does not possess grammar. Language, and particularly grammar, cannot be
thought of as having evolved gradually if it came as a total, indivisible package.
In 1990, Pinker and Bloom published a paper in which they argued for a gradual emergence of
language on the grounds that the elements of language are very consistent with the basic notion of
evolution by natural selection (Pinker & Bloom, 1990). They argued that it is possible to specify the
adaptive benefits not only of language, but of individual parts of language. They suggested that
language was designed simply and solely to confer an adaptive evolutionary benefit to those
individuals who used it. With language, it is possible for creatures to acquire information about the
world without having personal experience, so that knowledge need not be acquired first hand.
Furthermore, language helps co-operation between the individual group members, and therefore
helps with any social activity such as hunting, mating, and grooming. Any individual that had all or
any of these language-derived benefits would surely enjoy a reproductive advantage over
members of its species that did not.
The design functions apply not just to language as a generic entity, but also and equally to each
and every one of its component parts. Each new word, and each new grammatical rule would
potentially have had an individual reproductive advantage. For example, it is useful to know the
difference between “there is a mammoth carcass at the bottom of the gorge”, and “there was a
mammoth carcass at the bottom of the gorge”. In this way, tense – all on its own – confers a
reproductive advantage. The development of the immediate dominance rule would be equally
profitable; if an individual could not discern the difference between “the red berries are tasty and
good, but the black berries are poisonous” and “the black berries are tasty and good, but the red
berries are poisonous”, then this might well have been bad news. In this way it becomes possible
22
to see language in a more nuts-and-bolts fashion; as something comprising of many different bits,
each having their own long lost evolutionary story. Moreover, it should never be forgotten that the
first hominid users of language were not in the business of acquiring a fully blown and intricate
language complete with complex syntactical grammar; they were interested in exchanging
information for some functional purpose, and in keeping groups together. It is only with the ‘gift’ of
hindsight that scholars are able to suggest that nothing short of a fully modern language would
have served this purpose.
According to Pinker and Bloom then, there is little reason to regard the evolution of vocabulary and
syntax in different terms. There is little reason, for example, to suppose that there might have been
period when hominids were able to use many different words, but had no grammar to organise
those words (see Bickerton, 1990).
Further evidence that vocabulary and syntax develop concurrently comes from child language
development. The traditional view of child language development runs along these lines. After an
initial and important period of non-linguistic babbling, the young infant begins to show
comprehension of certain words. For example, by about seven months, the infant will begin to
respond to its own name, and by 12 months, will understand about 20 words (Goodman 1995).
Infants typically utter their first words between 10 and 18 months (Harris et al, 1986). Soon after
their second birthday, significant advances occur, and children begin to learn grammar. By the time
they are 3½ years old, most children have mastered the basic syntactic properties of their
language. This basic pattern – from comprehension to production to syntax – is illustrated in figure
two, below.
23
Figure 2 shows the typical sequence of language development.
Children can understand words before they are able to produce them themselves.
Grammatical developments occur soon after. (From Bates & Goodman, 1997).
One of the critical issues about this pattern is the nature of the relationship between its various
parts – comprehension, production, and grammar. Although some have argued that the various
stages are discrete, building upon each other in only a rather superficial manner (e.g. Jakobson,
1968; Locke, 1997), others suggest that the parts are interwoven, so that development of one part
leads to development in another (Bates & Goodman, 1997). For example, Vihman and colleagues
(1986) noted that the types of sounds with which infants babble tend to feature heavily in those first
words learnt; one stage builds upon the previous one. In the same way, during the early period of
word acquisition, those first words learnt tend themselves back to babbling (Leonard et al, 1984).
There is a similar relationship between the development of vocabulary, and that of syntax. Bates
and Goodman (op. cit.) assessed grammatical ability of 1800 young children both by measuring
24
their mean length of utterance, and with the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory.
They also measured the size of the children’s vocabulary. They found vocabulary to be closely
correlated with the complexity of the children’s grammar; those with a low vocabulary tended to
have relatively undeveloped grammatical skills, whereas those with a larger vocabulary typically
demonstrated a more comprehensive grasp of grammar. This information appears overleaf in
figure 3, graphically illustrating the closeness of the relationship. It is supported by a longitudinal
study that found an individual’s vocabulary size at 20 months to be an excellent predictor of their
grammatical ability at 28 months (Bates et al 1988; see also Fenson et al 1994). It is also most
interesting to note that, although the first words that infants produce tend to be nouns, such as
words for people toys, there very quickly follows production of verbs, to describe actions such as
eating, or playing (Butterworth & Harris, 1994; Nelson, 1973). From the very beginning, then,
infants make use of words from different grammatical classes.
25
Figure 3 illustrates the relationship between the development of vocabulary, and that of grammar.
(From Bates & Goodman, 1997)
In the normal development of the child, increases in vocabulary size are closely related to
grammatical advances. This is also the case in atypical language development, such as late
talking. Late onset of vocabulary can happen for a variety of reasons, and does not necessarily
imply abnormal development in other areas of cognitive processing. Were syntax largely unrelated
to the lexicon, as has been suggested (Chomsky, 1968), one might expect grammatical
development to occur at a faster rate than normal, because their development would be
independent. However, if vocabulary size and grammar were co-dependent, then one would expect
late-talkers to display a delayed grammatical understanding as well as a delayed vocabulary size.
The longitudinal study reported in Bates and Goodman (1997) examined such late-talkers to test
these two competing hypotheses. They found that when vocabulary development was delayed, so
too was grammar. Grammatical development did not occur until the vocabulary was large enough
to warrant it, regardless of how long that took. In same way, children who learnt words very early
26
on, were also able to acquire grammar more quickly than their peers; early lexical development
was matched in a commensurate fashion by grammatical advances (Thal et al, 1996).
One final source of evidence comes from the language impairment found in individuals with
Williams syndrome and Downs syndrome. Williams syndrome is much studied by those interested
in the development of language (Capirci, et al, 1996; Don, 1999; McDonald, 1997; Mervis &
Robinson 2000). In Williams syndrome, although much cognitive processing (such as visuo-spatial
processing or problem solving) is impaired, linguistic processing is selectively spared (see, for
example, Karmiloff-Smith et al, 1995). In terms of the relationship between lexical and grammatical
development, children with Williams syndrome are normal in the perverse sense that both
grammatical and lexical development are abnormal. Although children with the syndrome display
some interesting characteristics such as heavy overgeneralization (e.g. “goed”, “runned”; Pinker,
1991), and an unusual disposition towards low-frequency words, their grammar develops at roughly
the predicted level, given the size of their lexicon (Bates & Goodman, 1997).
In contrast to Williams syndrome, language development in those with Downs syndrome is
impaired along with other types of cognitive activity. In Downs syndrome, grammatical development
tends to fall well behind both normal children and those with Williams syndrome, given the size of
the lexicon (Chapman. 1995). They tend, to acquire – albeit later than normal – a reasonably sized
lexicon, but fail to learn the syntactical rules to govern its use. For some, this suggests that
grammar is separate from the lexicon, and weakens attempts to claim to the contrary (Pinker
1991). However, there is a more elegant explanation. Children with Downs syndrome tend to have
a poorer auditory short term memory when compared to either normal children or those with
Williams syndrome (Bates & Goodman, 1997). This means that they are less able to hold and
manipulate multiple words, so that they find it difficult to construct sentences. Thus, a phenomenon
independent of syntactic knowledge per se, interferes with the ability of those with Downs
27
syndrome to construct grammatically meaningful sentences. This is presumably an empirically
testable matter; giving children with Downs syndrome written tests of grammar that relied less upon
auditory short term memory might go some way towards establishing whether their grammatical
knowledge was being obscured by memory restrictions4.
By way of summary, it has been argued that in children, grammar is highly dependent upon, and
responsive to, vocabulary size. As the size of the vocabulary increases, grammatical rules follow.
This may have evolutionary implications, and suggest how hominid language might have
developed.
Firstly, however, it should be noted that there is no logical reason why hominid language should
follow the path taken by children. (see, for example, Gould, 1977). In principal, it would be possible
to construct a language-using computer whose lexicon and syntax were separate modules that
functioned independently. It is certainly not contended here there exists any a priori need for a
relationship between vocabulary and grammar at all. Nor is this argument meant to imply that
grammar is in some way an emergent property of a sufficiently sized vocabulary. However, it is
claimed that this just happens to be the way in which human minds are constructed. And since the
human mind’s constructor was natural selection, which necessarily builds upon existing systems,
this relationship may hold not just for modern humans but for their ancestors, too. In fact, it is
suggested that, should the hypothesised relationship between grammar and the lexicon in modern
humans turn out to be correct, then that vocabulary size and grammar were equally related in
human ancestors should become the default position. Anyone wishing to challenge this, and to
suggest that vocabulary size was in other hominids unrelated to grammar would be required to
suggest how, and more importantly, why such a dramatic shift in cognitive architecture occurred.
Conclusions
4
Even this type of test would not be decisive though, because of the possibly that the memory restrictions interfered with
the ability to learn grammar in the first place.
28
The aim of this chapter has been to suggest that language evolved gradually in the hominid
lineage. It was first proposed that hominids, perhaps from about two million years ago, possessed
a language of some sort. It was then suggested that there is little reason to believe that vocabulary
and grammar evolved at different times, and under different circumstances. Furthermore, it was
suggested that children who acquire vocabulary quickly go on to learn grammar. It is proposed
then, that evidence for any type of hominid language development should ipso facto be considered
as evidence for language as a whole, including grammar, as well. It is not that parts of language
developed gradually, but that language, in parts, developed gradually.
29
The case for sudden change Chapter 3
Introduction
Following from the last chapter, which argued for continuity in the origins of language, this chapter
will require a change in tack; its aim will be it to demonstrate that unlike the evolution of language,
there is a period in the archaeological record that is better described in terms of relatively abrupt
change than in terms of continuity. It is a period known as the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic
transition (see Foley & Lahr, 1997). It is generally, although not universally agreed that during this
period, modern human behaviour makes its first appearances in the archaeological record (Bar-
Yosef, 1998; Foley & Lahr, 1997; Klein, 1994; 1995; Mellars & Stringer, 1989b; Nitecki & Nitecki,
1994; Stringer & McKie, 1996). Amongst the various changes that occurred, there were
developments in tool manufacture, such as changes in raw material, methods of production, and
the types of tools that were made, as well as the beginnings of art, evidence of personal
adornment, and other types of symbolism. This chapter will attempt to describe what happened.
Consideration will first be given however, to the evolution of anatomically, as opposed to
behaviourally modern humans. It will be suggested that anatomically modern humans made their
first appearance in sub-Saharan Africa at around 150,000 years ago. This is important, because
some have suggested that there is a time-lag of about 40,000 years between the speciation of
anatomically modern human, and the first good signs of modern behaviour (Bar-Yosef, 1998; Klein,
1994; 1995; Mithen, 1996a; Stringer & McKie, 1996). As will be noted later, it is important to
consider when, and where modern behaviour first appeared in the archaeological record because
effects the type of explanation than can be given for its appearance.
In any case, the transition to modern behaviour requires some kind of explanation; it was a truly
remarkable event. Many although, by no means all (see Bar-Yosef 1998; Carruthers, in press;
Klein, 1995; Mithen 1996a) scholars have suggested that the Upper Palaeolithic transition
30
coincided with the development of fully modern language (Bickerton 1990; 1995; Deacon, 1996;
Mellars, 1992; Noble & Davidson, 1996; Tattersall, 1998). This has generally come to be known as
the language hypothesis. The second part of this chapter will explore why this idea has been so
popular, and will offer some criticism of some specific versions of it.
The origin of anatomically modern humans
The earliest anatomically modern humans almost certainly come from sub-Saharan Africa (Bar-
Yosef, 1998; Bräuer, 1989; Foley & Lahr, 1997; Klein, 1989; Stringer & McKie, 1996, and see
Mellars & Stringer, 1989b, and papers therein). It is also there that the clearest evidence for
transitional features between archaic and modern humans can be found (Bräuer, 1989; Klein,
1989; Rightmire, 1989). It is therefore more likely that the modern human body form evolved only in
Southern Africa (Stringer & McKie, 1996), than anywhere else (Thorne & Walpoff, 1994; Wolpoff,
1989; Wolpoff et al, 1984; Wolpoff et al, 1994).
A number of sites have so far yielded old but modern looking human fossils. These include Omo in
Ethiopia, Laetoli in Tanzania, and three sites in South Africa: Florisbad, Die Kelders Cave, and
Klasies River Mouth. Consider examples from just two sites. The Kibish formation in the Omo
Valley in Ethiopia has surrendered the oldest modern looking fossils so far so far found. The most
famous of the Omo fossils is Omo I. The level at which it was found – Member I – has received a
Uranium/Thorium date5 of about 130,000 BP (Bräuer, 1989). Shells found in nearby deposits also
date to around this time (Day 1972). The Omo I skeleton consists of a brain case with partial post-
cranial material, and appears to be anatomically modern. A reconstruction of the skull suggested
that its front was tall and flat, and that the brow ridge was not particularly prominent (Day &
Stringer, 1982). Generally, Homo sapiens have a less developed brow ridge than do their
ancestors, as well as a taller, less sloping, and more significant forehead.
5
This involves measuring levels of the isotopes uranium-238, uranium-235, and thorium-232, all of which are unstable, and
decay into lead.
31
Klasies River Mouth, in South Africa, has also yielded early anatomically modern human fossils
(Deacon & Shuurman, 1992). A number of techniques have been employed at the site, most of
which suggest that the sequence runs from between 130,000 and 60,000 years old (Butzer, 1978;
Deacon, 1989; Rightmire, 1989;). One of the most important fossils found at the Klasies River
Mouth is a lower mandible. Although it has been distorted through both the age of the individual to
whom it belonged and through disease, the style and position of the teeth are modern (Singer &
Wymer, 1982). It also appears to be relatively gracile in nature (many earlier hominids, including
the Neanderthals in Europe, had heavyweight jaws and teeth designed for more intensive
processing of food). But the mandible’s most revealing feature is the presence of a pronounced
chin. Strong chins are only found in Homo sapiens, which provides good evidence that the
mandible belonged to an anatomically modern human (Singer & Wymer, 1982).
To add to these first anatomically modern human fossils, it is also possible to document changes in
the fossil record – to find specimens with both modern and archaic features – in Southern Africa at
around 100,000 years ago. Indeed, Klein (1989) notes that in Southern Africa it is possible to find
skulls and jaws ranging from archaic (e.g. Omo II, Eliye Springs), to marginally archaic (Ngaloba
and Singa) to fully anatomically modern humans (Omo I, Klasies River Mouth). The Omo II
specimen provides an example. Found during the excavation that yielded the Omo I specimen, it is
likely to be contemporary with that individual (i.e. around 130,000 years old). However, Omo II, a
more complete specimen (Rightmire, 1989), has a longer and lower braincase, with less of a
forehead than Omo I. This suggests that it belonged to an archaic human. Other parts of the
braincase are relatively thin though, a feature typically associated with anatomically modern
humans.
There may also be transitional fossils at Klasies River Mouth. As well as the lower jaw already
discussed, a number of other mandibles were found. Some of them are less modern in
appearance, but higher in the sequence, which may reflect that early inhabitants of the Klasies
32
River Mouth site were from a transitional population. Some of the mandibles are much bigger and
thicker, and have less pronounced chins than their more famous peer. Although some authors
emphasise that all of the mandibles (and indeed the other fossil remains, most of which are very
fragmentary) fall within the range of modern humans (Rightmire, 1989), it is also possible that
some of the fossils come from individuals who had a mix of modern and archaic features (Singer &
Wymer, 1982).
Fossils like these are found in Africa well before they are found elsewhere. Homo sapiens are not,
for example, found in Australia until 60,000 (Roberts, Jones, & Smith, 1990; Roberts, Jones,
Spooner et al, 1994), and not in Western Europe until between 42,000 and 36,000 years ago
(Mellars, 1992). Furthermore, the earliest anatomically modern humans found just outside of Africa
comes from caves in Skhül and Qafzeh, in Israel. The hominids in these caves date to around
90,000 – 100,000 years old (Grün & Stringer, 1991; Valladas et al, 1988). They have short, high
braincases, and a relatively flat, modern looking face. It appears that, having evolved in Southern
Africa, anatomically modern humans travelled upwards in Africa, out through the Middle East, and
onwards to the rest of the World (e.g. Stringer, 1994; Stringer & Mckie, 1996).
Genetic studies have begun to provide further support to the idea that anatomically modern
humans evolved recently, and only in Africa. Unfortunately, there is not enough space to discuss
the findings in detail. Briefly, however, following a seminal series of papers (Cann et al, 1987;
Stoneking & Cann, 1989; Stoneking et al, 1986; although see Templeton, 1993; 1994), at least two
important findings have emerged. Firstly, Homo sapiens may have evolved at around 200,000
years ago, which is only slightly older than the age suggested by the fossil record. Secondly, the
study found that there was more genetic diversity in African populations than in any other group of
people. This suggests that African populations are far older, and that other populations simply have
not had enough time to accumulate the same kind of diversity. A number of studies, using various
33
genetic techniques have provided similar findings (Harpending et al, 1998; Hedges et al, 1992;
Goldstein et al, 1995; Ruvolo, 1996; 1997). The fact that the genetic evidence sits so harmoniously
with the fossil evidence shows just how successful interdisciplinary work can be. The study of
modern human origins has been both expanded and refined by genetic work. This should provide
encouragement for those trying to introduce further interdisciplinary work.
The relationship between the origins of anatomically modern humans and modern behaviour
Much more controversy surrounds the origins of modern human behaviour than the origin of
anatomically modern humans. This is partly to do with the difficulties involved in trying to
understand just what modern behaviour, and the modern mind and brain is (witness the countless
unresolved issues in modern psychology and philosophy of mind). But the difficulties also stem
from what is found in the archaeological record itself, and in how to interpret what is found there.
Although it is difficult to deny that during the last 100,000 years, dramatic changes occur in the
archaeological record that display modern human behaviour for the first time (although see
Bednarik, 1994: 1995 or Graves-Brown, 1991 for attempts to do so), it is also difficult to be more
specific about the precise timing and nature of the changes.
The issue of timing is important in terms of the type of explanation for the Upper Palaeolithic
transition that one can advance. If the onset of modern behaviour occurred significantly later than
the evolution of the modern human body form, as some have suggested (Bar-Yosef 1998; Klein
1994; 1995), a further and independent explanation for the catastrophic emergence of the former
would be required. This would place heavy theoretical burden upon those wishing to explain the
origins of modern human behaviour, for they would have to explain how this late change could
have occurred relatively simultaneously, given that by this time, anatomically modern human
populations had dispersed to a number of geographically distant areas. Such a demand would
probably mean that any suggested causes for the origins of modern behaviour would have to be
34
cultural rather than biological or cognitive, because it is very unlikely that the such changes,
necessarily the result of genetic mutations, could have occurred more than once in such a short
space of time (see Dawkins, 1986, chapters 3-4).
The traditional view has come to posit just such a time lag. It has been argued that the evolution of
anatomically modern humans is not the same thing as the emergence of modern human behaviour;
that came only later (Bar-Yosef, 1998; Klein, 1994; 1995; Mithen, 1996a; Stringer & McKie, 1996).
This thinking stems from the striking lack of modern archaeological evidence that accompanies the
origins of anatomically modern humans. The earliest abundant signs of modern behaviour in Africa
come from the ostrich eggshell beads found at Enkapune Ya Muto in Kenya, which date to around
43,500 (Ambrose, 1998; Laj et al, 1996) They demonstrate use of personal adornment, but only
appear some 40,000 years after signs of anatomical modernity.
It should be noted that it has been possible to find at least some evidence of modern behaviour
before this time, but in far smaller quantities than might be expected. In Zaire, finely worked bone
harpoons have been dated to 90,000. (Brooks et al, 1995; Yellen et al 1995). Importantly, the bone
was worked in a manner very suitable to the qualities of bone, rather than as if it were stone. This
point will be returned to in the final chapter, because it speaks of the type of information processing
that were available to behaviourally modern humans.
Further evidence of early modern behaviour comes from Blombos cave in South Africa, which
contains more worked bone (Henshilwood & Sealy, 1997), evidence of the extensive utilisation of
marine resources (Grine et al, 2000), and the use of red ochre, a substance used normally,
although not exclusively (Keeley, 1980) – in a symbolic way, often as an integral part of rituals
(Watts, 1999). Red ochre at 90,000 years ago is not unique to Blombos; it has been found in a
(relatively small) number of other sites dating to around 90,000, including the Howiesons Poort
35
industry at Klasies River Mouth (Knight et al, 1995). Nevertheless, evidence of modern behaviour
is not as abundant at around this time as one might expect.
There have recently been a number of attempts to explain this apparent time-lag (Ambrose, 1998;
Shennan, 2001). Shennan has very recently undertaken work involving the demographic modelling
of early modern human population sizes, exploring the similarities between genetics and cultural
transmission (Shennan, 2001). Based upon an adapted biological model of sexual reproduction
(Peck et al, 1997), the work involved predicting how quickly cultural changes and developments
spread through populations of various sizes. The basic implication of the model was that in small
and isolated population groups, individual cultural innovations, like advantageous genetic
mutations, are less likely to be imitated, permeate the entire group, and form part of the whole
group’s cultural repertoire, than they are in bigger groups. In very small groups, any innovations, or
changes in technology are unlikely to be imitated, and will not be adopted by the rest of the group.
By contrast, should an individual in a larger population group generate a new form of behaviour, it
is more likely to be imitated, and so spread throughout the group, incising its mean level of
adaptive fitness.
This model has yet to be fully evaluated in terms of its application to cultural rather than genetic
transmission. It would be especially interesting to consider its implications in terms of the spread of
chimpanzee culture, because its transmission has already been subjected to various types of
scrutiny, and details of group sizes are also available (Boesch, 1993; Boesch & Boesch, 1993;
Boyd, & Richardson, 1996; Joulian, 1996; Tomasello et al, 1993). Nevertheless, there is no
particular theoretical reason why the model should not apply to cultural change as well as genetic
mutation, especially because Peck’s original model has been modified to accounts for non-
hereditary transmission, as well – a format available only to the former mechanism.
36
The thinking is, then, that if the earliest anatomically modern human groups were sufficiently small,
modern behavioural innovations might have failed to spread throughout the groups and gene pool.
To provide the empirical input that Shennan’s proposal needs, there is a growing body of genetic
evidence that about 130,000 years ago, Homo sapiens went through a population bottleneck that
severely weakened population sizes (Rogers & Jorde, 1995; Sherry et al, 1994). The bottleneck
may have been caused by a major volcanic eruption of Mt. Toba, which occurred at 73,500
(Ambrose, 1998, Rampino & Self, 1992), and have been maintained for thousands of years both by
the severe volcanic winters which it would have produced, and by the harsh climatic conditions of
isotope stage 4 (Lahr, 1996; Lahr & Foley, 1998). Population densities would only have recovered
at around 60,000 years, when isotope stage 4 gave way to the milder conditions of stage 3. So,
even if the first anatomically modern humans were also behaviourally modern, the crash in
population sizes soon after their speciation would have meant that any innovations that did occur
would have failed to spread sufficiently throughout the population groups to ensure two things –
survival, and archaeological visibility. According to this proposal, it is possible that modern human
behaviour evolved concurrently with the modern anatomy. This is useful, because it allows that
modern behaviour evolved originally in just one area rather than many, and can therefore be
explained in terms of changes in cognition, rather than merely of culture.
The Upper Palaeolithic transition
With the issue of timing discussed, it is now possible to move on to a description of the types of
changes in the archaeological record that mark the transition to modern behaviour. By their very
nature, they are various, and evade concise definition. (Were the changes easy to define and
describe succinctly, then they would be that much more easy to explain, and create less of a
paradox). One way to provide more definition to the description would have been to suggest the
cause of the changes first, and then provide a documentation of the changes afterwards. However,
one of the general aims of this thesis is to explain what the archaeological problem is, before
37
attempting to offer a philosophical and psychological theory to help resolve the problem. This
means that does make some sense to try to document the changes that the Upper Palaeolithic
transition brought, before attempting to summarise them by employing a unifying explanation.
Klein, in a recent review of modern human origins, lists the following features (Klein, 1995):
 Significant increases in population densities
 Increases in both the diversity and standardisation of artefact types
 Employment of new raw materials
 More changes in tool types
 Transport of much larger quantities of raw materials over larger distances
 More varied utilisation of environmental resources, such as fishing.
 Inhabitation of the coldest parts of Northern Europe and Northern Asia
 Undeniable evidence of organised camp floors and hearths
 Good evidence of ritual activities, including graves
 Unambiguous art objects
(Adapted from Klein, 1995, p. 168)
Consider a number of these features. Firstly a range of new features are found. Many tools, such
as the Uluzzian points and crescents in Italy and the burins of the Middle East, are seen for the first
time (Marks, 1983; Mellars, 1989a). There are also shifts in the method of tool production. There is
a shift from flaking (which involves removing a series of flakes from a core which becomes the
finished product) to blade production (which involves preparing a core from which blades are taken,
so that the blades, rather than the core constitute the finished product), although blades are not
limited exclusively to the Upper Palaeolithic (Cook, 1986). Existing production methods are
developed and refined. Perforation, for example, which allows the manufacture of beads and
38
pendants, takes on new levels of sophistication, including extensive grinding and polishing (White,
1989). In the same way, there is an increase in the standardisation of tool types (Mellars, 1989a).
Archaeologists who wish to categorise the various tools into discrete types find it easier to do so
with Upper Palaeolithic tools than with Middle Palaeolithic tools. This is because that the authors of
the tools were able to impose more form on their creations. This in turn may reflect a higher degree
of pre-planning in the manufacturing process (Noble & Davidson, 1996).
Furthermore, there is an increased variety of tools. There are tools that appear to have been
designed for specific purposes, such as those for working with tough skin, or tools to be hafted onto
wood, like projectile spearheads. The point is not that generic tool types, such as hafting
implements, are not seen before the Upper Palaeolithic transition – the Neanderthal Mousterian
industry contains examples of hafting tools that were possibly used as spear heads (Shea, 1989).
Rather, in general, there are more specific and varied tool types. Furthermore, it is not true to say
that each Upper Palaeolithic assemblage boasted a wider variety of tools than an average Middle
Palaeolithic site. Rather, there often stark differences in the types of tools found between (rather
than within) different assemblages (Bar-Yosef, 1998; Chazan, 1995; Mellars, 1989a).
One key characteristic of tool manufacture not just in the Middle Palaeolithic which immediately
preceded the transition, but in the early archaeological record in general, is that there is a
stagnation in lithic manufacture. The same types of tools are made in similar ways for hundreds of
thousands of years, with very little innovation and change. Catherine Farizy has described many
Middle Palaeolithic assemblages as monotonous (Binford, 1973; Bisson, 2001; Clark, 1982; Dibble,
1991; Farizy, 1994, p. 97; Jelenik, 1988; Klein, 2000; Kuhn, 1995; Mellars, 1989b; 1996). One
basic tool – the handaxe – was the staple diet of tool making for nearly two million years of human
evolution. Handaxes were so widespread throughout hominid life that one paper has recently
suggested that their manufacture might have been subject to Fisherian sexual selection (Kohn &
39
Mithen, 1999). This is not to say that the tools making skills of the Middle Palaeolithic hominids
should not be celebrated; some of the Mousterian lithics are superbly crafted (for example, see
Lewin, 1999, p.183). But this does not change the fact that Middle Palaeolithic tool manufacture
skilled though it was, was torpid. By contrast, there is much more movement in tool manufacture
after the Upper Palaeolithic transition (Mellars, 1989b).
In a similar way, there arrives with the Upper Palaeolithic transition use of new raw materials. In
Eurasia at least, most tools before the Upper Palaeolithic transition are manufactured using stone
as the raw material (Foley & Lahr, 1997; Mellars, 1989a); bone, antler, and ivory are mostly
neglected in tool production (Soffer, 1989; or see White, 1982). Again, it is not true to say that no
such tools have been found in Middle Palaeolithic contexts. A number of Neanderthal Mousterian
assemblages contain worked bone (Freeman, 1993), and in Schöningen, Germany, wooden
spears were found that date to 400,000 years ago (Thieme, 1997). But these examples are
relatively isolated6, and stand as only as sparks in the darkness. The explosion came only at
around 40,000 years ago, and especially in Europe (Mellars, 1989a). After this time, materials such
as bone and antler are used increasingly in proportion to their regional availability (Clark & Lindly
1989).
In fact, there is evidence that humans from the Upper Palaeolithic were also using marine and
freshwater shells, fossil coral, limestone, schist, steatite, jet, lignite, hematite, and pyrite (Stringer &
McKie, 1996, p.186). Moreover, it has already been mentioned that raw materials other than stone
were manufactured in a fashion that suited the qualities of the material. Before the Upper
Palaeolithic transition, any materials other than stone were nevertheless knapped as if they were
stone. By contrast, behaviourally modern humans were able to tailor-make their production to the
specifics of the material with which they were working (Mellars, 1989). Such resourcefulness was
6
There is always the possibility of a depositional explanation for this discrepancy. Since wood survives less well than do
lithics, one might expect lithics to appear earlier in the archaeological record than wooden tools.
40
far less frequent before this great change occurred. The employment of new raw materials
suggests that hominids were considering their environment in a new and more dynamic manner.
The emergence of Upper Palaeolithic tools reflected a new capacity to innovate that is very rarely
seen before the transition. If one looks at the overall pattern of tool development in human
evolution before the Upper Palaeolithic transition, progress can only been seen slowly, over
evolutionary time. The changes from the first Oldowan tools – not much more sophisticated that
that which can be made by chimpanzees in experimental situations (see Toth et al, 1993) – to the
later ones is not sudden. Nor is it exciting. There is only a very gradual improvement in the quality
of Oldowan tools over time (Heizelin et al, 1999). Even the relatively important changes in Middle
Palaeolithic artefacts, such as the development of the Levallois technique, which involves
preparing a flaked core so that one final flake of a predetermined shape can be knapped, can be
seen in terms not of a sudden innovation, but of taking the basic handaxe production one stage
further on (Mellars & Stringer, 1989a). In contrast, many of the Upper Palaeolithic tools have little in
common with Middle Palaeolithic tools. Spear throwers, for example, have little precedent in the
Middle Palaeolithic (although spears themselves to make appearances (e.g. Thieme, 1997). Upper
Palaeolithic humans may have had for the first time a capacity to create new implements – to think
actively and constructively about what changes could be made to tool use or tool manufacture, that
would bring about improvements in the utility of their tools.
Perhaps the most important change that occurred at the Upper Palaeolithic is the development of
symbolic behaviour. Symbolism is normally used to refer to the idea that one thing, such as a word,
a drawing, or an animal track, can represent, or refer to, another (e.g. Chase, 1991; Deacon, 1997;
Hodder, 1982). An understanding of symbolism is one of the key characteristics of the modern
human mind. It is so important, that the Upper Palaeolithic transition has been referred to as a
symbolic revolution (Knight et al, 1995; Mellars, 1993). Before this period, evidence for symbolism
41
is notably lacking from the archaeological record (although see Bednarik, 1992; Marshack, 1997).
After the transition, its presence is pervasive.
Symbolism, firstly, is manifest in the burials – with gravegoods such as animal parts (Beaumont,
1973) or red ochre (Knight, 1991) – that the first modern humans received. Middle Palaeolithic
hominid groups, both in Africa (Beaumont, 1973; Beaumont et al, 1978), the Levant (Akazawa et al,
1995), and in Europe (Harrold, 1980) may well have buried the dead, but the burial contexts are
more ambiguous (Gargett, 1989), and only very rarely contain gravegoods (Turner & Hannon,
1988). In contrast, the Upper Palaeolithic groups often used complex burial practices requiring
heavy investments of time, showing that they had a respect for the dead (Stringer & McKie, 1996).
The fact that gravegoods were offered suggests a belief in an afterlife. To believe in an afterlife is
to believe that some non-physical part of the person survives physical death. Beliefs of this nature
are in turn only possible if the individuals involved had an acute sense not only of personal identity,
but also of the identity of others. This demonstrates symbolism, because although these individuals
believed that the body was somehow different from the person, they nevertheless understood that
the body represented that inner person.
Body decoration was by no means limited to the dead; beads, pendants, and other items of
ornamentation are found in the Upper Palaeolithic outside of burial contexts (e.g. Farizy, 1994;
Hahn, 1972; Harrold, 1989). Some ornaments, such as perforated pendants, would have required a
complex manufacturing process, taking investments of both time and skill to produce (White, 1989).
It is likely that they served at least two functions for the individuals who wore them. Firstly, they
may simply have been of aesthetic, decorative value, providing interest for the eyes. (This may also
explain the presence of red ochre in several Middle Palaeolithic contexts (see Knight et al, 1995)).
Secondly, they might have borne some information about the wearer. They could have been used
to signify alliance between individuals, membership to a particular group of people, and status
42
within the group. Decoration of the body may have been used in rituals (Knight et al, 1995), or to
signify female willingness to mate (Watts, 1999). Personal decoration, then, would have been worn
to communicate with other individuals; to represent information symbolically.
Symbolism is perhaps best exhibited in the artwork of the first modern humans. Consider the
famous ‘The Sorcerer’, found in Trois-Frères, in France, shown below.
Figure 4. “The sorcerer”, from Trois-Frères, France.
(After Breuil, 1952)
It depicts a being with both human and animal features, providing a representation of a figure in the
mind of the author. The depiction of beings with both human and animal characteristics is common
in Upper Palaeolithic cave paintings (see Bahn & Vervut, 1989; Loblanchet 1989), and probably
reflects the anthropomorphic thinking – the attribution of human characteristics, or even a human
personality to a non-human entity such as an animal – typical of the first modern humans (Boyer,
1994; Mithen, 1999). The creative explosion found expressed in the works of art during the Upper
43
Palaeolithic transition takes a number of forms. The majority of work so far recovered is of animals.
Historically, there have been a number of competing explanations as to why animals were drawn
so much, and it is likely that different paintings meant different things to different people –
especially archaeologists (Mithen, 1996a).
Animals were not the only things to feature in Upper Palaeolithic art. There were the Venus
figurines, tiny carved depictions of the female anatomy, as well as decoration of tools, such as in
the Mas d’Azil spear-thrower, shown below.
Figure 5. This spear-thrower from Mas d’Azil has been fashioned in the form of an ibex.
Artwork was a pervasive element of the Upper Palaeolithic.
(After Bahn & Vertut, 1988)
There are also specimens that seem to have been more about communicating information than
about producing visually pleasing images. There are a number of pieces that appear to have been
scored in a systematic fashion, as if they were being used for some kind of notation. These include
an engraved bone from the Grotte du Taï, France, and an engraved antler from La Marche. As
might be expected, interpretations of such markings vary (see D’Errico, 1995, or Marshack, 1991),
but they do seem to be representing some particular piece of information.
44
The use of the environment as a store of information either for the self or for others, is a practice
restricted almost entirely to the Upper Palaeolithic. There are a few possible examples of stored
information that are far older, such as the engraved bone from Bilzingsleben, in Germany (Mania &
Mania, 1988). However, the fact that they are so few in number, and so out of their context in terms
of the surrounding artefacts, makes it difficult to be confident that such specimens were not the
unintended by-products of other activities. Moreover, the eagerness of some palaeontologists to
ascribe symbolic status to a number of quite ambiguous, even unimpressive specimens (Bednarik,
1992; 1995, or Marshack 1997), has probably encouraged scepticism about claims of this nature
(see, for example, Chase & Dibble, 1992; or Mithen 1996b).
In any case, the storing of information in the environment evident in Upper Palaeolithic contexts
shows both sophisticated and economical use of cognitive resources indeed. In fact, one
philosopher has made a persuasive argument that the modern human mind is efficient because it
extends into the physical environment (Clarke, 1997). This notion, which mainly concerns humans
of today, no doubt has implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, and may therefore
be of use to archaeologists. It should be remembered that the modern humans who lived during the
Upper Palaeolithic have the same innate qualities as those who live today. In this way, a discussion
of the latter group is also a discussion of the former. This is one reason why interdisciplinary work
is so appealing.
Language and the Upper Palaeolithic transition
Hopefully, it has been demonstrated that the changes make up the Upper Palaeolithic transition are
both varied, wide-ranging. So are its explanations. Researchers have variously explained modern
human behaviour in terms of a further neurological change (Klein, 1995), cultural innovation (Bar-
Yosef, 1998), changes in the mind (Mithen, 1996a), or the development of imaginative childhood
play (Carruthers, in press). But the most popular explanation for the Upper Palaeolithic transition is
45
probably that the developments seen in the archaeological record coincide with the development of
a sophisticated language (Bickerton 1990; 1995; Chase, 1989; Deacon, 1996; Dibble, 1989;
Mellars, 1992; Noble & Davidson, 1993; 1996; Tattersall, 1998; Wynn, 1989). A number of different
specific arguments have been used to support this view, drawing from tool manufacture (Dibble,
1989; Noble & Davidson, 1993) linguistics (Bickerton, 1990; 1995), and the presence of symbolism
in Upper Palaeolithic assemblages (Mellars, 1992).
The basic conviction that language can be used to explain the Upper Palaeolithic may well stand
upon intuitive ground. Outlined formally, an argument might be expressed like this:
i. Language is a critically and fundamentally important human attribute.
ii. Something critically and fundamentally important happened at the Upper Palaeolithic
transition.
iii. => Modern language emerged at the Upper Palaeolithic transition, and caused the
changes that occurred.
This argument may be known as the language hypothesis. When specified in this formal way, each
of the elements of this logical argument can be considered in turn.
i. The idea that language is the most important human characteristic, and one that sets us apart not
only from non-human primates, but also from all other hominid species, has a history nearly as long
as the theory of evolution itself, for it was suggested even by Charles Darwin. He said that
“the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, is certainly one
of degree and not of kind....If it be maintained that certain powers, such as self-
consciousness, abstraction etc., are peculiar to man, it may well be that these are the
46
incidental results of highly-advanced intellectual faculties; and that these again are the
result of the continued use of a highly developed language” (Darwin, 1874, p.111).
Darwin does not stand alone. Steven Pinker, in his book “The Language Instinct” (Pinker, 1994)
suggests that “language is so tightly woven into human experience that it is scarcely possible to
imagine life without it” (p. 17), while Noble, and Davidson believe that “language has long been
held to be what distinguishes humans from other animals, including primates, and thus to be the
hallmark of modern human behaviour (italics in original; 1991, p. 223). Indeed, communication
through language is an almost essential part of daily human life, and no culture today exists without
it. Moreover, there can be little doubt that the development of language would have had significant
effects upon hominid lifestyle. It would have allowed the transmission of knowledge, and permitted
co-operation between group members, which would have made activities such as hunting more
efficient (Dunbar, 1996; Mithen, 1996a). Although other animals do communicate with each other in
often impressive manners (Cheney & Seyfarth, 1990; Epstein et al, 1980; Hauser, 1996;
Pepperberg. 1993) the communication that modern language would have released would have
been unprecedented.
Furthermore, it is possible to claim not only that language serves as an important tool for
communication between individuals, but that it operates in a structural and executive capacity in
the brain. That is, language does not merely express thoughts – it is sometimes used to formulate
those thoughts in the first place. The list of psychologists and philosophers who regard language in
this way is not insignificant (e.g. Carruthers, 1996; Dennett, 1991; Vygotsky, 1934; Wittgenstein,
1953; Whorf, 1956; although see Fodor, 1975, Pinker, 1994, or Searle, 1983 who are all more
sceptical).
It seems then, that premise one should be accepted; language is a critically and fundamentally
important human attribute. This is not necessarily to say that language is necessarily the most
47
critically and fundamentally important human attribute; there are other contenders, such as
consciousness, awareness of existence (Dawkins, 1998), or the presence of an unconscious
collective psyche (Jung, 1933). In the next two chapters, a case for the importance of
consciousness will be made, both in terms of what it means to be human, and in terms of the
changes that occurred during the Upper Palaeolithic transition. This will not distract from the
importance of language though, and will not serve to weaken premise i.
ii. Important aspects of the changes that occurred during the Upper Palaeolithic transition have
already been discussed. Although there is currently a rethinking of the timing and location of the
Upper Palaeolithic transition whose effect is likely to concentrate the changes into one area and
period of time, this in no way detracts from the magnitude of the changes that occurred. A number
of scholars have claimed that there is more continuity between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic
than is normally acknowledged (Bednarik, 1992; 1994: 1995 or Graves-Brown, 1991; Marshack
1997), The majority view is that in important ways, the modern human behaviour of the Upper
Palaeolithic was fundamentally and critically different from that which went before (Foley & Lahr,
1997; Klein, 1994; 1995; Mellars & Stringer, 1989b; Mithen, 1996a; Nitecki & Nitecki, 1994; Stringer
& McKie, 1996). Thus, premise ii should also be allowed to stand. It is at least as sound as
premise i.
Premise iii claims that modern language developed during the Upper Palaeolithic, and caused the
changes that occurred during it. This seems to be logical, and certainly follows neatly from the first
two premises. However, the argument on its own is probably insufficient. Why, specifically, would
language, rather than some other development, have led to the changes that occurred. In order to
justify the language hypothesis, a much more specific link between the changes in the Upper
Palaeolithic, and language, must be established.
48
There have been a number of lines of argument designed better specify the relationship. One such
approach has been formulated by Noble and Davidson (Davidson, 1991; Davidson & Noble, 1989;
1993; Noble & Davidson, 1991; 1996). It centres mainly on the idea that the most important design
feature of language is its symbolic nature. That is, that “things stand, by convention, for other
things” (Noble & Davidson, 1991 p. 226). This is unconentious, in that most attempts to define
human language, and especially the ways in which it differs from animal communication, include
this feature (Akmajian, et al, 1979; Fromkin & Rodman, 1998; Hockett, 1960). More over, there is in
the psychological literature a tendency to regard language as that attribute which gives the human
mind its symbolic status. Plaut and Karmiloff-Smith, for example, say that language “provides
particularly effective “scaffolding” for symbolic representations” (1993, p.70). In the same way,
Noble and Davidson argue that much of the Upper Palaeolithic transition can be explained in terms
of a newly acquired ability to use symbols. This too, is relatively unconentious among
archaeologists (e.g. Mellars, 1993; Mithen, 1996a; Pfeiffer, 1982; White 1989), although from the
discussion above, it will hopefully have become apparent that there is more to the Upper
Palaeolithic transition than just symbolism. They claim that the link between the changes that
occurred, and language, is symbolism. So much so, that “a search for the origins of one becomes a
search for the origins of the other” (Noble & Davidson, 1991, p. 227).
Although it would be difficult to deny the link between language and other types of symbolic
behaviour, there are at least two possible objections to the idea that developments in language, in
itself begat other symbolic expressions. The first is that while evidence of symbolism is all but
absent until the Upper Palaeolithic transition, hominids from the Middle Palaeolithic may well have
been using language. The last chapter was devoted to a defence of the gradual evolution of
language. Not merely a protolanguage – some form of vocal communication lacking in real power –
but a language with all of the modern ingredients, including syntax. To the extent that language
was present in the hominid line before other symbolic activity such as art or personal decoration,
49
language on its own cannot be sufficient to realise the symbolic status of early modern humans,
although it may well have been necessary. Accordingly, another component may have been
needed, which, when combined with language, created the symbolic species. The next chapter will
explore this notion much more fully. It will suggest that even in a language using species, further
changes would be required before language took on an executive function in the mind, and that it
was this that led to the other acts of symbolism seen in the Upper Palaeolithic transition.
The best of examples of this phenomenon – language using hominids failing to exploit the more
general benefits of symbolism – can be found in the Neanderthal Châtelperronian culture 7. At
Châtelperron in mid-France, Neanderthal fossils have been found associated with flaked stone, as
well as tools made from bone, antler, and ivory (Harrold, 1989). There are also clear signs that
Neanderthals manufactured small items for personal adornment (Farizy, 1994); a behaviour that
was previously thought to be practised only by modern humans. Neanderthals manufactured
symbolic artefacts.
It is particularly interesting – and important – to note though, that no other Neanderthal
communities have been associated with either worked bone of this sophisticated nature, or with
any items of personal decoration or art whatsoever (Lévêque et al, 1993; Zubrow, 1989). The
Châtelperronian is demonstrated clearly at the sites of Saint-Césaire (Mercier et al, 1991) and
Arcy-sur-Cure (Harrold, 1989); elsewhere more common Neanderthal culture such as the
Mousterian are all that there are (Stringer & Gamble, 1993). Furthermore, Neanderthals only
started producing Châtelperronian artefacts after anatomically modern humans have arrived in the
area. The occupation of the Châtelperronian sites is estimated at between 37,000 – 35,000 years
ago (Harrold, 1989). Evidence of an anatomically modern human presence in the area, along with
the Aurignacian industry that they brought with them, dates to around the same time (Mellars 1992;
Straus, 1993). Given this information, it appears possible that the Neanderthals were able to
7
This example works to the extent that Neanderthals were a language using population.
50
produce the artefacts that they did by imitating the modern humans with whom they came into
contact (Stringer & McKie, 1996). They saw what others were doing, and they did it themselves.
Klein believes that this explanation is tempting, but insufficient. He asks why, if the Neanderthals
were able to produce Upper Palaeolithic behaviour, did they not acculturate more widely? (Klein,
1995, p.187). The answer to his dilemma may lie in the fact that it is not the manufacture of modern
artefacts that is crucial. Rather, it is the ability to formulate the original idea to make them in the first
place, and to understand how useful symbolic artefacts could be. This is an important distinction,
and it will be discussed further in chapter five. The fact that a Neanderthal population was able to
make symbolic Upper Palaeolithic artefacts does not necessarily mean that it would have been
possible for them to invent such objects, or really grasp the nature of what they were making. Nor
does it mean that the objects of personal adornment meant the same thing to the Neanderthals as
they did do the modern humans. Perhaps the Châtelperronian industry did not spread widely within
Neanderthal populations because Neanderthals saw no reason why it should. They may have
imitated its manufacture, but they did not understand its significance. The Châtelperronian
demonstrates that Neanderthals were not aware of the power of symbolism despite the fact that
they may have been a language using species. Clearly then, language and symbolism are not
interchangeable concepts.
The second challenge to the idea that the evolution language gave rise to other symbolic
expression is methodological, and concerns causality. If one is to claim that language, having
evolved, led to other types of symbolic expression – as Noble and Davidson do – then the way in
which language is the cause, and other types of symbolic expression, such as art, and personal
decoration the consequences, has to be specified. If, on the other hand, the development of
language can be explained in terms of a more general evolution of symbolic activity, then language
51
would be relegated to the position of a spandrel (see Gould & Lewontin, 1979) or by-product, in
which case the term language hypothesis would seem an overstatement.
In fact, the scenario that Noble and Davidson propose probably concerns symbolism generally,
rather than language specifically. It begins with a notion, originally proposed by Calvin, that the
throwing of weapons may have been important for the evolution of cognition (Calvin, 1982). They
suggest that the extended arm that results from a one-handed throwing action could in itself have
signified the direction of an animal. In time, that same extension of the arm could have been
produced without actually throwing anything. This would have become pointing, and it would have
been symbolic. This would then have led to further symbolic acts, including, eventually, vocal
gestures (Noble & Davidson, 1991, p.245).
There is a certain plausibility about this scenario. Also, it is firmly and admirably (Gamble, 1998;
Mithen, 1993) rooted in daily, individual hominid subsistence patterns. Furthermore, there is more
to the argument than that presented here; throwing and pointing may also have had implications for
perception (Calvin, 1983; Noble & Davidson, 1989). However, it is a scenario for the development
of symbolism per se, rather than for language, and as such, implies that symbolism, not language,
was the driving force of change. (This sequence was also favoured by Deacon in his 1997
“Symbolic species”). What Noble & Davidson are actually arguing for then, is that it was symbolism
generally, rather than language specifically, that drove the evolution of the modern mind. It is
unclear how this provides support for the language hypothesis.
In any case, there is more to the Upper Palaeolithic transition than just symbolism. Changes in tool
manufacture, and the developments in raw material selection cannot be explained in terms of
symbolism, because tools, useful in themselves, are not required to represent anything else
(although there are certainly some examples where tools are given symbolic status through
52
additional artistic input, such as the antler spear-thrower from Mas d’Azil, in France, illustrated
above). To effect a more comprehensive explanation of the Upper Palaeolithic transition in terms of
the language hypothesis, it would be necessary to explain how advances in language led to the
non-symbolic changes that occurred in tool technology.
Such discussion of how language effected lithic manufacture has been undertaken by several
scholars (e.g. Chase, 1991; Dibble, 1989 Mellars 1989b), but has probably been championed most
forcefully by Noble and Davidson (e.g. Davidson, 1991; Davidson & Noble, 1993; Noble &
Davidson, 1991; 1996). It is a strand of their work that is independent from, although consistent
with that discussed above. They argue that it is possible to observe important changes in the tool
manufacture during the Upper Palaeolithic transition. Their most basic – and controversial – claim
is that all Lower and Middle Palaeolithic tools were made with an utter lack of pre-planning. They
claim that knappers were interested only in removing relatively small flakes from a core, rather than
fashioning the core into any particular shape. They have repeatedly charged archaeologists with
concentrating their attentions too much upon the final form of flaked stone, and of reading form into
‘tools’ that was never actually intended – a mistake they refer to as the ‘finished artefact fallacy
(e.g. Davidson, 1991, p. 41; Davidson & Noble, 1993, p. 365). Should this be correct, then attempts
to define sequences of operations, or to see syntax in lithic manufacture, would be misguided,
because the knappers would only have been interested in removing one flake at a time, and not in
what a finished product might look like. In one paper, for example, they state that
“It is our suggestion that tool making earlier than the Upper Palaeolithic can be (more
parsimoniously) understood in terms of a small number of learned motor actions, and that
the categories elaborated by archaeologists actually mask the fewer and simpler regularities
which are all we may legitimately infer” (Davidson & Noble, 1993, p. 367).
53
By contrast, tools from the Upper Palaeolithic more obviously display signs of explicit intention and
planning of the sort only available to language users (e.g. Davidson & Noble, 1993 p. 382; Noble &
Davidson 1989, p.338).
It is certainly possible to take issue with this interpretation of pre-Upper Palaeolithic stone tools.
While there can be little doubt that many flakes were produced in the ‘one-off’ manner favoured by
Noble and Davidson (individual flakes would have been quicker, and easier to manufacture), a
good number of Middle Palaeolithic handaxes display finishing of such a quality as to require intent
and planning in execution (Lewin, 1999, p. 145; Mithen 1997, p.272-3; Wynn, 1993). Indeed, to
have produced many of the better made handaxes so far discovered, like the one shown overleaf,
it would have been necessary to have removed during the end stages of production flakes so thin
that they would have been simply unusable (Jill Cook, personal communication).
Figure 6. This elegant cordate handaxe comes from Hoxne, Suffolk, England. It is about 350,000 years old. The final phase
of production would have involved removing very small, and probably unusable flakes from the very edge of the handaxe.
(From Wyner, 1982)
54
Additionally, there are at least two more general problems with the idea that the origins of language
can be discovered directly through the examination of stone tools. Firstly, some scholars have
maintained that the search for the origins and development of language in the lithic record is a very
difficult one. Graves-Brown, for example, points out that because stone tools possess neither
syntax nor semanticity, what they reveal about language will only ever be indirect (1994; 1995a;
1995b). Furthermore, although it is claimed that the development of syntax led to changes in the
mind, and perhaps even physical changes in the brain (Bickerton, 1990, p.193-196; 1995), the
precise manner in which this led to changes in tool manufacture is not always specified as fully as it
could be. Chazan, for example, conducted a recent attack on the lithic expression of linguistic
developments, and the Upper Palaeolithic transition that ensued as a result (Chazan, 1995). He
discusses the evidence for increased standardisation of tool types and efficiency of production
(measured by the relative amount of waste material) during the Upper Palaeolithic transition, and
concludes that increases are generally overstated. Interestingly, however, he warns before
proceeding with the study that “it is not clear how [efficiency] is linked to the cognitive capacity for
language” (1995, p. 750). Does it not then become less clear how his study is linked to the
expression of the cognitive capacity for language in lithic production? It is desperately important
that empirical discussions of language and the Upper Palaeolithic transition have adequate
theoretical backing (Chase 1991, Chase & Dibble, 1992, or Noble & Davidson, 1996). This may
mean that archaeologists will at times have to cross academic boundaries, and acknowledge work
from other fields of research.
Secondly, it should be remembered that language was primarily designed to communicate ideas
rather than to shape them; it was designed to be listened to. Pinker and Bloom state that:
“language contains mechanisms that presuppose the existence of a listener, such as rules
of phonology and phonetics (which map sentences onto sound patterns, enhance
confusable phonetic distinctions, disambiguate phrase structure with intonation, and so on)
55
and pragmatic devices that encode conversation topic, illocutionary force, discourse
antecedents, and so on. Furthermore, people do not express their thoughts in an arbitrary
private language (which would be sufficient for pure “expression”), but have complex
learning mechanisms that acquire a language highly similar in almost every detail to those
of other speakers of the community”. (1990, p. 715).
Language did not originally evolved as a vehicle of thought. Nor was it selected for because its
users were able to manufacture better tools. Rather it evolved because of the rich and varied
communication that it unleashed. It certainly remains possible that language, once sufficiently
developed, took on an executive, causal role in thought, allowing new types of tools to be made,
and from new materials. However, the way in which this transformation occurred is frequently
absent in discussions of the language hypothesis. Often in archaeology, language, and in
particular, syntax, are taken to have changed the nature of human cognition. This may be so.
However, the question of whether language shapes, or merely expresses thoughts, has always
been the subject of vigorous debate (Dennett, 1991; Preston, 1997 or see Carruthers & Boucher,
1996 for extensive discussion). There are a good number of researchers who suggest that
language is nothing more than a tool for communication (e.g. Pinker, 1994; Fodor, 1975; 1983). If
this was correct8, then the theoretical backing for the language hypothesis would be threatened,
and yet even the debate itself is rarely acknowledged by archaeologists. In order for the search for
the origins of the modern mind to progress, it will be necessary for archaeologists to become more
familiar with work from other academic disciplines, and acknowledge the complexity of the
relationship between language and thought. This is the subject of the next chapter.
8
It will be argued in the next chapters that it emphatically is not correct.
56
Inner speech Chapter 4
Towards the end of the last chapter, it was suggested that the changes that marked the transition
from the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic cannot simply be explained in terms of the evolution of
modern, grammatical language. Language may well have been necessary for the changes to have
occurred, but it is difficult to see how it can have been sufficient, not least because it appears to
have such a long and gradual evolutionary history. Unless the evolution of language did experience
a catastrophic development, or cross some type of threshold, it cannot be used to explain the
Upper Palaeolithic transition, because the changes that occurred there were so sudden. Moreover,
the precise means by which language and syntax especially, confer on its users the ability to
produce Upper Palaeolithic artefacts and behaviour is not always specified as fully as one might
hope.
It was therefore suggested that some further change would have had to have occurred before
language could have produced such widespread changes. The purpose of the next two chapters
will be to make the case that such a change did indeed occur. It will be suggested that the function
of language changed from merely being a tool for communicating thoughts and ideas, to actually
constructing certain types of thoughts and ideas. More specifically, hominids became able to
manipulate items of language internally using inner speech. This in turn may have led to the
development of conscious thoughts, and it is these conscious thoughts that were responsible for
the development of fully modern behaviour. This chapter will devote some time to exploring the
philosophical and psychological basis for these claims. The following chapter will present an
evolutionary scenario to accommodate these changes, and attempt to explain how they led to the
specific behavioural and cultural changes that occurred during the Upper Palaeolithic transition.
57
The idea that some aspects of consciousness are entertained in natural language 9 has recently
been developed by Peter Carruthers. It is primarily a philosophical thesis, but one which is
informed by psychological, and empirical data. The theory will be outlined in as much detail as
space allows. Should the reader require more information, then they are without hesitation directed
towards the original treatments of the thesis (Carruthers 1996; 1998a 1998b).
The thesis does not defend an a priori one relationship between conscious thoughts and language,
and it is not claimed that there is any conceptual reason why the former should require the latter
(Carruthers 1996, 9-13; 1998, 457-458). Rather, the relationship suggested is one of natural
necessary. If language does indeed play an important part in some types of conscious reasoning,
then it is because of the way that human cognition has come to be structured through evolution.
This will turn out to be an important point, and it will be returned to later in the chapter. Carruthers
claims that in order for propositional consciousness to occur, natural language must be present.
(Propositional thoughts or attitudes are usually referred to those that can be expressed using the
prefix that, for example [that theses have to be delivered on time], or [that music can soothe the
soul]). Carruthers puts it like this; “our private thoughts consist chiefly of deployments of natural
language sentences in imagination – inner thinking is mostly done in inner speech” (1996, p. 50).
There are a number of building blocks that make up this argument. Firstly, many types of thoughts,
and notably propositional ones, are expressed in sentential, rather than mental visual images
(these are the two major contenders, although some items can take on other forms, such as the
memory of a musical theme which might be represented in a non-sentential acoustic form (e.g.
Cohen, et al, 1986). It is very unlikely that the majority of thoughts do not take the form of mental
images. Although it is easy to see how at least some aspects of some words, such as cactus or
handaxe, might be expressible in a visual manner, it is much harder to see how other types of
9
Natural languages, such as English or Dutch, stand in contrast to the idea of ‘mentalese’ – an inner language of the brain
– developed by Jerry Fodor (1975). It is worth remembering that Carruthers’ theory does not specify that non-conscious
thoughts are conducted in natural language; they can still occur in mentalese.
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words might be entertained visually. Temporal words like fortnight or tomorrow, logical concepts
such as less, or and, and abstract concepts such as faith or reason appear to evade visualisation.
Furthermore, it would be extremely difficult to represent whole sentences such as; [muscadet is
normally best drunk very young, unless of course, it comes from an exceptional vintage] in a single
image. It may well be possible to form a series of distinct images, which when considered together
encompass much of the meaning that is in the sentence. However, if the relationship between the
images (as opposed to the images themselves) were to become in any way crucial to the
understanding of the series, the series would be just as much a sentence as any other.
Furthermore, Dennett has pointed out (Dennett, 1991) that images necessarily have to take a
specific form that need not feature in the sentential equivalent. Consider the sentence [I once had a
beautiful sleep on a desert island]. The sentence is deliberately vague in a number of respects. For
example, did I sleep on a hammock, on a bed of grass, or in a four-poster bed inside an
apartment? Was the island small or large? With sand? And was I alone? It is impossible to form a
clear and distinct visual image of the scenario without committing to particular answers to those,
and probably more questions. This being so, the thought about that sentence itself cannot itself be
an image, and does instead take form of a sentence.
The idea that the majority of thinking is conducting in a sentential format is itself relatively
undisputed (Davies, 1991; Dennett, 1991; Fodor, 1975; 1981; Field, 1978). The idea that those
sentences might in some instances be expressed in natural language is more controversial. The
major alternative comes from Fodor (1975), who argued that cognitive processing is conducted in
an inner language of brain known as mentalese. Carruthers, for one, argues that modern humans
think – at least consciously – in their natural language as opposed to mentalese. It is worth noting
at this point that concept of inner speech itself is well researched. It is for example, becoming an
increasingly important factor in schizophrenic research; it is thought that there are differences
between both the quality and content of inner speech in schizophrenics (e.g. Davies, et al, 1999;
59
Evans et al, 2000; Kecskemeti et al, 2000). Also, in terms of language comprehension, items of
inner speech are demonstrably employed (Baddeley & Lewis, 1981; Raynor & Pollatsek, 1989).
Baron (1973) asked subjects to decide whether sentences were meaningful or not. Meaningless
sentences were divided into two types. Half were visually and phonetically incorrect (e.g. I am kill).
The other half were visually incorrect but phonetically correct (e.g. Tie the not). Subjects made
more errors with the latter sentences, presumably because the items were being processed using
inner speech. This does not necessarily mean that conscious thinking is done in inner speech, in
the way suggested by Carruthers. What it does do however, is establish the validity of the very
concept of inner speech, and that is a very real starting point.
Carruthers supports his claim that consciousness consists of items of inner speech by appealing to
introspection. He cites a most interesting series of studies by Hurlburt (1990; 1993), dealing more
specifically with inner speech and consciousness. He gave subjects a pair of headphones, who
were instructed to wear them constantly. Every so often, and at random, the headphones would
produce a beep. Subjects were instructed to record in detail the thought that they had been having
when the beep sounded. Reports varied considerably, as one might expect, and included thoughts
with an emotional and visual content. Importantly though, most of the subjects reported that they
were experiencing inner speech during over half of the occasions when they heard a beep. In some
subjects, the figure was closer to 80%. The speech was in English, and comprehensible to the
subjects, which suggests that subjects were at least under the impression that their natural and
public language was a vehicle of their thoughts. Hurlburt's data is especially interesting because his
experiments were originally designed to investigate a quite unrelated matter. His primary interest
was in the types of thoughts experienced by normal and mentally abnormal individuals. This means
that one can be hopeful that Hurlburt did not introduce into the experiment his own personal
opinion on the relationship between thought and language; he need not even have had one.
60
To add to this data, consider the case of the bilingual speaker. When first learning a new language,
people report that they ‘think’ the sentence in their mother tongue before translating it into the new
language. There comes a point though, where the speaker feels able to ‘think’ in their new
language without first referring to their original language (Hunt & Agnoli, 1991). These people, like
Hurlburt’s subjects, must take the view that they conduct at least some of their conscious thinking
in some natural language or another (Carruthers, 1996).
Carruthers uses one further argument from introspection. He suggests that when making a
transition from a private thought to a public statement, one is not left with the feeling that the two
forms of activity are of a different kind (1996, p. 52). For example, one might have the thought that
[the fire looks like it is dying], and then suggest to one’s partner that they might be so kind as to
fetch some more logs from the store. The impression left from such a sequence (not including
allegations of laziness from the partner) is that both the thought and the verbal request that
followed were conducted in the same medium – natural language – rather than mentalese and
public language respectively. Again, this supports the suggestion that conscious thought is
conducted in natural language.
As well as the introspection data, it is actually possible to gather empirical evidence to support
Carruthers’ claims that inner speech and oral speech are the same kinds of activity. First though,
consider a theoretical precedent to the claim that is both more established, and universally
accepted. Vision, like language, is a Fodorian module (Fodor, 1983). This means that it is a
peripheral, in this case input processor. (Language is both an input and an output processor).
Being modular, the inner workings and mechanism of the visual module largely remain hidden –
inaccessible to central processes such as consciousness. However, it can be demonstrated that
parts of the visual module are used during visual imagination (Kosslyn 1994; Tie, 1991), which is a
central, rather than input process. In one study, Kosslyn et al (1993) asked subjects to close their
eyes and visually imagine uppercase letters that were either large or small. The small letters
promoted more action in the posterior portion of the visual cortex, whereas the large letters led to
61
activation more in the anterior portion. This is as it would be were the subjects to have viewed
actual letters on a screen.
The visual module can then, play an important and executive role in central and consciously led
activities, while remaining primarily a peripheral module. Is the same true of language? It makes
the same theoretical sense that central and conscious processes should be able to harness the
services of the language module to generate items of inner speech, just as they employ the visual
input module for visual imagery. There are a number of recent studies that suggest that this does
indeed happen. Verstichel et al (1997) compared inner and oral language abilities in both normal
and aphasic subjects. Quality of inner speech was assessed through a questionnaire, rhyme
judgement tasks, and a measure of the span of words that could be remembered at any one time.
Oral language ability was assessed using a standard diagnostic test. The results showed a tight
correlation between inner and oral language ability. Furthermore, inner, as well as oral speech was
notably impaired in the aphasic patients. The authors suggested that there might therefore be a
common neurological basis for oral and inner speech. However, the subjective quality of an ‘inner
voice’ varied across both groups, and was unrelated to the more objective tests of phonological
representation.
In a separate study by McGuire et al (1996), normal subjects were asked either to articulate silently
a series of sentences, or to imagine that someone was speaking those sentences to them. A PET
scan was used to identify those areas of the brain that were associated with the respective
conditions. They found that inner speech was associated with increased activity in the left inferior
frontal gyrus, an area normally used for language generation. The auditory imagination task
stimulated activity in that region, too, but was also associated with activity in the left premotor
cortex. This region is associated with normal speech perception. In this study, verbal imagery tasks
utilised the same neurological regions as did spoken language. This strongly suggests – especially
when combined with the introspection data – that parts of the language module are available to
62
consciously driven processes, and therefore suggests that not only language is useful for the
expression of thoughts, but that it is involved in the thinking itself.
However, the case is not decisive, for one could concede that people do indeed have the feeling
that their conscious thinking was conducted in natural language, and that inner speech utilised
language regions of the brain, but claim that this feeling was the result of a systematic illusion; that
the very nature of consciousness was misleading.
A subscription to Dennett's explanation of consciousness (Dennett, 1978; 1991) would allow for just
such a challenge. Dennett suggests that the function of consciousness is to confer the ability to
report on the occurrence of thoughts. Such a generation of self-report serves two purposes. It
allows individuals to share information with each other – to publicly report their mental states. It
also allows different modules in the brain to share information. Dennett’s notion of modularity
differs from that of Fodor’s (1983) in that unlike Fodor, Dennett does not believe that there exists a
central executive, where all the modular information comes together. Instead, consciousness
allows modules to share information without the need for any higher-level thoughts.
If, as Dennett suggests, the role of consciousness is partly to report currently occurring thoughts to
other individuals – a ‘print-out’ of the mind – then it must necessarily generate the reports in the
language that individuals use to communicate with each other – their public language. The
thoughts themselves would have occurred in mentalese, just as Fodor suggested (1975). Natural
language would not then play any significant role in the formation of thoughts; it would merely be
used to express them. Then, the reason why people have the feeling that they are thinking in
natural language is not that they actually are, but that in order for communication to occur, at least
some thoughts must be available for verbal report. Naturally enough, the generation of the report
might well employ the resources of a language module, which would explain the neurological
63
evidence described above. Thus, the introspection data could be explained without accepting the
idea that language is constitutionally involved in thinking.
The consequence of this challenge is this. In order to accept Carruthers’ explanation of
consciousness rather than Dennett’s, some independent reason must be found that does not rely
on the introspection, or neurological data. There are in fact several possible reasons.
The first, appealingly, is evolutionary. Dennett’s theory has some similarities with Steven Mithen’s
idea about cognitive fluidity (Mithen, 1996a), and they share in one important sense, a similar
evolutionary explanation for consciousness. Mithen suggested that there existed in the minds of
pre-modern hominids a series of essentially unrelated domains of intelligence – natural history,
technical, and social – functioning independently of each other. He argued that language, having
originally evolved in a largely social context, in time, enabled the transmission of knowledge from
one domain to another, leading to a state of cognitive fluidity, where the information could be
shared freely with other domains. Furthermore, Mithen is also sympathetic to the idea that
language is in some way related to consciousness suggesting that there is overlap between their
respective roles in human cognition. He states that
“as social language switched to a general-purpose language, individuals acquired
an increasing awareness about their own non-social world. Consciousness
adopted the role of an integrating mechanism for knowledge that had previously
been ‘trapped’ in specialised intelligence’s”. (op cit, p. 222).
Mithen’s cognitive fluidity theory, like Dennett’s theory of consciousness, does not require a
commitment to the idea that language plays an executive role in the formation of thoughts, merely
that its is used for the communication of thoughts (or knowledge).
64
However, there are very important differences between the two scholars’ conception of
consciousness that makes the otherwise attractive similarity between their ideas philosophically
dangerous. Unlike, Dennett, Mithen subscribes to the reflexive theory of consciousness (e.g.
1996a, pp. 166-170), according to which a conscious thought or experience is one which can be
made available to further meta-thought, which is itself available to further thought, and so on. (This
is also referred to as the higher-order conception of consciousness because of the way in which it
consists of thoughts about thoughts or perceptions.) According to this view, consciousness itself
provides a powerful problem solving tool, and gives rise to an inherent flexibility of thought (e.g.
Carruthers, 1996, p. 200). According to Dennett, consciousness serves only to report thoughts
from one functional brain faculty to another, or between individuals; it has no problem-solving
power itself.
Carruthers’, like Mithen, suggests that consciousness is reflexive, and that it would itself have
conferred a powerful adaptive benefit, rather than merely allowing existing brain modules to
function more effectively (1996a, p. 200). Now, Natural selection works by retaining advantageous
adaptations. The more that adaptive advantage can be associated with an adaptation, the more
sound the evolutionary scenario for the development of that adaptation becomes. If all else is held
equal, one would prefer that evolutionary explanation which conferred more adaptive advantage
than its competitors. Since Carruthers’ and Mithen’s explanation of consciousness involves an
adaptive advantage inherent to consciousness itself, whereas Dennett’s does not, there may be
grounds for preferring Carruthers’ theory do Dennett’s. (If all else is held equal).
A second and related reason why one might prefer Carruthers’ theory to Dennett’s is that, were
Dennett’s theory correct, one might expect a different phenomenological feel to consciousness
than what one actually gets. If one major function of consciousness is to provide one module
information concerning the activity of another, one might expect to experience items of thought that
reflected the probing of one module of the brain by another. Carruthers suggests that this might
65
take the form of a series of questions and answers (1996, p. 192). However, at least sometimes, it
is possible to engage conscious thinking in a specific task, such as the solving of some piece of
practical reasoning. This has a distinctly unified phenomenological feel that would be difficult to
explain were consciousness simultaneously subservient to a number of different modules, rather
than one single executive.
One last reason for preferring Carruthers’ explanation of consciousness to Dennett’s has do to with
the explanatory power that the respective theories provide. It was mentioned at the beginning of
the chapter that Carruthers argues that the relationship between language and consciousness had
come about only because of the particular path that human evolution took. That is, the relationship
is of a natural, rather than conceptual necessity. No claim was made of an a priori relationship
between language and conscious thought. Instead, a thought was defined as conscious if it can be
made available to further meta-thought (1996, ch. 6-7). Recalling Dennett’s theory however, a
thought may be defined a conscious if it is available to linguistic report. This means that
consciousness is related to language in a definitional sense. As a consequence of this, there can
be no consciousness without language.
Carruthers provides an imaginary example, due to Stalnaker (1984), and originally to Kirk (1967),
that calls this idea in to question. The scenario is of an intelligent species of life on a distant, but
hospitable planet. The species is extremely long lived, having many opportunities to acquire
knowledge. Partly because conditions are good, subsistence is not difficult, and the species have
evolved in an asocial manner, meeting only rarely, to mate. However, it is possible to observe the
individual creatures engaging in what look like scientific experiments, and making successive
improvements on its technology. In such a case, one might wish to ascribe to the creatures
conscious thought; they are very intelligent, and display in some senses human-like behaviour. But
they do not possess anything like a language.
66
If Dennett’s view of consciousness is correct, then one would be forced to deny that the creatures
were conscious, whereas according to a reflexive theory of consciousness, such as Carruthers’
however, one could accept that these creatures were indeed conscious, despite the fact that they
did not posses language. Dennett’s stronger claims about the relationship between language and
consciousness are in this imaginary example limiting. This may well be an advantage to
Carruthers.
Unfortunately, it is well beyond the scope of this thesis to try to present a more detailed
philosophical defence of Carruther’s theory over Dennett’s. The debate between supporters of
Dennett and those of Carruthers is likely to travel for some time. Hopefully though, it will have
become clear that it may become possible to distinguish between the two theories, not least in
terms of the differing empirical predictions that they might make. Perhaps further analysis of the
nature of inner speech of individuals with schizophrenia will provide some clues as to the role of
inner speech in consciousness as well as to the nature of the disease. Or perhaps there will be a
development in the ability to capture the subjective nature of inner speech in a more objective
manner, so that its purpose might be examined. In the meanwhile, it would be most interesting to
try to construct an evolutionary scenario for the relationship between language and consciousness
that Carruther’s suggests. Not only would this provide an illustration as to the potential usefulness
of bringing contemporary philosophical theory to bear upon archaeological issues, but if a coherent
scenario can be offered that sits in harmony with the archaeological data, then this would in itself
provide a reason for preferring Carruther’s theory over Dennett’s.
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Drawing things together Chapter 5
Inner speech and the Upper Palaeolithic transition
The main purpose of this final chapter is to bring together the ideas outlined in the previous three
chapters. It is hoped that when combined, they will offer a coherent account of the origin of the
modern human mind, and the behaviour that it produced. In chapter two, a case was made for the
gradual evolution of language. It was suggested that in contrast to the catastrophic emergence of
language to which some subscribe (Bickerton, 1995; Noble & Davidson, 1996), the development of
modern language may have begun as early as two million years ago. Furthermore, it was
suggested that if there is reason to believe that lexical development had a long and gradual
evolutionary path, then there is also reason to believe that the evolution of syntax would have
followed a similar trajectory. That is, as hominids developed an increasing range of words or
vocalisations, they developed a corresponding ability to order those words in a meaningful fashion.
Importantly, it was argued that the evolution of language was a process that would have been
completed well before the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition. In chapter three, the significance
and validity of the concept of an Upper Palaeolithic transition was defended, and it was also noted
that the transition has often been explained in terms of linguistic, and specifically grammatical
development.
One way of resolving this apparent paradox is to suggest that language was a necessary, but not
sufficient to explain the Upper Palaeolithic transition. That is, the production of the modern human
behaviour that is found thereafter would not have occurred were it not for the development of
language, but that alone, language would have been insufficient to explain the changes that
occurred. Some further change must then have occurred in the hominid mind that would have
made it behaviourally modern. The previous chapter proposed that modern humans are able to
think in language, and to manipulate items of inner speech in a conscious fashion. It is now
68
proposed that the development of this ability prompted the Upper Palaeolithic transition. Expressed
in its most basic form, Upper Palaeolithic hominids was able to use items of conscious inner
speech, whereas Middle Palaeolithic hominids – including the Neanderthals – were not.
The first task involved in building such a scenario is to reflect upon what the more important
elements of the evolved human might have been. There are at least four such ingredients. Firstly,
and perhaps most obviously, such a system would have required language. If consciousness
thinking consists of items of inner speech, then clearly, language is an important requirement of the
system. Furthermore, the language would have needed to have been sufficiently powerful (that is
to say grammatical) to accommodate the wealth of possible propositional thoughts available to the
thinker. Since it has been the contention of this thesis that the origins of grammar are almost as old
as the origins of vocabulary, this should not pose any kind of problem.
A second element would have been the ability to manipulate visual images in the imagination. It
was noted in the previous chapter that the theoretical basis for visual imagery and imagined
speech was the same – the internal employment of a Fodorian module for some centrally driven
task. Logically, it could have been that visual imagery was made possible at the same time as inner
speech. However, the fact that hominids had for some time demonstrated a proficiency in the
manufacture of stone tools makes this unlikely. The majority of scholars accept that the
manufacture of at least the later and more intricately fashioned handaxes would have required an
idea, or template, of what the finished tool might look like, not least so that the symmetry so
characteristic of handaxes, could be imposed (Kohn & Mithen, 1999; Lewin, 1999, p. 145, Mithen
1996, p.132-136; 1997, Wynn, 1993; although see Davidson & Noble, 1993). This being so, part of
the process would have involved comparing the current state of the soon-to-be tool with an internal
image of the finished product, presumably with the aim of reducing the discrepancy between the
two. So, visual imagery was in place well before the Upper Palaeolithic transition. This is important
69
because it shows that the same kind of architecture that would be required for inner speech, was
well established in the hominid lineage, and had been for some time.
The development of the third element – a change that would allow the entertainment of inner
language – then, would have followed naturally from the previous one. It is the same type of
change. Moreover, as hominid language became more and more complex, the potential utility of
being able to manipulate items of inner speech would have increased. This is not to say that the
change happened immediately, and that even the first language users enjoyed inner speech. In
fact, remembering that language displays strong signs of having evolved for person-to-person
communication only (e.g. Pinker & Bloom’s 1990), it is most likely that they did not. For this reason,
it is suggested that the employment of items of inner speech would have occurred at some point
succeeding the evolution of modern language, but preceding the speciation of anatomically modern
humans.
It might seem strange that the use of inner language did not happen early on in the development of
language, given its potential reproductive advantage. However, it should be remembered that
humans were not designed; they evolved. Even changes that might seem overwhelmingly likely
must result from random mutation. Advantageous mutations, even given the benefit that they might
confer, are no more likely to occur than are detrimental changes (Dawkins, 1986). They are
certainly much more likely to be selected for once they do find their way into the gene pool, but that
is not the same thing at all.
Those are the three most obvious elements, but they are not the only ones. One final change to the
system would have been required. Carruthers states that;
“merely using imagination to represent natural-language sentences, in such a way that
those imaginings were then made available to the same imaging faculty, would not have
been enough to give those imagined sentences the status of thoughts. In order for this to
70
happen, those imaginings would need to have usurped (at least partly) the higher cognitive
functions of planning and decision making previously undertaken at some other level of the
mind, using some other mode of representation” (1996, p. 234).
This is in fact, less complicated than it sounds! What this essentially means is that in order for inner
speech to have become useful, it would have had to have been given power over actions. It would
have had to taken on an executive function, capable of modifying behaviour. This is the final
change that would have given conscious inner speech its problem-solving power, its archaeological
visibility, and its all important reproductive advantage.
It will not perhaps be surprising to the reader when it is suggested that this final change occurred at
some time between 130,000 and 100,000 years ago, and that it occurred somewhere in sub-
Saharan Africa. The current rethinking of the timing of the origins of modern human behaviour
explained in chapter three, means that such a change could have occurred concurrently with the
development of anatomically modern humans, and at a time when the morphology of the brain was
still changing (Klein, 1989; Singer & Wymer, 1982). This means that human populations in
Southern Africa at around 100,000 years ago would have been the first people to enjoy conscious,
reflexive thought.
But where is the evidence of such a dramatic change? The archaeological record of the area at
that time displays a notable lack of modern artefacts. As Shennan demonstrates (Shennan, 2001),
because human groups would have been very small at that time, the modern behaviour that may
well have occurred would not become established in the population as a whole, because there
would not have been enough individuals to imitate the behaviour. Modern innovation would have
been untraceable in archaeological terms until population densities rose to a sufficient level. Once
population sizes did become large enough to sustain the transmission, modern behaviour began to
leave its mark in the archaeological record. The record displays a number of changes, which were
described in chapter three. It only remains now to explain more specifically, how the development
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of conscious inner speech brought about the changes that are found. How, for example, did the
use of inner speech lead to the employment of new types of raw material, to other types of
innovation, or to personal adornment, or symbolic art?
Consider the selection of new raw materials and the subsequent employment of a suitable method
of production. Recalling from chapter three, hominids before the transition worked almost
exclusively with stone tools. In those few occasions where other mediums were used, the
manufacturing process was not altered to fully utilise the differences in material; it was worked as if
it was stone. Behaviourally modern humans were able not only to use a variety of raw materials,
but to tailor-make the manufacturing process to suit the specific material (Mellars, 1989a). An
explanation for this in terms of inner speech lies in the type of thought that would have directly
preceded the use of a substitute material. Some thought along these lines would have been
required; [if I was to choose this alternative material, and fashion it along these alternative lines,
then I might be able to make a different, and more productive tool], or, [the accomplishment of this
task would be easier if I had a tool that was thinner / sharper / more flexible / less flexible. I fancy
that I could produce just such a tool were I to fashion it from this material rather than that one].
Thoughts of this type are necessarily conscious, and they are necessarily sentential in structure
(recalling from the last chapter the difficulty of representing complex thoughts of this nature in a
visual image). Such a thought is only possible in inner speech, and the occurrence of some thought
alone these lines makes the employment of both a new raw material and a modification of the
production method much more likely indeed. Furthermore, such an occurrence of inner speech
would only have resulted in the production of an appropriate action if it commanded enough
executive status to change behaviour. Modern humans alone are able first to think about how
things might be different, (Bickerton, 1995; Carruthers, in press; Harris, 2000), and then to make
behavioural changes to bring about an improvement in circumstances. According to Carruthers,
these types of thoughts occur in, and only in, inner speech.
72
Modern humans with conscious inner speech would also have been the first to comprehend the
general importance of symbolism. They were not the first to use symbolism, because language is
itself a symbolic code. However, inner speech would have enabled individuals to think about things
in a new way. Unfortunately, a comprehensive specification of the nature of the relationship
between symbolism and inner speech is probably outside the reach of this thesis, and must await
further work. However, the way in which inner speech promotes understanding can be made more
clear by considering how the use of visual images do not lead to such an understanding. Visual
images are at most indexical representations. In order to be useful, the inner image of, say, a
handaxe, must approximate what a handaxe actually looks like. It can then be manipulated as if it
were the actual handaxe. By contrast, inner speech does not have to resemble anything at all, and
can be manipulated to almost any end. And once inner speech was given the executive power to
alter behaviour, physical deployments of symbolism such items of personal adornment, art, and
burial with grave goods, could then have been produced. It is not language per se, but conscious
language that makes the symbolic species.
As a final illustration of how inner speech would have changed the nature of thought, consider the
following passage, which describes a modern employment of inner speech:
A lady was hurrying along a road, late for some meeting, when one of her shoelaces came
undone. She noticed it because she almost tripped. Still thinking of what she would say at
the meeting, she bent down, and retied the shoelace. The meeting went on a long time.
After it had finished, she hurried back, anxious that she was to walk her dog before it got
dark. Again, she noticed that her shoelace had come untied, and bent down to retie it.
Having collected her dog, she set out once again, this time at a more leisurely,
contemplative pace. When her shoelace came untied yet again, she had time to consider
the situation. She immediately recalled numerous occasions when she had had to retie this
particular pair of shoelaces. She also noticed that the laces on these shoes were much
smoother than on her other pairs; they were bound to come undone. “What if I was to tie
73
them in a double knot this time”, she thought. “That would solve the problem”. And it did, the
laces stayed tied.
Actually, both solutions – retying the shoe in her normal fashion, or making improvements on the
knot – solved the problem in their own way. But the latter was obviously a better solution, because
the investment was smaller, and the rewards greater. However, what really differentiated the two,
was that latter solution was a conscious one involving inner speech, whereas the former was not.
In the former solution, her mind had been on other things, and she simply acted as she had acted
in the past. It was only when conscious, problem-solving thought was made available to the
situation, that a solution that better matched the problem was reached.
Now consider the pre-historic and far better example of handaxe production. Handaxes were made
in broadly the same way for around two million years. Hominids manufactured handaxes in a
monotonous fashion (Farizy, 1994, p. 97). This activity would hardly have required inner speech.
There certainly was some variation in tool types – Middle Palaeolithic blades, for example, are
testimony to that (Cook, 1986). However, with the Upper Palaeolithic, there arrived innovation and
problem solving of a type that would far more have required conscious thought than what had gone
previously. It is possible to argue that it is this that led to the production of new, and more
advanced tools.
It needs to be made clear at this point that the issue is not that modern humans were more skilled
tool-makers than were the other hominid species. Other hominid species were indeed very skilled
tool manufacturers (Hayden, 1993), as figure six of chapter three helped to illustrate. But being a
skilled maker is not the same thing as being an innovator of new tools. Manual dexterity and tool
production are not necessarily related to the skills involved, say, in creating new types of tools, or in
working with new raw material. In fact, it is not immediately clear that tool manufacture – the actual
process of knapping – is at all aided by the use of inner speech; the ability to conceive of new types
74
of tools, or of new methods of manufacture is a conscious process, but the subsequent execution
of the new thoughts may not be. There is psychological evidence that suggests that awareness is
not always necessary for the execution of certain tasks (Berry & Broadbent, 1984; Hayes &
Broadbent, 1988), including those involving motor-skills (Butters et al, 1990). Neither is it required
for access to some types of memory (Reber, 1967; McGeorge & Burton, 1990). In some situations,
task performance far outstrips the ability to verbally explain – even in inner language – the basis of
the performance (Higham & Brooks, 1997; Kushner, Cleermans, & Reber, 1991). It would certainly
be very interesting to investigate the role of inner speech in the production of stone tools – to study
the types of conscious thoughts that are experienced by modern day stone knappers when they
are engaged in production. The point here though, is that if modern humans were better able to
innovate new tools, then that represents only one small part of the overall process of tool
production. The Neanderthals may well, in other respects, have been more similar to modern
humans (Mellars, 1996; Stringer & Mellars, 1993; Stringer & McKie, 1996).
It is claimed in this thesis that modern humans possessed reflexive consciousness whereas other
hominid species did not. But that is all that is claimed. No reason has been advanced that would
suggest that there are any other differences between modern humans and their ancestors.
Hopefully, it will have been seen, not least from the modern scenario related above, that there are
elements of modern human information processing that do not make use of inner speech.
Moreover, up until the age of six or seven, children do not even recognise that such a thing even
exists, and are sure that they do not use it themselves (Flavell et al, 1997). In fact, the way in which
inner speech develops in the child could well provide illumination of how that process occurred at a
phylogenic level, and could be a fruitful source of further research.
The fact that not all human processing occurs at a conscious level is interesting not just because it
suggests that modern humans are not so very different from their ancestors. It also helps to explain
why it is possible for some individuals without language to successfully undertake at least some
75
types of information processing (e.g. Varley & Segal, 2000). It should be remembered that
Carruthers has not claimed that language is required for all cognitive processing, only for that
which is conscious.
Discussion
One of the most attractive features of this suggestion is that all aspects of the Upper Palaeolithic
transition can be explained in terms of one single change in the mind – the development of inner,
conscious speech. Quite how it led to the some of the specific behavioural changes that it did was
discussed above, but the fact that the changes appeared to relatively suddenly means that it is
important to consider individual changes in their proper context – as part of a sweeping collection
of other changes. The evolution of consciousness provides a global explanation for the Upper
Palaeolithic transition.
By way of contrast, consider Binford’s charge that Upper Palaeolithic humans behaved differently
because they were better able to exercise long term planning (e.g. Binford, 1984; 1985; 1989). He
noted that the Middle Stone age Klasis River Mouth site for example, meat was often scavenged
from small animals, and tended to be consumed where it had been found. He argued that this
showed lack of foresight, and that hominids with more planning would have acquired meat from
larger animals, and brought the food back to a base so that it could be shared with other members
of the group (1984)10. Modern humans, on the other hand, often act with their future needs in mind.
They transport food over large distances, process it, and store it for eating at some later time
(Binford, 1978).
It is more than likely that humans from the Upper Palaeolithic did command more foresight than
their Middle Palaeolithic ancestors, that they were able to plan further into the future, and for a
wider range of contingencies (although see Chase, 1989). Binford may well have been correct. But
10
This illustration does not really depend upon the validity of Binford’s argument. It is detailed so as to convey the level of
explanation that Binford sought to provide.
76
surely, an advance in the level of foresight cannot be used to explain everything about the Upper
Palaeolithic transition. Nor was not designed to do so. It says little, for example, about the
diversification of tools, and even less about the origins of symbolic behaviour. For the wealth other
behavioural changes that occurred, an independent explanation must be found.
It is important to see that the contention of this thesis is not in competition with suggestions such as
Binford’s. They are complimentary. For example, one might wish to how it was that Upper
Palaeolithic humans came to be better planners than their ancestors. What it was that gave them
that ability? To answer that question, one would have to more towards a more global type of
explanation, such as the one that has been offered in this thesis. Then, the ability to entertain
conscious thoughts, and to consider items of inner speech, may in turn have promoted more
detailed planning. Indeed, quintessentially conscious thoughts such as [what if we were to prepare
fishing equipment today, so that when the fish come to our part of the river a few days time, there
will be less of a rush] could well have led to more advanced planning. It is hoped that such global
theories will provide scope for increased integration within prehistoric archaeological theory. The
application of philosophical work within the search for human origins depends directly upon the
extent to which it can engage not only with the data that exists in the archaeological record, but
with the theoretical work that has already been produced.
The contention of this thesis must not only be assessed in terms of the archaeological record
however, it must also answer to future work within the philosophical and psychological disciplines.
For example, its theoretical basis very much depends upon Carruthers’ theory of consciousness,
and this may in the future be either supported, or rejected. This is an advantage because it means
that the thesis is readily falsifiable. For example, were it to be found that language was not after all
implicated in the formation of thoughts, and that it existed merely as a communicative tool, then
there would be good grounds for rejecting the contention of this thesis.
77
In a related issue, given that one of the general stated aims of this thesis was to draw upon
contemporary study of the human mind to inform an archaeological problem, it is perhaps
unfortunate that little has been said about the neurological basis for the changes that may have
occurred. This is partly because it is very difficult to say anything substantial about the neurological
correlates of inner speech and consciousness in modern humans today, although good attempts
have certainly been made (Bogen, 1995; Crick, 1995; Hameroff, Kaszniak, & Scott, 1998;
Hameroff, Kaszniak, & Chalmers, 1999, esp. part 3; Popper & Eccles, 1977, chapters E4 & E7).
Moreover, chapter two will hopefully have illustrated how difficult is has been to identify the
beginnings of spoken language in the fossil record. The difficulties then, which would be associated
with a search for the beginnings in inner, unspoken speech, would surely be substantial.
In a more positive vein, however, the theory advanced in this thesis is cognitive in nature, and like
other such theories, it operates on a functional, rather than physical level. There are cognitive
models for an impressive variety of fields of psychological enquiry, including memory (Atkinson &
Shiffrin, 1971; Cohen et al, 1986), attention (Norman, 1976), coping with illness, (e.g. Leventhal, in
Pimm & Weinman, 1998), and even problem gambling (Sharpe & Tarrier, 1993). None of these
models are necessarily concerned with physical processes in the brain. Similarly, the model of
inner speech presented in this thesis, and reflections on how it might have evolved, deal more with
information processing than biological processes. Although it does not deny that inner speech must
be associated with underlying neurological processes of some kind, it does not depend upon their
discovery for its survival.
Another possible criticism of this thesis comes from apparent instances of modern behaviour seen
before the Upper Palaeolithic. There are two good examples. The first comes from Köhler (1925),
who showed that chimpanzees could under certain conditions demonstrate problem-solving skills
that appear to result from insight. Since, it is maintained that only modern humans use conscious
inner speech (e.g. Carruthers 1996, p.16-18), chimpanzee insight learning must be explained in
78
other terms. The second are the wooden spears from Schöningen, which date to around 400,000
years old (Thieme, 1997). In both cases, behaviour that appears to be modern occurred
significantly before the suggested origins of conscious inner speech.
One response to these challenges is to note that they are relatively isolated examples. Subsequent
replications of Köhler’s studies have been unsuccessful (Birch, 1945), and the spears from
Schöningen are interesting precisely because they are so unique. In the case of Köhler, Carruthers
suggests that visual, rather than linguistic imagination, would have been sufficient to produce
insight (1996, p.231). Similarly, Deacon suggests that the type of task that Köhler used would have
required “visual recoding” rather than “symbolic recoding” (1997, p.79). Furthermore, the
chimpanzees’ prior training was not fully specified (Gross, 1996), which means that they might
have had the opportunity to become very familiar with the circumstances and objects in Köhler’s
problems, if not the actual solutions. Even with basic stimulus and response training, animals can
learn to perform seemingly complex patterns of behaviour (Epstein et al, 1980; Skinner, 1938).
It is unclear though, how much these comments apply to what happened at Schöningen. Perhaps
the most honest approach would be to recognise that it is a genuinely interesting instance of early
modern behaviour. One of the main aims of this thesis has been to explain the Upper Palaeolithic
transition in terms of the origins of conscious inner speech. More space was therefore given to
describing how inner speech gives rise to modern behaviour, than to how a lack of inner speech
prohibits modern behaviour. It is hoped that further work will be able to recognise this important
difference in emphasis, and that there can be a more extended discussion the type of behaviour
and lifestyle that might be expected from hominids who did not possess conscious inner speech.
The notion that anatomically modern humans possessed reflexive consciousness, whereas other
hominid species – including the Neanderthals – did not, will probably find objection with some
readers. It has been suggested that any talk of a superiority of modern humans of the
79
Neanderthals, particularly in relation to the Neanderthal extinction, derives in part from the
“inescapable prejudice” that is the heritage of Western science (Graves-Brown, 1991, p. 524). But it
important to realise that suggesting that there were differences – important differences – between
the Neanderthals and modern humans is not the same as saying that modern humans are better
than, or more sophisticated than the Neanderthals. Note that the question of Neanderthal extinction
has not been addressed in this thesis. It may be that the increased problem-solving skills, the
symbolic activity, and the capacity to innovate have given modern humans an evolutionary
advantage. But it may be that they have not. As the evolutionary biologist Futuyama points out;
“To say that the trend of evolution has been toward greater consciousness as exemplified
by the human species, is to ignore the thousand of lineages of plants and animals that have
not evolved at all in the direction of greater consciousness...insects and molluscs are far
more “successful” and abundant than the mammals, but they show no movement towards
greater consciousness.” (1995, p.208).
Concluding remark
The two main aims of this thesis were to offer a resolution to the language paradox in human
origins, and in doing so, demonstrate the appeal of interdisciplinary research. Hopefully, it will have
shown that it is possible to accept that language evolved gradually, whilst at the same time
acknowledging the fundamental importance of language in terms of the origin modern human
cognition and behaviour, which was itself far from gradual. Archaeological work will almost certainly
benefit from further engagement with the contemporary study of the mind, and it is hoped that
some suggestions have been given for ways in which further interdisciplinary work might proceed.
The fact that Carruthers’ philosophical work can be used to make some sense of the changes that
occurred during the Upper Palaeolithic transition, makes his theory much more attractive. At least
some forms of philosophical and psychological theory become stronger when they seek empirical,
and not least archaeological data for support. It is only hoped that the compliment can be extended
the other way around.
80
81
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A Resolution To The Language Paradox

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A resolution to the language paradox Toby M Pearce

recent and catastrophic emergence.

to encourage work of a purely scholarly, rather than vocational nature.

2. The case for continuity................................................................................................................... 9

2.1 Fossil evidence............................................................................................................................... 9

2.2 Primate language......................................................................................................................... 14

2.3 The social origins of language...................................................................................................... 16 ,

2.4 The evolution of grammar.............................................................................................................21

3. The case for sudden change........................................................................................................ 30

3.2 The origin of anatomically modern humans.......................................................................... 31

3.4 The Upper Palaeolithic transition......................................................................................... 37 ,

3.5 Language and the Upper Palaeolithic transition.................................................................... 46 ,

5. Drawing things together................................................................................................................ 69

5.1 Inner speech and the Upper Palaeolithic transition................................................................ 69 ,

5.3 Concluding remark............................................................................................................ 81

terms of the development of modern language.

archaeologists from contributing to the debate as well as learning from it.

In attempting to support the idea of an Upper Palaeolithic transition, it will hopefully be

anatomically modern humans a behaviourally modern status.

The Case for Continuity Chapter 2

Figure 1: An illustration of some of the more important brain regions.

Note Broca’s area, to the left of the illustration.

(Calvin & Gemann, 1994)

turn limits both the effectiveness and sophistication of speech.

nerve that it houses2.

unreliable indicator of language evolution.

et al’s paper; it had not been published.

from hominid anatomical evidence. In a typical passage, they state that

“present-day knowledge concerning biological irreducibles such as the presence of a hyoid

change” (Noble & Davidson 1991, p. 238).

of having an anatomically modern throat?

the Upper Palaeolithic transition – it would be necessary to provide complimentary types of

Kanzi, trained by Savage-Rumbaugh and colleagues (Savage-Rumbaugh et al 1993). Kanzi’s most

elementary grasp of syntax.

words (Talmy, 1988, cited in Kako, 1999, p.4):

“A rustler lassoed the steers.

evolution of language was gradual.

The social origins of language

necessary to keep a large group together.

much bigger than were those of other primates.

similar constraints to primate group sizes.

Dunbar’s methodology, it would be necessary to demonstrate that as evolution took place,

argument would come from.

This kind of socially cohesive gossip, he says is akin to

grooming. By providing us with a non-aggressive social preoccupation, it enables

us to expose ourselves communally to one another over comparatively long

strengthened”. (Morris, 1967, p. 204).

language for social interaction every bit as much as modern humans.

The evolution of grammar

and if they did, just how complicated was it?

thought of as having evolved gradually if it came as a total, indivisible package.

members of its species that did not.

have served this purpose.

those words (see Bickerton, 1990).

Figure 2 shows the typical sequence of language development.

demonstrated a more comprehensive grasp of grammar. This information appears overleaf in

figure 3, graphically illustrating the closeness of the relationship. It is supported by a longitudinal

infants make use of words from different grammatical classes.

(From Bates & Goodman, 1997)

late-talkers to display a delayed grammatical understanding as well as a delayed vocabulary size.

was matched in a commensurate fashion by grammatical advances (Thal et al, 1996).

In contrast to Williams syndrome, language development in those with Downs syndrome is

syndrome to construct grammatically meaningful sentences. This is presumably an empirically