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Constraining the Time When Language Evolved
Abstract
The precise timing of the emergence of language in human prehistory cannot be resolved. But the available evidence is sufficient to constrain it to some degree. This is a review and synthesis of the available evidence, leading to the conclusion that the time when speech in some form became important for our ancestors can be constrained to be not less than 400,000 years ago, thus excluding several popular theories involving a late transition to speech.
... Further criticism can be made about an extremely late discreet genetic event when considering extant human populations. The Andaman islanders appear to have been genetically isolated for 65,000 years (Johansson 2011), and have a full capacity for language, highlighting the exclusive nature of a 50-40kya genetic event, and perhaps its grounding in eurocentric sampling. Even the revised date (100kya) used by Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002) and Bolhuis et al. (2014) is misrepresentative of the wider archaeological record (McBrearty & Brooks 2000, McBrearty 2007). ...
... D'Anastasio et al. analyse the internal architectures and micro-biomechanical behaviours of the Kebara hyoid in order to assess evidence for bone remodelling, which would indicate forces applied to the bone and its mechanical performance. While many attribute the overall similarity of the Kebara 2 hyoid and modern human hyoids as a Neanderthal capacity for speech and language (Arensburg et al. 1989Arensburg et al. , 1990), this position is widely contested and remains a contentious platform (Lieberman et al. 1992, Bolhuis et al. 2014 Johansson 2011). The shape and surface dimensions of the bone allow for a shallow understanding of its evolutionary function, which makes the D'Anastasio et al. study particularly advantageous to the further study of hyoid function in extinct hominins. ...
... While establishing a symbolic referential relationship is still challenging with many Upper Palaeolithic (or indeed later) artefacts, the problem is most pronounced in these earlier timeframes. Even though a number of language evolution researchers maintain that language's origins lie hundreds of thousands of years further back in time than these earliest symbolic artefacts suggest (Aiello and Dunbar, 1993;Bickerton, 2009;Corballis, 2011;Johansson, 2011;Dediu and Levinson, 2013;Lieberman, 2015;Everett, 2017), this symbolically focused paradigm for understanding language emergence is always doomed to stade Language Dynamics and Change 10 (2020) 59-85 Henshilwood et al., 2001). This interpretation has been criticized, in addition to Wynn and Coolidge (2010), by Botha (2008Botha ( , 2010, who takes the specific case of pierced shells from Blombos Cave, South Africa (Henshilwood et al., 2004;Henshilwood and Dubrueil, 2011). ...
Symbolic artefacts have long been archaeology’s primary contribution to tracing the origin and subsequent development of human language. But the identification and interpretation of symbolic behaviour poses numerous interpretive problems, particularly before the Upper Palaeolithic where clearly referential forms of symbolic material are rare. As an alternative, theory of mind is presented here, detailing its intimate relationship with language and likely coevolution, alongside the factors which make it a more effective proxy. As a cognitive ability that grades in complexity and predicts linguistic skill in modern cognition, theory of mind also has the potential to denote specific syntactic and semantic features of language such as word reference, mental state verbs and complementation. The potential to detect theory of mind in the archaeological record is considered here, such as within the cultural transmission of stone tool technology and forms of complex social learning like imitation and teaching in early hominin technologies.
... Bu çizginin son halkası olan modern insan ise-biyolojik adı Homo sapiens-150-200 bin yıl kadar önceye tarihlendirilmektedir. Moleküler veriler de tüm insanlığın ortak atasının 100-200 bin yıl öncesi yaşadığı verisini destekler (Johansson 2011). ...
z: Dilin kökeni pek çok bilim dalı tarafından incelenmektedir. Dilbilimcilerin bu konuya olan ilgisi 1990 sonrasında daha da artmıştır. Bu çalışmada dilin kökeniyle ilgili tartışmalar ele alınmaktadır. İlk olarak Türkiye'deki ve dünyadaki dilin kökeni ile ilgili spekülasyona dayalı görüşlerin tarihi kısaca değerlendirilmiştir. Daha sonra son yıllardaki bilimsel yayınlarda yapılan tartışmalarda temeli oluşturan karşıtlıklar sunulmuştur. Ayrıca dilin ortaya çıkmasıyla ilgili hipotezler de kısaca tanıtılmıştır. Çalışma sonunda tartışmalardan yola çıkılarak alana ilgi duyacak araştırmacılar için bazı önerilerde bulunulmuştur. Anahtar kelimeler: Dilin kökeni, dilin evrimi, dilin evrimiyle ilgili tartışmalar Abstract: The origin of language is studied by many disciplines. In the early 1990s, there has been an increase in studies on language evolution. In this study, controversies about the origin of language are discussed. First, various opinions based on the speculation about the origin of language are evaluated. Then the oppositions forming the basis of discussions emerged recently in scientific publications are presented. In addition, hypotheses about the emergence of language are briefly introduced. Consequently, some suggestions are made for the researchers who will be interested in language evolution.
... These and other similar finds lend substantial support to the theory of progressive development of symbolic behavior and complex imagery along with the evolution of modern human anatomy (Barnard 2012;Conard 2010;Deino and McBrearty 2002;d'Errico and Stringer 2011;McBrearty and Brooks 2000;Zilhão 2007). Pleistocene hunter-gatherers would most likely have possessed both the cognitive and communicative skills to share religious beliefs and practices prior to dispersal out of Africa more than 60 kya (Fu et al. 2013;Henn et al. 2012;Johansson 2011;Lind et al. 2013). Although present-day hunter-gatherers are not direct analogues of those early societies and may not be direct, unbroken descendants of ancestral hunter-gatherers, they can provide a window onto traits selected for in the Pleistocene (Marlowe 2005), including traits of early religion. ...
Recent studies of the evolution of religion have revealed the cognitive underpinnings of belief in supernatural agents, the role of ritual in promoting cooperation, and the contribution of morally punishing high gods to the growth and stabilization of human society. The universality of religion across human society points to a deep evolutionary past. However, specific traits of nascent religiosity, and the sequence in which they emerged, have remained unknown. Here we reconstruct the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors in early modern humans using a global sample of hunter-gatherers and seven traits describing hunter-gatherer religiosity: animism, belief in an afterlife, shamanism, ancestor worship, high gods, and worship of ancestors or high gods who are active in human affairs. We reconstruct ancestral character states using a time-calibrated supertree based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification and then test for correlated evolution between the characters and for the direction of cultural change. Results indicate that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism, in agreement with long-standing beliefs about the fundamental role of this trait. Belief in an afterlife emerged, followed by shamanism and ancestor worship. Ancestor spirits or high gods who are active in human affairs were absent in early humans, suggesting a deep history for the egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies. There is a significant positive relationship between most characters investigated, but the trait "high gods" stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion.
Drawing on convergent work in a broad range of disciplines, this article uses the tipping point paradigm to frame a new account of how early human ancestors may have first broken free from, as Bickerton calls it, the “prison of animal communication.” Under building pressure for an enhanced signaling system capable of supporting joint attentional-intentional activities, a cultural tradition of disambiguated indexical pointing (a finger point disambiguated by a facial expression, vocalization, or other gesture), combined with increasingly sophisticated mindreading circuitry and prosocial tendencies, may have sparked the first in the series of biocultural explosions that led from a simple protolanguage to fully modern human language. This account successfully integrates at least ten other competing hypotheses, and is shown to pass nine important tests that have been proposed for language origin scenarios of its type.
One aspect of social intelligence is the ability to identify when others are being deceptive. It would seem that individuals who were bestowed with such an ability to recognize honest signals of emotion, particularly when attempts to suppress them are made, would have a reproductive advantage over others without it. Yet the research literature suggests that on average people are good at detecting only overt manifestations of these signals. We argue instead that our evolution as a social species living in groups permitted discovery of deceptive incidents due to the factual evidence of the deception transmitted verbally through social connections. Thus the same principles that pressed for our evolution as a cooperative social species enabled us to develop the equivalent of an intelligence network that would pass along information and evidence, thus rendering a press for an individual lie detector moot.
Any account of “what is special about the human brain” (Passingham 2008) must specify the neural basis of our unique ability to
produce speech and delineate how these remarkable motor capabilities could have emerged in our hominin ancestors. Clinical data suggest
that the basal ganglia provide a platform for the integration of primate-general mechanisms of acoustic communication with the faculty of
articulate speech in humans. Furthermore, neurobiological and paleoanthropological data point at a two-stage model of the phylogenetic
evolution of this crucial prerequisite of spoken language: (i) monosynaptic refinement of the projections of motor cortex to the brainstem
nuclei that steer laryngeal muscles, presumably, as part of a “phylogenetic trend” associated with increasing brain size during hominin
evolution; (ii) subsequent vocal-laryngeal elaboration of cortico-basal ganglia circuitries, driven by human-specific FOXP2 mutations.
This concept implies vocal continuity of spoken language evolution at the motor level, elucidating the deep entrenchment of articulate
speech into a “nonverbal matrix” (Ingold 1994), which is not accounted for by gestural-origin theories. Moreover, it provides a solution to
the question for the adaptive value of the “first word” (Bickerton 2009) since even the earliest and most simple verbal utterances must
have increased the versatility of vocal displays afforded by the preceding elaboration of monosynaptic corticobulbar tracts, giving rise to
enhanced social cooperation and prestige. At the ontogenetic level, the proposed model assumes age-dependent interactions between the
basal ganglia and their cortical targets, similar to vocal learning in some songbirds. In this view, the emergence of articulate speech builds
on the “renaissance” of an ancient organizational principle and, hence, may represent an example of “evolutionary tinkering” (Jacob 1977).
Als höchste Stufe des Lebens auf der Erde entwickelte sich mit den Hominiden der moderne Mensch. Zusammen mit dem aufrechten Gang, der Befreiung der Hände von der Fortbewegung sowie der Gehirnvergrößerung, die die biologische Evolution dokumentierten, fand eine mentale Evolution statt. Diese zeigte sich sowohl in einer technologischen Entwicklung, die die Beherrschung der Umwelt vorantrieb, als auch in einer kulturellen Evolution, die das Zusammenleben der Gesellschaft effizienter machte. Möglich wurde dies als Folge der Gehirnentwicklung, die eine Hierarchie von Zentren mit höchsten Funktionen ausbildete, die den freien Willen und zweckgerichtete Entscheidungen erlaubten, und das auf Sprache basierende logische Denken, das uns vom Tier unterscheidet.
In this response to commentaries, we revisit the two main arguments of our target article. Based on data drawn from a variety of research areas - vocal behavior in nonhuman primates, speech physiology and pathology, neurobiology of basal ganglia functions, motor skill learning, paleoanthropological concepts - the target article, first, suggests a two-stage model of the evolution of the crucial motor prerequisites of spoken language within the hominin lineage: (1) monosynaptic refinement of the projections of motor cortex to brainstem nuclei steering laryngeal muscles, and (2) subsequent "vocal-laryngeal elaboration" of cortico-basal ganglia circuits, driven by human-specific FOXP2 mutations. Second, as concerns the ontogenetic development of verbal communication, age-dependent interactions between the basal ganglia and their cortical targets are assumed to contribute to the time course of the acquisition of articulate speech. Whereas such a phylogenetic reorganization of cortico-striatal circuits must be considered a necessary prerequisite for ontogenetic speech acquisition, the 30 commentaries - addressing the whole range of data sources referred to - point at several further aspects of acoustic communication which have to be added to or integrated with the presented model. For example, the relationships between vocal tract movement sequencing - the focus of the target article - and rhythmical structures of movement organization, the connections between speech motor control and the central-auditory and central-visual systems, the impact of social factors upon the development of vocal behavior (in nonhuman primates and in our species), and the interactions of ontogenetic speech acquisition - based upon FOXP2-driven structural changes at the level of the basal ganglia - with preceding subvocal stages of acoustic communication as well as higher-order (cognitive) dimensions of phonological development. Most importantly, thus, several promising future research directions unfold from these contributions - accessible to clinical studies and functional imaging in our species as well as experimental investigations in nonhuman primates.
Ackermann et al. treat both genetic and paleoanthropological data too superficially to support their conclusions. The case of FOXP2 and Neanderthals is a prime example, which I will comment on in some detail; the issues are much more complex than they appear in Ackermann et al.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X13004068
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@article{BBS:9475026,author = {Johansson,Sverker},title = {Neanderthals did speak, but FOXP2 doesn't prove it},journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},volume = {37},issue = {06},month = {12},year = {2014},issn = {1469-1825},pages = {558--559},numpages = {2},doi = {10.1017/S0140525X13004068},URL = {http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X13004068},}
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Neanderthals did speak, but FOXP2 doesn't prove it
Sverker Johansson (2014).
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue06 , December 2014 pp 558-559
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=9475026
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Neanderthals did speak, but FOXP2 doesn't prove it
Sverker Johansson
(2014)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
,
Volume 37,
Issue06,
December 2014 pp 558-559
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X13004068
Sverker Johansson
(2014).
Neanderthals did speak, but FOXP2 doesn't prove it.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
37,
pp 558-559
doi:10.1017/S0140525X13004068
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human language may have been founded on this basal anatomic substrate, which was already lateralized to the left hemisphere
in the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans 8 million years ago.
Remains of an early hominid have been recovered from four localities in
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fossils are known, belonging to at least five individuals. The femora
indicate that the Lukeino hominid was a biped when on the ground, whilst
its humerus and manual phalanx show that it possessed some arboreal
adaptations. The upper central incisor is large and robust, the upper
canine is large for a hominid and retains a narrow and shallow anterior
groove, the lower fourth premolar is ape-like, with offset roots and
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We argue against the speculation that a genetic mutation in Homo sapiens about 50,000 years ago resulted in a fully modern language capacity and a burst of cultural creativity and subsequent migration of modern humans out of Africa (Klein 1999). This speculation does not hold up well to archaeological critique (McBrearty and Brooks 2000; d'Errico et al. 2005), but a widely cited study by Enard et al. (2002) presents an argument from genetics that, they say, is consistent with Klein's position. Enard et al. give the date of zero years ago (with a 95% confidence interval going back 125,000 years) to the two human-specific mutations in FoxP2, a gene important for well-articulated grammatical language (Watkins et al. 2002). They argue that this date is consistent with Klein's hypothesis of a language mutation and cultural revolu- tion ~50,000 years ago. The migration to India and Australia may have been well before that date, ~65,000-75,000 years ago (Macaulay 2005). Anatomically modern humans emerged about 200,000 years ago, as attested both by the dating of the Omo I and Omo II skulls (MacDougal and Fleagle, 2005) and by Mitochondrial DNA evidence (Cann et al. 1987). It is a violation of parsimony to propose that universal human mutations occurred "subsequent to" to the emergence of anatomically modern humans, as Enard et al. explicitly suggest, especially if the date is more recent than human migration to Australia, not to mention the early extensive human migrations to the corners of Africa. We point out ways in which the model of Enard et al. for dating the mutations in FoxP2 is technically flawed. We also present evidence from the pattern of SNPs in the draft Human genome that is suggestive of a selective sweep in FoxP2 that may have occurred much earlier, perhaps 1.8 to 1.9 million years ago, a date consistent with the emergence of archaic species of Homo.