Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T17:27:00.940Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Archeology and the language-ready brain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Benoît Dubreuil
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada; University of Bergen, Norway & University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa E-mail: [email protected]
Christopher Stuart Henshilwood
Affiliation:
University of Bergen, Norway & University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

In this book, Michael Arbib presents a most interesting and comprehensive account of the evolution of language. The work is both impressive and convincing in its description of how the language-ready brain evolved and how languages emerged through cultural evolution. As we are in broad agreement with Arbib's evolutionary story at the neurocognitive level, we focus on an underdeveloped part of his argument: when did language evolve in the human lineage? How does Arbib's neurocognitive argument connect with what archeology teaches us about human evolution?

Type
The perspective from archeology
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barham, L. 2002. Systematic pigment use in the Middle Pleistocene of South Central Africa. Current Anthropology 43. 181190.Google Scholar
d'Errico, F., Henshilwood, C. & Nilssen, P.. 2001. An engraved bone fragment from ca. 75 kyr Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: Implications for the origin of symbolism and language. Antiquity 75. 309318.Google Scholar
d'Errico, F., Henshilwood, C., Vanhaeren, M. & van Niekerk, K.. 2005. Nassarius kraussianus shell beads from Blombos Cave: Evidence for symbolic behaviour in the Middle Stone Age. Journal of Human Evolution 48. 324.Google Scholar
d'Errico, F., Vanhaeren, M., Barton, N., Bouzouggar, A., Mienis, H., Richter, D., Hublin, J.-J., McPherron, S. & Lozouet, P.. 2009. Additional evidence on the use of personal ornaments in the Middle Paleolithic of North Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 106(38). 1605116056.Google Scholar
Dubreuil, B. 2010. Paleolithic public goods game: Why human culture and cooperation did not evolve in one step. Biology and Philosophy 25. 5373.Google Scholar
Flavell, J. 1992. Perspectives on perspective-taking. In Beilin, H. & Pufall, P. (eds.), Piaget's theory: Prospects and possibilities, 107139. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Henshilwood, C., d'Errico, F., Yates, R., Jacobs, Z., Tribolo, C., Duller, G., Mercier, N., Sealy, J., Valladas, H., Watts, I. & Wintle, A.. 2002. Emergence of modern human behaviour: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa. Science 295. 12781280.Google Scholar
Henshilwood, C. & d'Errico, F.. 2011. Homo symbolicus: The dawn of language, imagination and spirituality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Henshilwood, C., d'Errico, F., van Niekerk, K., Coquinot, Y., Jacobs, Z., Lauritzen, S.-E., Menu, M. & García-Moreno, R.. 2011. A 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science 334 (6053). 219222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henshilwood, C. & Dubreuil, B.. 2009. Reading the artefacts: Gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in Southern Africa. In Botha, R. & Knight, C. (eds.), The cradle of language, 4160. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henshilwood, C. & Dubreuil, B.. 2011. The Still Bay and Howiesons Poort, 77–59 ka: Perspective-taking and the evolution of the modern human mind during the African Middle Stone Age. Current Anthropology 52. 361400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henshilwood, C. & Lombard, M.. In press. Becoming human: Archaeology of the sub-Saharan Middle Stone Age. In Bahn, P. & Renfrew, C. (eds.), Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Archaeology. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. 2012. Thinking through the Middle Stone Age of sub-Saharan Africa. Quaternary International 270. 140155.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. & Pargeter, J.. 2008. Hunting with Howiesons Poort segments: Pilot experimental study and the functional interpretation of archaeological tools. Journal Of Archaeological Science 35. 25232531.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. & Phillipson, L.. 2010. Indications of bow and stone-tipped arrow use 64 000 years ago in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Antiquity 84. 635648.Google Scholar
Marean, C. W., Bar-Matthews, M., Bernatchez, J., Fisher, E., Goldberg, P., Herries, A. I. R., Jacobs, Z., Jerardino, A., Karkanas, P., Minichillo, T., Nilssen, P. J., Thompson, E., Watts, I. & Williams, H.. 2007. Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature 449. 905–8.Google Scholar
McBrearty, S. 2001. The Middle Pleistocene of East Africa. In Barham, L. & Robson-Brown, K. (eds.), Human Roots: Africa and Asia in the Middle Pleistocene, 8197. Bristol: Western Academic & Specialist Press.Google Scholar
Mourre, V., Villa, P. & Henshilwood, C.. 2010. Early use of pressure flaking on lithic artifacts at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science 330. 659662.Google Scholar
Noble, W. & Davidson, I.. 1996. Human evolution, language and mind: A psychological and archaeological enquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sisk, M. L. & Shea, J.. 2008. Intrasite spatial variation of the Omo Kibish Middle Stone Age assemblages: Artifact refitting and distribution patterns. Journal of Human Evolution 55. 486500.Google Scholar
Texier, P.-J., Porraz, G., Parkington, J., Rigaud, J.-P., Poggenpoel, C., Miller, C., Tribolo, C., Cartwright, C., Coudenneau, A., Klein, R., Steele, T. & Verna, C.. 2010. A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107. 61806185.Google Scholar
Vanhaeren, M. & d'Errico, F.. 2006. Clinal distribution of personal ornaments reveals the ethno-linguistic geography of Early Upper Palaeolithic Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 33. 11051128.Google Scholar
Wadley, L., Hodgskiss, T. & Grant, M.. 2009. Implications for complex cognition from the hafting of tools with compound adhesives in the Middle Stone Age, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106. 95909594.Google Scholar