Semiotics and the Origin of Language in the Lower Palaeolithic (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Lower and Middle Palaeolithic origins of semiotics
This paper reviews critically the performance of orthodox archaeology in defining the cultural and cognitive evolution of hominids, and in describing their Pleistocene cultural sequence. It is argued that archaeology has largely failed in this, and has instead sought to focus on the technological and skeletal evolution of humans. It can therefore only provide an inadequate empirical basis from which to speculate about the origins of symbolism. A more suitable basis is established here by revisiting some of the key evidence in any proper consideration of early symbolling, such as beads, engravings, or the introduction of iconicity or language. This leads to the recognition of a significantly longer and slower development of semiotics during the Pleistocene than traditional archaeology has reported. In particular it is noted that there could have been important developments about 900,000 or 800,000 years ago that led to significant changes in hominid communication and cognition, and perhaps acceleration in the evolution of symbolling abilities. These probably involved the ability of creating arbitrary relationships between referrer and referent, the key factor in symbolling. This is therefore where the origins of semiotics are most likely to be found. By the time of the late Lower Palaeolithic, these abilities were probably well advanced, as indicated by the use of beads, engravings and petroglyphs. Such a scenario differs from the traditional view by a time factor of about one to twenty, indicating severe shortcomings in this traditional model.
This research uses Peircean Semiotics to model the evolution of symbolic behavior in the human lineage and the potential material correlates of this evolutionary process in the archaeological record. The semiotic model states the capacity for symbolic behavior developed in two distinct stages. Emergent capacities are characterized by the sporadic use of non-symbolic and symbolic material culture that affects information exchange between individuals. Symbolic exchange will be rare. Mobilized capacities are defined by the constant use of non-symbolic and symbolic objects that affect both interpersonal and group-level information exchange. Symbolic behavior will be obligatory and widespread. The model was tested against the published archaeological record dating from ~200,000 years ago to the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary in three sub-regions of Africa and Eurasia. A number of Exploratory and Confirmatory Data Analysis techniques were used to identify patterning in artifacts through time consistent with model predictions. The results indicate Emergent symboling capacities were expressed as early as ~100,000 years ago in Southern Africa and the Levant. However, capacities do not appear fully Mobilized in these regions until ~17,000 years ago. Emergent symboling is not evident in the European record until ~42,000 years ago, but develops rapidly. The results also indicate both Anatomically Modern Humans and Neanderthals had the capacity for symbolic behavior, but expressed those capacities differently. Moreover, interactions between the two populations did not select for symbolic expression, nor did periodic aggregation within groups. The analysis ultimately situates the capacity for symbolic behavior in increased engagement with materiality and the ability to recognize material objects can be made meaningful– an ability that must have been shared with Anatomically Modern Humans’ and Neanderthals’ most recent common ancestor. Consequently, the results have significant implications for notions of ‘modernity’ and human uniqueness that drive human origins research. This work pioneers deductive approaches to cognitive evolution, and both strengths and weaknesses are discussed. In offering notable results and best practices, it effectively operationalizes the semiotic model as a viable analytical method for human origins research.
The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaoelogy, 2023
Symbol making involves active agency, as it is, by definition, intentional and aims to deliver messages, worldviews, and social contents to designated audiences. As archaeology can specify only elements of behavior that are expressed as material objects, it must focus on material objects and their contexts. Accordingly, this chapter does not aim to elucidate the symbolic content of objects. Whether the role of objects is perceived as a clear dichotomy between utilitarian and symbolic or as a “mixed bag,” in the practice of prehistoric archaeology it is the context of artifacts that is often enlisted to provide telltale signs about their role in the behavioral system. Employing archaeological tools (material culture, chronology, and context), the chapter addresses (1) the epistemology of understanding prehistoric symbols by reviewing criteria that are prevalent in the research to assess whether an object may have acted as a symbolic manifestation and (2) the diachronic shift from a cognitive capacity to comprehend and make symbolic objects to a broader, evolved, symbolic behavioral system. Its review of the Pleistocene symbolic record of the Levant suggests that the trajectories of change parallel patterns (though not necessarily the same chronology) observed in neighboring regions. The analysis suggests that rather than changes in the neurological infrastructure per se, the coevolution of symbolic behavior and social complexity is driven by changes in social cognition as a major adaptive tool in hominin cultural evolution.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2007
A number of natural processes occurring during the life of an animal or after its death can produce pseudotools, mimics of human-made objects. A number of purported bone tools from Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites have been published without any validating microscopic analysis of the bone surfaces showing possible traces of manufacture and use. This paper discusses the evolutionary significance of bone tool technology and summarises results of research on the use of bone tools by early hominids between one and two million years ago (Mya). It attempts to establish formal criteria for the identification of minimally modified bone tools by characterising the modifications produced by known human and non-human agents, and applying these criteria to the purported bone tool collections from Swartkrans, Sterkfontein and Olduvai Gorge. A number of experiments involving a variety of tasks were conducted in order to increase the range of diagnostic features available. New analytical techniques have been developed for the quantification of microscopic use-wear, and a wide range of taphonomic and morphometric variables have been used to isolate idiosyncratic populations of specimens for which a robust argument can be made for their identification as tools. South and East African early hominid From Tools to Symbols 240 les outils en os d'Afrique du Sud, suggèrent que les auteurs de ces outils avaient une claire compréhension des propriétés de l'os, qu'ils pouvaient prévoir le résultat de leur actions sur la matière et qu'ils ont, dans les deux cas, été capables de développer des traditions techniques bien adaptées à la matière première disponible dans le but d'obtenir une efficacité optimale dans les tâches pour lesquelles ces outils étaient utilisés.
In recent years, there has been a tendency to correlate the origin of modern culture and language with that of anatomically modern humans. Here we discuss this correlation in the light of results provided by our first hand analysis of ancient and recently discovered relevant archaeological and paleontological material from Africa and Europe. We focus in particular on the evolutionary significance of lithic and bone technology, the emergence of symbolism, Neandertal behavioral patterns, the identification of early mortuary practices, the anatomical evidence for the acquisition of language, the 2 d'Errico et al.
The material record and the antiquity of language
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2017
One view of language origins sees it as ancient and selection-driven; the other as recent and emergent. Such disagreement occurs because language is ephemeral, detectable only by indirect proxies. Because internalized language and symbolic thought are tightly linked, the best archaeological proxies for language are symbolic objects. Nothing indicates convincingly that any hominid behaved symbolically prior to Homo sapiens, which originated 200kyr ago but started behaving symbolically only 100kyr later. Most probably the necessary neural underpinnings arose exaptively in the extensive developmental reorganization that gave rise to anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens, and were recruited subsequently via a necessarily behavioral stimulus. This was most plausibly the spontaneous invention of externalized language, in an isolate of Homo sapiens in Africa, that initiated a feedback process between externalized structured language and internalized language/organized thought. These subseq...
The archaeological data traditionally utilized in considering the beginnings of symbol use by humans are described here as inadequate for this purpose. It is contended that Pleistocene finds of several types imply the use of symboling for at least several hundred millennia. Such empirical evidence includes the maritime colonization of various landmasses up to one million years ago, which is thought to demand the use of language and relatively complex technology; and the temporal distribution of first pigment use, beads and pendants, as well as engravings and proto‐figurines during the Middle Pleistocene. The introduction of iconic referrers is chronologically placed into the same period. It is argued that the cognitive evolution of hominins has been neglected in favor of less suitable indicators of humanness, such as cranial shape and perceived stone tool typology. This paper presents an alternative approach to reviewing the evolution of human cognition and symbol use.
The Minimalist Program and the Origin of Language: A View From Paleoanthropology
Frontiers in Psychology
In arguing that articulate language is underpinned by an algorithmically simple neural operation, the Minimalist Program (MP) retrodicts that language emerged in a shortterm event. Because spoken language leaves no physical traces, its ancient use must be inferred from archeological proxies. These strongly suggest that modern symbolic human behavior patterns-and, by extension, cognition-emerged both abruptly and late in time (subsequent to the appearance of Homo sapiens as an anatomical entity some 200 thousand years kyr ago). Because the evidence is compelling that language is an integral component of modern symbolic thought, the archeological evidence clearly supports the basic tenet of the MP. But the associated proposition, that language was externalized in an independent event that followed its initial appearance as a conduit to internal thought, is much more debatable.