Episode 7 - Think Before You Speak (Part 1)

Written By Nicholas Camferdam
The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563). This painting depicts perhaps the most famous theory on the origin of human languages in the modern English-speaking world: the Tower of Babel story as told in Genesis 11:1-9. The background of …

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563). This painting depicts perhaps the most famous theory on the origin of human languages in the modern English-speaking world: the Tower of Babel story as told in Genesis 11:1-9. The background of this story, and the other Near Eastern origin myths which preceded it, will be discussed in the future.

In this episode, we explore what is perhaps the most important pair of cognitive abilities in the whole course of hominin evolution: causal reasoning, and language. We set up the contexts in which they evolved, and demonstrate how they form a serious barrier on the road to high intelligence and culture. This is part one of a two episode discussion which will foreshadow the remainder of the Lost Era in the prehistoric Near East.

Example of lion tracks, a natural sign best avoided by hominin hunters and foragers at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. (Credit: Joachim Huber; Source Link)

Example of lion tracks, a natural sign best avoided by hominin hunters and foragers at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. (Credit: Joachim Huber; Source Link)

Sources

Books

  1. Armstrong, D. F., Wilcox, S. E., & Wilcox, S. (2007). The Gestural Origin of Language. Oxford University Press.

  2. Ayala, F. J., & Conde, C. J. C. (2017). Processes in Human Evolution: The Journey from Early Hominins to Neanderthals and Modern Humans. Oxford University Press.

  3. Botha, R., & Knight, C. (Eds.). (2009). The Prehistory of Language (Vol. 11). Oxford University Press.

  4. Corballis, M. (2008). The Recursive Mind. Brain and Cognition, 67, S1.

  5. Dennell, R. (2008). The Paleolithic Settlement of Asia. Cambridge University Press.

  6. Enzel, Y., & Bar-Yosef, O. (Eds.). (2017). Quaternary of the Levant: Environments, Climate Change, and Humans. Cambridge University Press.

  7. Herrera, R. J., & Garcia-Bertrand, R. (2018). Ancestral DNA, Human Origins, and Migrations. Elsevier Academic Press.

  8. Laland, K. N. (2017). Darwin's Unfinished Symphony. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

  9. Shea, J. J. (2016). Stone Tools in Human Evolution: Behavioral Differences among Technological Primates. Cambridge University Press.

  10. Suddendorf, T. (2013). The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals. Constellation.

  11. Wenke, R. J., & Olszewski, D. (2006). Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million Years. New York: Oxford University Press.

Research Papers

  1. Agam, A., & Barkai, R. (2016). Not the brain alone: The nutritional potential of elephant heads in Paleolithic sites. Quaternary International, 406, 218-226.

  2. Alperson-Afil, N., Goren-Inbar, N., Herzlinger, G., & Wynn, T. (2020). Expert Retrieval Structures and Prospective Memory in the Cognition of Acheulian Hominins. Psychology, 11(01), 173.

  3. Ben-Dor, M., Gopher, A., Hershkovitz, I., & Barkai, R. (2011). Man the fat hunter: the demise of Homo erectus and the emergence of a new hominin lineage in the Middle Pleistocene (ca. 400 kyr) Levant. PLoS One, 6(12).

  4. Bolhuis, J. J., Tattersall, I., Chomsky, N., & Berwick, R. C. (2014). How could language have evolved?. PLoS Biology, 12(8).

  5. Corballis, M. C. (2019). Language, Memory, and Mental Time Travel: An Evolutionary Perspective. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13, 217.

  6. Goren-Inbar, N. (2011). Culture and cognition in the Acheulian industry: a case study from Gesher Benot Yaʿaqov. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1038-1049.

  7. Goren-Inbar, N., Grosman, L., & Sharon, G. (2011). The technology and significance of the Acheulian giant cores of Gesher Benot Ya ‘aqov, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science, 38(8), 1901-1917.

  8. Goren-Inbar, N., Lister, A., Werker, E., & Chech, M. (1994). A butchered elephant skull and associated artifacts from the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel. Paléorient, 99-112.

  9. Laland, K. N. (2017). The origins of language in teaching. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(1), 225-231.

  10. Lombard, M., & Gardenfors, P. (2017). Tracking the evolution of causal cognition in humans. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 95:219-234

  11. Pinker, S., & Jackendoff, R. (2005). The faculty of language: what's special about it?. Cognition, 95(2), 201-236.

  12. Sterelny, K. (2012). Language, gesture, skill: the co-evolutionary foundations of language. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1599), 2141-2151.

  13. Stout, D. (2011). Stone toolmaking and the evolution of human culture and cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1050-1059.

  14. Stout, D., & Chaminade, T. (2012). Stone tools, language and the brain in human evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1585), 75-87.

  15. Stuart-Fox, M. (2015). The origins of causal cognition in early hominins. Biology & Philosophy, 30(2), 247-266.

  16. Suddendorf, T., Addis, D. R., & Corballis, M. C. (2009). Mental time travel and the shaping of the human mind. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1521), 1317-1324.

  17. Vaesen, K. (2012). The cognitive bases of human tool use. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(4), 203-218.

  18. Wynn, T., & Coolidge, F. L. (2016). Archeological insights into hominin cognitive evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 25(4), 200-213.

  19. Zuberbühler, K. (2005). The phylogenetic roots of language: evidence from primate communication and cognition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(3), 126-130.

Nicholas Camferdam
Next

Episode 6 - Arsonists and Elephant Hunters