T R A C I N G . H U M A N . W A N D E R I N G S
HUMANS MIGHT HAVE SPOKEN TWO MILLION YEARS AGO
Andrew Gyles
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We need to define 'symbol', 'intuitive thinking' and 'visual thinking'
Humans might have spoken two million years ago
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We need to define 'symbol', 'intuitive thinking' and 'visual thinking'
My article 'Humans might have spoken two million years ago' (see below) was discussed on the group sci.bio.evolution after I posted it there. One thoughtful contributor using the name Sox said in part:
'Dismissing Cro-Magnon cave paintings as mere likenesses is spurious. By definition a picture of a horse is symbolic - it is not a horse, it is the representation of a horse.
'And when it is accompanied by pictures of hunters thowing spears then it is quite likely there is more going on than just a likeness. When one considers the intricate jewelry and sculpture also left by Cro-Magnons you are left with a body of evidence more compelling than just noting that Neanderthals could have had a language'.
There is a misunderstanding here: I have not argued that the Cro-Magnons could not think symbolically. I replied to bio.sci.evolution:
'Thanks for your comments. However, I still think that "words are symbols, not likenesses. Paintings are likenesses, not symbols". And therefore the appearance of paintings in the archaeological record does not indicate the first date of human symbolic thought.
'I realise that you and others may define "symbol" differently, but still reasonably. But as I see it the essence of a symbol is that it does not resemble the thing it stands for. A symbol is therefore a more abstract thing than a representational painting, and the product of a deeper mental process.
'Tattersall remarked that the Neanderthals were great achievers but thought intuitively. I argue that a representational painter thinks intuitively; therefore the Cro-Magnon paintings do not indicate symbolic thought.
'I think that Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals might all have thought symbolically.
'There is an aspect of the Cro-Magnon paintings that has not attracted much comment: they were painted in deep, dark caves by the light of a torch or lamp. It has been suggested that they might have been the centre of rituals aimed at increasing the chances of success in hunting the animals depicted. If the latter is true, the paintings are evidence of superstitious practices; that is, of mental weakness, not mental prowess and balance'.
This discussion shows how important it is to have common definitions of terms. 'Sox' said that a picture of a horse was a symbol because it was a 'representation'. I said that any representational painting (of an animal or anything else) was a 'likeness', and was therefore not as abstract as a symbol, which did not resemble the thing it stood for. Unless we agreed on definitions of these things we could argue forever.
An article published in 'Scientific American' in 1989 on much the same subject as the Tattersall book excerpt was entitled: 'Visual thinking in the Ice Age'. The title referred to the paintings, sculptures and personal decorations of the Cro-Magnons. Is 'visual thinking' the same as 'symbolic thinking'? I do not think so; I think that it is a part of 'intuitive thinking', which Ian Tattersall said (wrongly, I believe) was the only kind of thinking the Neanderthals could do.
Published on this site 06 January 2002. © Andrew Gyles
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Humans might have spoken two million years ago
Fossilised human skulls almost two million years old show the start of evolution toward a low larynx and a high pharynx. This combination, which forms a long pharynx, makes possible the full range of sounds of articulate speech. The pharynx had reached its modern form by 600,000 years ago.
It therefore seems reasonable to assume that humans began speaking in a simple way about two million years ago, and speech gave them such an advantage in the struggle for survival that any mutation that enabled them, physically or mentally, to speak, hear and understand better was strongly selected for. The warning cry "Tiger!" could save a life. The more complex sentence "Too late for water in south" could also save a life by preventing a journey to a place with no surface water in summer. "Many berries in ravine", spoken by a grandmother, could guide her hungry daughter and infant to food enough for a week. The advantages are so obvious and have been written about so much that it is surprising to read an opinion that humans did not speak articulately using words as symbols until about 70,000 years ago.
However, an excerpt in "Scientific American" (1) from a forthcoming book by Ian Tattersall entitled "The Monkey in the Mirror: Essays on the Science of What Makes Us Human" makes that claim.
Ian Tattersall claims that humans did not speak articulately until 70,000 years ago
Tattersall says that Neanderthal humans were not able to abstract elements of their experience and represent them with discrete mental symbols. Their reasoning was intuitive; it was not based on symbolic representation. They developed "the most complex - and in many ways admirable - lifestyle that it has ever proved possible to achieve with intuitive processes alone". There can be little doubt, says Tattersall, "that Neanderthals spoke, in some general sense. What they almost certainly did not possess, however, is language as we are familiar with it".
How did Tattersall reach these conclusions? He writes that language is "the ultimate symbolic mental function", and "The Neanderthals left behind precious few hints of symbolic activities in the abundant record they bequeathed us of their lives, and it is clear that symbols were not generally an important factor in their existences". In contrast the Cro-Magnons, who entered Europe about 40,000 years ago and displaced the Neanderthals, brought with them "sculpture, engraving, painting, body ornamentation, music, notation, subtle understanding of diverse materials, elaborate burial of the dead, painstaking decoration of utilitarian objects"; Cro-Magnon cave paintings of animals "are frequently accompanied by a wealth of abstract symbols". These behavioural accomplishments "were evidently underwitten by the acquisition of symbolic cognitive processes".
Paintings are likenesses, not symbols
I disagree with Tattersall's interpretation of the evidence he presents. Sound waves decay rapidly, so of course we have no material evidence of sentences spoken two million, or two hundred, years ago.
The paintings and sculptures left by the Cro-Magnons, some of which have endured, are not symbols: they are likenesses or imitations.
The ability to paint likenesses of things seen probably resides in different parts of the brain from the parts used in articulate speech. It is possible that Neanderthals thought more symbolically, and spoke more articulately, than the Cro-Magnons. Symbolic speech, on the one hand, and painting, on the other hand, seem to be competing mental activities.
Modern recorded history offers few examples in the past two thousand years of great painters and sculptors who were great writers, whether of novels or philosophy. Were great composers of music great philosophers?
I can think of no great writers who were great painters. Are we to suppose that Jane Austin really did not write anything because she left no great paintings? Was the name Jane Austen a pen-name of a painter, say John Constable?
Words are symbols, not likenesses
Consider the difference between a sentence and a painting. There might be two hundred languages in which it is possible to say "The brown cow on green grass drinks blue water from a pond". In each one of these languages the words and the sentence will be different; they are true symbols. But if native speakers of these languages painted the same scene in colour every scene would look recognisably the same; the paintings (unless they were entirely abstract) would be likenesses, not symbols.
I am not sure that Cro-Magnon paintings were "frequently accompanied by a wealth of abstract symbols", as Tattersall claims, but even if they were I do not accept the implication that humans who did not make paintings accompanied by abstract symbols could not have spoken articulately.
Reference
1. Ian Tattersall, book excerpt "How we came to be human", in Scientific American, December 2001, pages 42-49.
(I sent this article to the internet discussion group 'sci.archaeology' on 22 December 2001, where it was subsequently published.)
Published on this site 22 December 2001. © Andrew Gyles
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