Friday, October 7, 2011

Human Evolution, Language and Mind: A Psychological and Archaeological Inquiry.

Human Evolution, Language and Mind: A Psychological and Archaeological Inquiry. WILLIAM NOBLE This article is about the American missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Pyongyang, Korea. For the U.S. Representative from New York, see William H. Noble.William Arthur Noble & LAIN DAVIDSON. xiv+272 pages, 47 illustrations, 8tables. 1996. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). ; 0-521-44502-7hardback [pounds]45 & $65.95 0-521-57635-0 paperback [pounds]15.95& $22.95.This is an exciting time in the study of human evolution, especiallyof human evolution in the later Pleistocene. Modern excavationsthroughout Europe and Africa are bringing fine-scale new data to lightthat, for the first time, are amenable to detailed behavioural analysis.Advances in biological techniques, including the characterization ofmodern human genetic variability IntroductionGenetic Variability The amount by which individuals in a population differ from one another due to their genes, rather than their environment. The study of genetic variability is that of population genetics. and the extraction of ancient DNA Adna redirects here. For the unincorporated community in Washington, see Adna, Washington. Ancient DNA can be loosely described as any DNA recovered from biological samples that have not been preserved specifically for later DNA analyses. , havebegun to revolutionize our views of how humans came to be. Recently,Svante Paabo and his colleagues even extracted sequencible DNA DNA:see nucleic acid. DNAor deoxyribonucleic acidOne of two types of nucleic acid (the other is RNA); a complex organic compound found in all living cells and many viruses. It is the chemical substance of genes. from aNeanderthal, showing that they were genetically quite different frommodern human populations. All of this suggests that we will come tounderstand a great deal more than we do now about human origins.Throughout the history of palaeoanthropological research, one of theprimary questions has always been, when did humans begin to think, feel,and act like humans? Central to this question is the issue of cognitionor awareness and how it might be recognized in its initial stages.Archaeologists and physical anthropologists have long taken a rathersimplistic sim��plism?n.The tendency to oversimplify an issue or a problem by ignoring complexities or complications.[French simplisme, from simple, simple, from Old French; see simple approach in their attempts to address the problem. Typically,they define typological groups (i.e. biological taxa or archaeologicalcultures), and these are compared to those that came before and afterbased on trait lists of artefacts or features that are seen asreflecting cognition. The results are always predetermined by theclassifications and trait lists, and little that is conclusive has comefrom this kind of work. Moreover, few real evolutionary explanationshave been developed; firstly because evolution and taxonomy do not gotogether very well, and secondly because static comparison of traitsdoes not lead easily to examination of selection or evolutionarycausality. Given the recent developments in data refinement and scale,however, the time would seem to be ripe for developing more evolutionaryapproaches to the origin of mind. These three books attempt to developsuch evolutionary explanations for the human mind, with varying degreesof success.Steven Mithen's book, The prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to of the mind, is awide-ranging, popularized attempt to examine the origins and evolutionof the human mind. Mithen surveys the origins of art, symbolism andtechnology, and considers them in terms of perspectives developed inmodern evolutionary psychology evolutionary psychologyn.The study of the psychological adaptations of humans to the changing physical and social environment, especially of changes in brain structure, cognitive mechanisms, and behavioral differences among individuals. . There are novel and insightful ideas inthis book, but ultimately it falls prey to typological thinking,uncritically takes a polemical view of the origins of modern humans andends up less an evolutionary exposition than a political one.The prehistory of the mind comprises 11 chapters and an epilogue.Chapters 1 through 4 lay out Mithen's theoretical perspective.Early human prehistory, according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. Mithen, is laid out in chapters5-9. The last two chapters present his conclusions. In the Epilogue,Mithen looks at the origins of agriculture in light of his findings forearlier prehistory, and so I won't discuss it here.In chapter 1, Mithen poses the question, 'why ask anarchaeologist about the human mind?' The answer is simple andobvious, because archaeologists have great time depth with which toexamine aspects of human behaviour, including thinking, feeling, andexpressing. In chapter 2, 'The drama of the past' is laid out,with the major events of prehistory sketched as if in the form of aplay. This novel device does not mask, however, the fact that Mithen hasan agenda in his work; he will argue that only fully modern humans had'mind' in the way we conceive it today, and he will use onlythe perspective and data that support his view. Chapter 3 is perhaps themeat of Mithen's book. In it, he presents one view of evolutionarypsychology, characterizing human thought as a series of cognitivedomains, and suggests that here is the 'key to unlocking the natureof both the prehistoric and modern mind' (p. 13). In chapter 4, heoutlines a three-stage typology typology/ty��pol��o��gy/ (ti-pol��ah-je) the study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. typologythe study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. of cognition: a first phase where allthinking occurs within a single domain of intelligence, a second phasewhere distinct domains or 'modules' of intelligence aredefined for different behavioural domains, and a third phase where thesedistinct intelligence domains are integrated, so that thought isinformed by all available realms. It is clear from Mithen'sdiscussion that the evolutionary relationship among types or'phases' is linear and Spencerian, i.e. higher-level phasesare more complex than lower ones.Chapter 5 looks at the mind of apes and Pliocene hominids in light ofthe typology previously outlined. By the time the earliest members ofour own genus Homo Noun 1. genus Homo - type genus of the family Hominidaemammal genus - a genus of mammalsfamily Hominidae, Hominidae - modern man and extinct immediate ancestors of man had evolved, Mithen argues, both a domain ofintelligence and a few specific modules (e.g. a social intelligence) haddeveloped. No clear correspondence between phylogeny and mindclassification is apparent. In chapter 6, the mind of Homo habilis Homo habilis(Latin; “handy man”)Extinct species of early hominin that is generally regarded as the earliest member of the human genus, Homo. Homo habilis inhabited parts of sub-Saharan Africa about 2–1.5 million years ago. isassessed and is seen as even more socially intelligent than itsancestors. Mithen also assumes that H. habilis was the maker of Oldowantools, an assumption that, while reasonable, is not proven. Chapter 7considers Homo erectus Homo erectus(hō`mō ērĕk`təs), extinct hominid living between 1.6 million and 250,000 years ago. Homo erectus is thought to have evolved in Africa from H. habilis, the first member of the genus Homo. and the Neanderthals, Mithen's 'EarlyHumans'. By this time, in addition to social intelligence, modulesfor technology and natural history had developed. But Mithen isunequivocal in his view of the record: early humans (includingNeanderthals) made no bone tools, they made no functionally specifictools, they made no multi-component tools, their tools do not vary overtime and space, they lived in small groups with limited socialinteraction, they did not decorate themselves and they did not burytheir dead. Chapter 8 is a strange exercise, trying to argue that wecannot think like a Neanderthal because we are not Neanderthals; it actsto emphasize Mithen's personal view of evolutionary typology.Modern humans are the topic of chapter 9. Predictably, Mithen posits adramatic behavioural break from earlier taxa, a 'big bang' ofcognitive, technical and social innovation. All of this is, of course,due to the integration of intelligence domains into a modern human mind.In chapter 10, Mithen discusses the rise of cognitive fluidity, thefinal phase of mind development. He sees aspects of this integrationarising at each taxonomic stage in human evolution, but the major, finalpattern shift occurs with modern humans. He refers to this as a shiftfrom a 'specialized mind' to a 'generalized' one.Finally, in chapter 11, Mithen presents an evolutionary overview of thechanges outlined before. Admirably, he tries to identify the selectiveforces that might have acted to induce the changes in mind he sees atvarious points along the way and argues for a certain cyclicity inmental evolution over time.Overall, Mithen takes an interesting approach to the problem of theevolution of the human mind, but the details of his exposition detractgreatly from his argument. He clearly has a standard to bear, thatmodern humans are a breed apart, and he chooses his data carefully toavoid contradicting this basic premise. For example, it is simply nottrue that Neanderthals did not bury their dead in elaborate fashion, noris it true that their technologies were functionally naive. In fact,Mithen's book is short on primary data generally; he cites very fewFrench sources, for example, even though most of the data he uses in hisarguments about a cognitive 'explosion' are published in thatlanguage. One could argue, I suppose, that popular tracts don'tneed to contain the fine details of scientific research, as the'big picture' is more important. I believe that we have aresponsibility, however, to convey to the public what we actually know,and to distinguish that clearly from what we believe. Unfortunately. Theprehistory of the mind does not make that distinction.A psychological approach to human evolution is also taken in Humanevolution, language, and mind by William Noble & Iain Davidson. Inthis book, however, the authors clearly see one development, language,as pivotal in the evolution of human cognition Human cognition is the study of how the human brain thinks. As a subject of study, human cognition tends to be more than only theoretical in that its theories lead to working models that demonstrate behavior similar to human thought. . In some ways, this is amore traditional view than that proposed by Mithen, but moreimportantly, Noble & Davidson argue their position more cogently andwith better reference to relevant data concerning human evolution.In chapter 1, language is defined as conscious expression, and thehistory of research into the origin of language is reviewed. Chapter 2considers primate palaeontology with special reference to thedevelopment of language capability and how that might relate to hominid hominidAny member of the zoological family Hominidae (order Primates), which consists of the great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos) as well as human beings. evolution. Chapter 3 is a comprehensive overview of symbolic behaviourin human evolution, how it relates to language and how it is expressedin material culture. Chapter 4 looks at the evidence for the evolutionof mind, or perception, and finds the best theoretical accounts usingsocial context as a prime selective force. Chapter 5 integrateslanguage, symbolization and mind into a potential explanatory frameworkfor the evolution of human cognition centred on the human ability togive meaning to perceptions in a variety of ways.Chapters 6, 7 and 8 review the archaeological record The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. for evidencereflecting the evolution of language, mind, and symbol. Chapter 6searches for signs of meaning in the Lower Pleistocene, consideringbiological changes, subsistence, technology and society. Nothing thatsuggests an early origin of language is seen in these dimensions ofmeaning. Chapter 7 reviews Upper Pleistocene evidence for thedevelopment of language, and include a fine, if sometimes selective,treatment of the relevant data. Unlike Mithen, Noble & Davidsonrelate their theoretical position to the archaeological facts and findsupport for a rather late origin of language. Again, I think they are alittle quick to dismiss contradictory evidence from technology andmortuary contexts based on secondary sources, but overall, this is a farbetter reading of the data than is evident in Mithen's book.Chapter 8 concludes by attempting to integrate the preceding chaptersinto an evolutionary scenario for language. Noble & Davidson seelanguage growing out of socially defined contexts of communication,encouraged as a more efficient form of gesture, and selection forlanguage occurred because of its efficiency and flexibility. It is areasonable perspective and one that has the benefit of accounting forthe archaeological facts.Modelling the early human mind is a complex collection of 17 papersedited by Paul Mellars & Kathleen Gibson from a symposium on theevolution of the mind held in Cambridge in 1993. The aim of theconference, and of this book, was to bring a wide range of expertise tobear on the problem of understanding pre-modern human cognition. Thatgoal was certainly met, and Modelling . . . contains a diverse and oftenquite technical set of papers by biologists, neurologists,primatologists, psychologists and anthropologists. The papers do providesometimes unique perspectives on the ancient human mind.The first section, 'Defining the problem: setting thestage', comprises three papers devoted to identifying the centralissues in the evolution of human cognition. First, Colin Renfrewdescribes what he calls the sapient sa��pi��ent?adj.Having great wisdom and discernment.[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin sapi behaviour paradox by which he meansthe chronological discrepancy between when the capacity for cognitiondeveloped and when that capacity was actually used. This is, of course,the central issue in considering the rise of modern human mentalcapabilities. Mellars reviews the relationship between thearchaeological record associated with Neanderthals in Europe and theorigins of symbolism and language. The review is an abbreviation of hisrecent book on the European Middle Palaeolithic and is less compellingthan the original. Kathleen Gibson argues that cultural aspects ofbehaviour, like cognition and language, surely evolved slowly and inmosaic fashion after a similar slow, mosaic evolution had resulted inthe biocultural brain, an organ capable of culture as we know it. Again,temporal disjuncture dis��junc��ture?n.Disjunction; disunion; separation.Noun 1. disjuncture - state of being disconnecteddisconnectedness, disconnection, disjunctionseparation - the state of lacking unity between the capacity for culture and itsrealization is stressed. Renfrew and Gibson are quite right to emphasizethis basic problem, because we are constantly confounded bychronological lag between biological and archaeological changes in theearly human record. But Renfrew takes an essentially typologicalapproach to defining the problem, one that is not amenable toevolutionary explanation. Gibson, on the other hand, ends up invoking'recent evidence for increased seasonal mobility in the UpperPalaeolithic' to account for observed cultural variability, yet shecites no primary evidence for this assertion, probably because littlereal evidence, in fact, exists. For me, this central problem was bestformulated by David Rindos, who distinguished between the evolution ofthe capacity for culture, which he saw as biologically based, and theuse of culture once the capacity had been developed, which for him wasnot biologically driven. In Rindos' view, there is no reason toexpect congruence con��gru��ence?n.1. a. Agreement, harmony, conformity, or correspondence.b. An instance of this: "What an extraordinary congruence of genius and era" between biological and behavioural change. It isstrange to me that Rindos is never cited in this book by any of theauthors, especially his 1986 paper 'The evolution of the capacityfor culture', published in Current Anthropology Current Anthropology, published by the University of Chicago Press and sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 1959 by the anthropologist Sol Tax (1907-1995). .Part II includes five papers dealing with aspects of primate brainsand their relation to cognition. Richard Byrne argues that absolutebrain size and social complexity together provide a context for theevolution of complex thought processes This is a list of thinking styles, methods of thinking (thinking skills), and types of thought. See also the List of thinking-related topic lists, the List of philosophies and the . . In keeping with Gibson'sintroductory position, Robert Foley sees evidence for mosaic evolutionin characteristics of the brain and its function. Angela Roberts and hercolleagues examine one part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex Noun 1. prefrontal cortex - the anterior part of the frontal lobeprefrontal lobecerebral cortex, cerebral mantle, cortex, pallium - the layer of unmyelinated neurons (the grey matter) forming the cortex of the cerebrum , and seemosaic evolution within the organ itself. Elizabeth Whitcombe looks atthe implications of language for functional anatomy and suggests thatlanguage may have evolved at least in part as a consequence of changingcranial cranial/cra��ni��al/ (-al)1. pertaining to the cranium.2. toward the head end of the body; a synonym of superior in humans and other bipeds.cra��ni��aladj. anatomy related to encephalization Encephalization is defined as the amount of brain mass exceeding that related to an animal's total body mass. Quantifying an animal's encephalization has been argued to be directly related to that animal's level of intelligence. . Leslie Aiello completes PartII by showing how increasing brain size, itself, can be viewed as apunctuated process related to changing selective pressures. Takentogether, the papers in Part II argue convincingly for the mosaic viewof biocultural evolution invoked by Renfrew and Gibson in Part I.Part III consists of four papers that attempt 'comparativestudies of behaviour'. K. A. Browne applies cladistic analysis Noun 1. cladistic analysis - a system of biological taxonomy based on the quantitative analysis of comparative data and used to reconstruct cladograms summarizing the (assumed) phylogenetic relations and evolutionary history of groups of organismscladistics toarchaeological data from the Lower Palaeolithic, a novel if unwarranteduse of that biological technique; using typological classifications,which vary from one time period to another and which have suspectcausation to begin with, as the basis for clade cladeCladus, subtype Genetics A branch of biological taxa or species that share features inherited from a common ancestor; a single phylogenetic group or line. See Inheritance, Species. formation left me lessthan enthusiastic. Peter Grossenbacher talks about the evolution ofneural systems and how they relate to psychological function; his paperis highly speculative. P.C. Lee returns to the use of at least some datawith a discussion of how social behaviour might influence and beinfluenced by encephalization. Finally, David Erdal & Andrew Whitenundertake a study of 24 hunter-gatherer ethnographies in order to detectuniversal characteristics of forager behaviour; in a classic comparativeanalysis as advocated long ago by Driver, they find thathunter-gatherers are fiercely egalitarian, a point made by the 'Manthe hunter' symposium in 1968. This section of the book is theleast satisfying to me, rife with speculation and weak on understandingof Palaeolithic archaeology or palaeoanthropology.Two papers on growth and development compose Part IV. ChristopherLonguet-Higgins uses the theories of Piaget to argue that a prerequisiteto language was the ability to think. James Russell also follows Piagetin his analysis of the evolution of language, suggesting that modernhumans had a much larger capacity for memory than did earlier hominidsand that this gave them an advantage in communication. Both thesepapers, while interesting and sometimes perceptive because of the novelapproaches they take, are long on speculation and short on foundation inthe record they are ultimately trying to explain.Three papers make up the final section on 'interpreting thearchaeological record'. Frederic Joulian provides one of the mostinteresting and well-documented papers in the volume concerning tool useamong West African chimpanzees. This is the kind of paper one might havehoped to see in the section on comparative studies, but it was evidentlyincluded here because of the lack of other relevant archaeologicalpapers. In any case, it is an excellent piece, decrying typology infavour of a rigourous processual examination of the data; Joulian findsthat, in many ways, the nature and context of tool use among chimps isnot terribly different than among early hominids. J.A.J. Gowlett'spaper on the mental abilities of early Homo shows how the use oftechnology as a problem-solving technique has varied little over thecourse of human prehistory; while the specifics of individualtechnologies have changed, the way design is used to addressenvironmental challenges has not. This paper, based on archaeologicaldata, suggests a certain fundamental continuity over the course of humancultural evolution. Finally, Steven Mithen reiterates his main pointsfrom his 1996 book discussed above.I found material that is both useful and less so in Modelling theearly human mind. The problem defined in Part I, that human bioculturalevolution followed a mosaic pattern, is a central one. The implicationsare that individual aspects of the evolutionary process, both biologicaland behavioural, had distinct and sometimes unrelated trajectories.While this certainly complicates the job of the palaeoanthropologist, Ithink this view is supported by the bulk of biological andarchaeological evidence, and it is this evidence that ultimately must beexplained. Although it is always useful to bring new perspectives tobear on problems, they must address the data they explain. Modelling . .. lacks the perspective of archaeologists who actually generate theprimary data for early hominid behaviour and cognition. The result is abook that falls short of providing a cogent evolutionary explanation ofthe facts of the record.Taken together, these three books point up some of the strengths andshortcomings of modern palaeoanthropology. It is clear that, if we areto understand the evolution of human cognition, we must incorporateideas from disciplines which are rarely consulted, like neural biologyand evolutionary psychology. At the same time, we must be certain thatevolutionary theory guides our considerations, with attention tosynchronic syn��chron��ic?adj.1. Synchronous.2. Of or relating to the study of phenomena, such as linguistic features, or of events of a particular time, without reference to their historical context. and diachronic di��a��chron��icadj.Of or concerned with phenomena as they change through time. variability, chronological change andselection as prime forces in the process. That attention can only comeif we concentrate on empirical as well as theoretical aspects of theproblem. And this requires a thorough grounding in the archaeologicaland palaeontological Adj. 1. palaeontological - of or relating to paleontologypaleontological records that is not evident in many of the worksreviewed here.What we do understand now is that the origin of cognition, like mostother aspects of modern human behaviour, was part of the mosaic ofevolution, in effect, a convergence of many evolutionary trajectories.Elements of the brain itself evolved in different ways, at differentrates. Various behaviours, including technology, symbolling andcommunication, also developed in distinctive ways along particularpathways. These pathways were subject to diverse selective forces overtime and space, and may ultimately have converged in different areas inslightly differing forms. Thus, the Late Pleistocene relationshipbetween biology and behaviour in the Near East may well have differedfrom that in Europe, and art could 'explode' in one area andnot another. We are beginning, however, to see the rudimentary structureof the mosaic, and each of these books illustrates that fact in adifferent way. These are first steps toward a 'new synthesis'of the evolution of mind, and while not definitive in most regards, allthe authors are to be commended for embarking on the path.

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