Cognitive capacities of fossil hominids
Francesco d’Errico
Université de Bordeaux, UMR 5199 PACEA, Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, Avenue des
Facultés, 33405 Talence cedex - France
Institute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
In the absence of writing, language does not fossilize of its own accord. Complex technologies, regional trends in the
styles and decoration of tools, systematic use of pigments, abstract and representational depictions in a variety of media,
mortuary practices, grave goods, musical instruments, and personal ornaments are amongst the more common, longlasting human creations that may be considered, to varying degrees, as non-linguistic features associated with the
emergence of language. They could, if their significance in this respect was more precisely evaluated, provide valuable
information as to the origin and evolutionary steps that have led to modern language.
The arguments which have so far been put forward to link cultural innovations to the emergence of language vary
both in nature and in interpretive value. Most archaeologists assume that cross-cultural analysis of historically known
human societies can identify regularities that may help shed light on the way people thought, communicated, and acted
in the past. Knapping and bone working techniques, which require complex sequences of actions have been considered
viable correlates for the presence of behavioural modernity and complex language on the grounds that those techniques
would have required a structured “syntax” of actions to be produced. Connections between music and language origins
have traditionally been established on the grounds that the two systems share, to some degree, comparable syntax and
semantics. Symbolic manifestations are the more cited evidence for the emergence of language and numerous scholars
consider that the origin of language is linked intimately with that of the symbolic thought and, in particular, the
production of a symbolic material culture. Since a key characteristic of all symbols is that their meaning is assigned by
arbitrary, socially constructed conventions, a connection must exist between the eminently symbolic character of human
language and the creation of the material expression of symbolic thought in human cultures. Apes are able to learn
referential symbols and represent other minds in a context of social competition Chimpanzees clearly have the capacity
to develop and transmit cultural traditions but they have never been observed creating systems of symbols in the wild
nor embodying them in their material culture, or displaying them on their body.
Specific frames of inferences have been proposed to refine the link between language and particular elements of past
symbolic material culture. The proposition that eleven basic colour words are common to all the languages of the world
and that they arose in different languages in a regular sequence (black and white followed by red, green, yellow, blue and
brown) has been used to support the view that colours did emerge in the same order during the process that has led to
modern cognition. Since syntactical languages with only three basic colours exist, the identification of past societies
specifically spotting red and/or black pigments, and purposely heating minerals to get a particular shade may be seen as
an indication that not only did they have complex system of communication but also that those universals and semantic
categories were already present in their languages. The female cosmetic coalition model posits that the use of red
pigments for painting bodies and clothing, to mimic menstrual blood, should be seen as one of the strategies created by
females to build a more co-operative society in order to meet higher reproductive costs. Although not making robust
predictions about when complex languages would emerge along this process, this model identifies a systematic use of
red pigment as a proxy for syntactical language or, at least, for the social context in which such a mean of
communication could emerge.
A link between language and personal ornaments has also been proposed. Beadwork represents a technology specific
to humans which signals their ability to project social information to members of the same or neighbouring groups by
means of a shared symbolic language. Symbols applied to the physical body ascribe collectively defined social status to
the wearers that can be understood by the other members of the group only if the latter share the complex codes that
establish a link between the worn items, the place and way they are displayed on the body, the social categorization they
signal and the symbolic meaning carried by the objects. Others consider that the capacity to represent how an object
appears to another person is necessary for the invention of symbolic artefacts like beads. Because recursion is essential to
articulate in language the kind of metarepresentations, they predict that the presence of syntactic language can confidently
be ‘read’ from complex symbolic material culture. These arguments are not universally accepted. Some authors contend
for example that pigments may have been used for utilitarian rather than symboic purposed or that early beads may only
reflect attention to personal identity and do not necessarily stand for something else. Still others contends that some
inferential steps on which the bead-language equation is based are problematic, either because they are not underpinned
by well-articulated theories of what ‘fully syntactical language’ is or because they do not fully explain why a complex
language form is required for transmitting the symbolic meanings associated with the use of ornaments.
When and how did behaviours that we may use as proxies for language arose in human history?
Until very recently the emergence of modern behaviors was considered coincident with the arrival of H. sapiens in
Europe at 40 ka. This view, commonly known as the “Human Revolution” scenario, has been replaced in the last
decade by the so called “Out of Africa” scenario. This latter model argues that symbolically mediated behaviour
developed in Africa because they represent the behavioral corollary of the emergence of H. sapiens in that continent ca.
200 kya. According to this view the appearance of modern cognitive behaviours (syntactical language, advanced
cognition, symbolic thinking) in Eurasia, associated with H. sapiens, is possibly the result of the dispersal of an already
symbolic species at c. 60 ka or earlier. AMH spread led to rapid extinction of pre-modern human populations in Asia
.
and Europe with little or no biological exchange and limited cultural interaction A third model, that we may call the
Sapient Neanderthal, suggests that the material culture of Neanderthals in Europe and the Near East before the first
arrival of H. sapiens was associated with innovations, including a symbolic material culture, similar in many respects to
that observed in Africa, and indicating that Neanderthal language abilities were not significantly different from those of
contemporary AMHs. The fact that crucial innovations appear only sporadically in Eurasia and Africa beteen 160 and 30
kya is interpreted in the framework of this scenario as the proof that demographic factors, probably triggered by climatic
changes, rather than a single speciation event are the main cause for the emergence and loss of innovations in the two
emispheres.
A reapprisal of relevant archeological discoveries support this last scenario. The oldest burials, associated in some
case with grave goods, are found in the Near East, date back to at least 100-130 kya, and concerns both modern humans
and Neanderthals. Systematic use of red pigments is evident in Africa at archaeological sites dated to 160 kyr and
possibly at sites dated to 280 kyr. In the Near East the oldest evidence for systematic use of pigments dates back to c.
100 kyr. Pigments, mostly black, were also used by Neanderthals in Europe since 300 kya but their use became
systematic only after 60 kyr. Convincing evidence for the use of personal ornaments is found at sites in South Africa,
North Africa, and the Near East, and date to between 100 kyr and 70 kyr. Ornaments disappear in Africa and the Near
East between 70 ky and 40 and reappear almost everywhere in Africa and Eurasia after this time span in the form of
ostrigh egg shells beads. There is clear evidence that Neanderthals used a varied repertoire of personal ornaments at the
end of their history and occasional evidence that they dit it before then. Fully shaped bone tools, some of which
decorated with engraved lines and notches (spear points, awls, spatulas, harpoons) are found in Africa since at least 75
ky, possibly 90 ky. Neanderthals produced complex bone tools, some of which also decorated, only after 40 ky, just
before their extinction. The earliest abstract designs, engraved on bone and ochre, are found at Blombos Cave and in 100
– 70 kyr old levels. Abstract designs on artefacts seem to disappear in southern Africa between 73 kyr and c. 55 kyr after
which they reappear at Diepkloof Shelter, Western Cape, in the form of engraved ostrich eggshells. Abstract engravings
made by Neanderthals are also reported in the literature, but seem less compelling than those made by modern humans.
Figurative representations, consisting of painted, engraved and carved animals appear only at ca 28 ky in Africa, at
Apollo 11 shelter, Namibia, and at 32 ky in Europe, for example at Chauvet, Fumane and in Southern Germany. The
oldest carved musical instruments, consisting of flutes made of bird bone and mammoth ivory decorated with notches,
are found in Europe at Aurignacian sites and date back to 32-33 ky ago. No convincing musical instruments are
associated to Neanderthals.
This succint review of the evidence 1) contradicts the idea that the production of a symbolic material culture is the
result of a sudden change in human cognition occurring in Europe or in Africa 40-50 ka, 2) suggests the presence of
symbolic material cultures in Africa by at least 150 ka, after 100 ky in the Near east and by at least 60-50 ka in Europe
3) indicates that engravings, pigments, personal ornaments, formal bone tools, burial practices do not appear in the
archeological record as a single package, 4) reveals that during the period comprised between approximately 150 ky and
30 ky these innovations appear, disappear and reappear in different forms suggesting majors discontinuities in cultural
transmission, 6) contraddicts the assumption that crucial innovations can only come from or be assimilated by an
anatomically modern humanity.