HUMAN BIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL ORIGINS

PATRICK J. FLEMING

Revised version of the paper presented at the Eight Annual Meeting of the

Language Origin Society, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, UK,

7-10 September 1992.

Summary and Conclusions

  • i) Homo erectus was probably one species worldwide, and died out in all locations except Africa.
  • ii) Homo erectus had no culture. His tool-making ability was instinctive. Other elements of evidence for his alleged culture (organised hunting, camp-sites, control of fire, speech and cognition) are probably in error.
  • iii) African Homo erectus developed into archaic Homo sapiens, in Africa only, and consequently was one species world-wide. This hominid showed no cultural advance on Homo erectus.
  • iv) Archaic Homo sapiens developed into a new species, Homo sapiens, in Africa only, after 200,000 BP, without a change in morphology.
  • v) This new species had speech and the other elements of the modern human psyche.
  • vi) There was a massive and rapid change in hominid behaviour between, roughly, 200,000 and 180,000 BP. Before that one finds no evidence of human culture; afterwards one finds an abundance. The origin of myth-making and altruism, which are difficult to relate to natural selection, may have originated at this time.
  • vii) About 140,000 BP Homo sapiens split into two groups. One group migrated to Europe and the Near East where it developed into Neanderthal. The other group stayed in Africa and developed into anatomically modern Homo sapiens. Neanderthal and anatomically modern Homo sapiens are of the same species - Homo sapiens. About 92,000 BP. the latter spread around the world.
  • viii) The apparent continuity from Homo erectus to archaic Homo sapiens to anatomically modern humans in some locations is accounted for by hominids dying out in those locations and newcomers, migrating from Africa, giving an apparent continuity in the fossil record.
  • Part 1. Biological Origins

    In discussing the origin of language and other aspects of human culture it is essential firstly to establish the phylogenetic relationship between the various ancestors, or hominids, in the human line to determine with which group language originated, and when. This means establishing the relationship between, and the cultural status of, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, archaic Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens neanderthalenis and anatomically modern Homo.

    The accepted relationship between these hominids begins with Homo habilis originating in Africa. He walked upright, made and used crude stone tools, but did not leave Africa. Homo erectus developed from Homo habilis about 1 ½ million years ago and spread throughout many parts of the world including China and Java. He made sophisticated tools, controlled fire, had settlements and organised hunting groups. Some claim that he had rudimentary speech. Homo erectus then developed, through archaic Homo sapiens (AHS), into anatomically modern Homo (AMH) in one or more locations. In Europe and the Near East he developed into a hominid called Neanderthal about 120,000 BP, which may or may not have developed into AMH. Either way Neanderthal disappeared from the scene about 35,000 BP.

    There are, basically two models of origin,

  • (i) the multi-regional model
  • (ii) the single regional model
  • The multi-regional model states that Homo erectus migrated from Africa to all parts of the world (except the Americas) about 1,000,000 BP and developed, through archaic Homo sapiens, into anatomically modern humans. The proponents of this model (e.g. Thorne/Wolpoff 1992) claims to see a continuity in the fossil record in China, South Asia, Africa and Europe. In other words, modern day Chinese developed from Homo erectus in China, and modern day aboriginal Australians developed from Homo erectus in Java/Australia, etc. The homogeneity of the present human race is accounted for, they state, by interbreeding at the margins.

    The single regional model states that Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens migrated from Africa to all parts of the world (except the Americas). These two hominids died out in all locations except Africa where archaic Homo sapiens developed into anatomically modern humans about 100,000 BP. Modern man then spread from there to all parts of the world, reaching Australia about 40,000 BP and North America abut 16,000 BP (or possibly 35,000 BP) via the Bering Straits. Proponents of this model (e.g. Stringer et al 1988) see discontinuities in the fossil record, indicating a replacement of hominids in all locations except Africa.

    It is important to determine,

  • i) if Homo erectus was an arbitrary grade in the human lineage or a discrete species.
  • ii) whether Homo erectus developed into AMH in one or more locations.
  • Rightmire (1990) states that early in the Middle Pleistocene (about 700,000 BP), Homo erectus can be documented from fossils found in the South, Eastern and Northwestern parts of Africa, in the Far Eastern tropics and in the cool reaches of Northern China. Populations inhabiting these far-flung regions of the Old World are anatomically similar, and the morphology of the species seems to have changed little over more than a million years. He presents a case for viewing Homo erectus as a real species and not simply an arbitrarily defined segment of a lineage. He argues that following his emergence systematic change is not easily documented. If one plots the growth of brain size with time there resulting regression line cannot be distinguished from zero. Other characters change slowly or not at all. Towards the close of the Middle Pleistocene (about 350,000 BP) there are signs that some of these characters begin to change more rapidly. It is, he argues, during this period that populations of Homo erectus must have given way to the first representatives of a new species.

    However, differences in behaviour are apparent. In Africa, Middle Pleistocene humans utilised an Acheulian technology, while at Zhoukoudian the chopping tools associated with Homo erectus do not include hand axes. In Java, few stone tools of any sort are found in the deposits yielding ancient hominids. This suggests that Homo erectus groups were adapting differently to local circumstances. For this reason Foley (1987) suggests that two species of Homo erectus existed.

    The Transition to more Modern Forms

    Rightmire states that late in the Middle Pleistocene (about 300,000 BP) a new form of Homo evolved. These hominids, which differ significantly from Homo erectus, are known from Europe, where some of the more spectacular discoveries have come from Petralona and Arago. Other localities such as Mauer, Bilzingsleben and Vertsesszöllös are less complete and consequently less informative, but are likely to be equally ancient. Dates are very approximate for all these European specimens. Crania which display an advanced morphology have turned up also in Africa at Bodo (Ethiopia), Lake Ndutu (near Olduvai Gorge), Broken Hill (now Kabwe) and Elandfontein. In China important discoveries have been made at Dali and other sites. As in Europe dating is very imprecise, although it can be established that the fossils cover a substantial span of the Middle Pleistocene. Workers such as Weidenreich, Coon and Wolpoff argue that this change was continuous in different geographical regions. They assume that the change was gradual and that populations of late Homo erectus were succeeded by local populations of Homo sapiens in an unbroken progression. Few, if any groups, became extinct. The distinction between the two groups is seen as arbitrary or is simply ignored.

    Rightmire himself adopts an opposing view. Homo erectus was a stable taxon, distinct in important ways from all later Pleistocene hominids. It was pushed towards extinction and actually replaced by members of an anatomically advanced species. In some, probably many, regions such extinction was complete, and there was no local continuity. If this version of events is more or less correct then one would expect to see more abrupt changes in the record. Traits characteristic of Homo erectus would not always be carried into later populations of the same geographical area, where, instead, new trends in morphology should be established. Such novel features would be shared by all members of the new species, who would have dispersed widely following a later Middle Pleistocene origin.

    Rightmire presents evidence that the hominids from Lake Ndutu, Broken Hill, Petralona and Arago Cave differ in their morphology from Homo erectus. He refers to them as Homo sapiens, although it is obvious that they display a number of archaic characteristics. In fact there is, he states, doubt about how the Broken Hill or the Arago people should be sorted and how these populations should be named. A number of authorities argue that the European specimens are Homo erectus, while others suggest that a name like Homo Heidelbergensis may be more appropriate.

    In his comparison of the African specimens Rightmire states that they should all be grouped together on grounds of broadly similar morphology. Characters of the occipital, mastoid and tympanic parts of the cranium, which are quite well preserved, seem to set these hominids apart from Homo erectus.

    In discussing the European fossils and comparing them to the African, Rightmire states that Petralona and Arago 21 are two of the best crania from the European Middle Pleistocene. Brows are large especially in Petralona where the torus is almost as thickened as in Broken Hill. In the Arago, Petralona and African faces the glabella is strongly projecting. Neither Petralona nor Arago exhibits any

    midline keeling. Petralona resembles the Broken Hill specimen in measurement of facial projection except at subspinale, which is slightly further forward relative to an axis through the auditory openings.

    If these fossils are not Homo erectus, continues Rightmire, then it must next be decided if multiple lineages of these more modern Homo are to be recognised in the later Middle Pleistocene. Here very different views have been expressed. Wolpoff would include all of the hominids of Europe in a single highly dimorphic group. To him it is unimportant whether the root of this lineage is termed Homo erectus or Homo sapiens. All of its members are said to be connected in an unbroken evolutionary stream, both with the Neanderthals and with modern humans. Stringer et al (1979) have suggested that fossils such as Petralona, Arago, Mauer, Broken Hill and Bodo may represent a primitive grade of our own species.

    Rightmire states that on the basis of his own observations and measurements it is reasonable to assign Ndutu, Broken Hill, Petralona and the Arago remains to a single taxon distinct from Homo erectus and later Neanderthals, even if the Arago specimens display a few Neanderthal characters. There is no justification, he states, for separating the African and European assemblages.

    If it is accepted that archaic Homo sapiens (AHS) in Africa, Europe and Asia belongs to one taxon it must be determined where the taxon originated.

  • a) Klein (1989) argues that Homo erectus died out in Asia and left no descendants. Stringer et al (1988) state that late Middle to late Pleistocene fossils from China (e.g. Yinkou and Dali) show a change from the (local) Middle Pleistocene pattern, to a greater resemblance to Europe and Middle Pleistocene hominids (e.g. Swanscombe, Broken Hill). This would indicate to the present writer an immigrant population from, possibly, Africa.
  • b) A European source for archaic Homo sapiens is problematic. Very few, if any, fossils of an ancestor i.e. Homo erectus, have ever been found in Europe if one assigns Petralona, Arago etc. to archaic Homo sapiens itself. Therefore there was no source population.
  • That only leaves an African origin.

    The Origin of Anatomically Modern Humans

    Anatomically modern humans must have evolved from archaic Homo sapiens. There is no other fossil candidate.

    Since archaic Homo sapiens fossils have been found in Africa, Europe and Asia, AMH could have originated in one or more of these locations.

    Cavalli-Sforza et al (1988) have indicated that AMH diffused from Africa about 92,000 BP. Fossils from African sites such as Border Cave and Klassies River Mouth Cave support this. The dating of the Border Cave finds are problematic, but the Klassies River site indicate that AMH flourished in Southern Africa about 100,000 BP.

    As far as recent human evolution is concerned this paper has, so far, indicated that:

  • i) AHS world-wide was one taxon;
  • ii) AMH developed form this AHS population in, probably, Africa;
  • Now it will be indicated that:
  • iii) Neanderthal developed from this AHS population;
  • iv) AHS II (to be explained later), Neanderthal and AMH are the one species, Homo sapiens.
  • There is general consensus among specialists that Neanderthal developed slowly, in Europe, from the Arago/Petralona/Swanscombe group. The reasoning is that Neanderthal must have developed from the previous hominid in that area. There is evidence of a continuum from AHS to Neanderthal in the fossil record in Europe. No such record exists in Africa.
  • Stringer (1985) is cautious in recognising Neanderthal characters in specimens like Petralona. He notes that there is nothing in the morphology of Petralona or Arago that would deny them the position of being ancestral to Neanderthal. However, he also notes that were it not for their geographic location, there is nothing in the morphology of Bodo (Ethiopia) or Broken Hill (Zambia) that would deny them a similar position of being ancestral to the Neanderthal.
  • Therefore, on morphological grounds, Neanderthal could have developed from any AHS population in Europe, the Near East or Africa.
  • The central question concerning Neanderthal is whether they were a separate branch from Homo sapiens that ended in extinction or, were they closely related to Homo sapiens?
  • Neanderthal must have emerged from one of two stocks:
  • i) European AHS;
  • ii) African AHS.
  • An origin in Asian AHS is unlikely.

    If Rightmire is correct in saying that the African and European AHS are one species morphologically Neanderthal could have developed from either group. Further, it is accepted by many that AMH developed from African AHS. This would intimately bind AHS, Neanderthal and AMH, possibly in one species.

    However, there is another scenario. It has been argued by Stoneking et al (1989) that Homo sapiens originated in Africa about 200,000 BP (using the 3% mutation rate). This was confirmed by Vigilant et al (1991) in a paper which avoided the confusion over certain conceptual issues in the Stoneking (1989) paper. The Stoneking et al conclusions have been further questioned by Templeton (1992). He argues that an African origin for Homo sapiens is not proven by the analysis carried out on the Stoneking et al data set. This is acknowledged by Stoneking in Hedges et al (1992).

    However, the present writer points out:

  • i) that an African origin, using mtDNA analysis, is unproven, not disproven. A common ancestor is accepted by all;
  • ii) it is not disputed that African mtDNA is more diverse than from elsewhere;
  • iii) nuclear DNA analysis supports an African origin;
  • iv) fossil evidence supports an African origin;
  • v) Templeton's objections do not extend to the date of the origin put forward by Stoneking et al;
  • (vi) examination of the Y chromosomes (which only males have) indicates Africa as the origin of the male line.
  • If Stoneking et al are right, then from fossil evidence this would make the common ancestor a member of an anatomically archaic group. Rightmire may very well be correct in saying that European and African AHS were one species, but this can only have been true up to about 200,000 when a new species emerged. It is possible to refer to a new species because of the apparent lack of interbreeding with previous hominids. This is indicated in Stoneking's paper where it is argued that if interbreeding had taken place then the mtDNA distance between modern humans would be far greater than actually observed so far.

    We must therefore refer to an old AHS group and a new AHS group (called AHS I and AHS II hereafter).

    Now the original question about Neanderthal origins becomes, did Neanderthal emerge from

  • i) The old, pre 200,000 BP species (Africa, Europe) or
  • ii) the new, post 200,000 BP species (Africa only)?
  • If Neanderthal were a member of the old AHS species then the hominid would be distantly related to AMH but of a different species, making inter-breeding questionable.

    If Neanderthal were a member of the new AHS species, then the hominid and AMH would belong to the same species, making interbreeding possible.

    So, from which group did Neanderthal emerge:

  • i) African AHS I:
  • ii) European AHS I;
  • iii) African AHS II?
  • It is postulated in this paper that the source was the African AHS II group. This population, sometime after its emergence, split into two groups. One group migrated to Europe and Western Asia, probably through the Near East where it developed into Neanderthal. The other group stayed in Africa where it developed into AMH. This latter group then split into two further groups some time later. One group stayed in Africa and the other group spread around the globe. This model implies that the European and African AHS I groups died out. The apparent continuity to Neanderthal in Europe being taken up by the African AHS II migrants.

    Graves (1991) in a departure from the traditional view of Neanderthal, argues that he and AMH were equal without identity.

    The Mousterian/Middle Stone Age Culture

    A common Mousterian/Middle Stone Age covered Africa, the Near East and Europe starting about 180,000 years BP in Africa, later in the Near East and still later in Europe. This common culture included (after Klein 1989):

  • i) Stone artifacts: These are generally dominated by flakes or flake-blades, often from well-prepared cores and the principal retouched pieces are scrapers, points, and denticulates similar to those found in the contemporaneous Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic) of Europe and the Near East. MSA assemblages resemble Mousterian ones in two further fundamental respects:
  • a) they lack formal bone, ivory or shell tools, or art objects, with some rare exceptions that could represent undetected intrusions from later horizons;
  • b) they exhibit relatively little variability in time and space that cannot be attributed to differences or changes in the availability of lithic raw materials. In fact, typologically and technically, there is little to distinguish the MSA from the Mousterian, and at present the basic difference is geographic. Assemblages that would be called Mousterian in Europe, the Near East, or North Africa are called MSA in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • ii) non-stone artifacts: A wooden spear was found in Lehringan. Possible throwing sticks were found in Angola and Florisbad (South Africa). However, deliberately shaped bone tools are unknown in Mousterian or MSA sites. Mousterian/MSA peoples left little or no evidence for art or ornament. Fragments of natural red or black pigment that Mousterian/MSA peoples brought to their sites suggest that they may have decorated perishable materials, perhaps including their own skins. They did not concentrate pigments in graves;
  • iii) both Mousterian and MSA groups used caves and open-air sites. These sites were probably living places or camps rather than places where people killed or butchered animals. This is indicated by their very nature and by the fossil fireplaces or "hearths" that are a prominent feature in virtually every well-excavated cave where preservation conditions are appropriate;
  • iv) There are many examples of Neanderthals burying their dead. the skeletons of AMH at Skhul and Qafzeh (Israel) dated at 100,000 BP, (Science 1991) were also found in graves. However, there is no evidence that the MSA people buried their dead, but the site sample is relatively small and the conditions for grave preservation are not as good as in Europe and the Near East.
  • In Europe, continues Klein, the Mousterian is closely linked to the Neanderthals, and if human fossils were absent from MSA sites in Southern Africa,, we might guess that the people were Neanderthals, or at least that they differed from modern people to the same extent that Neanderthals did. Clearly we would be wrong, and the well established association in the near East between Mousterian artifacts on the one hand and both Neanderthal and early moderns on the other has long shown that there is no necessary correlation between physical type and artifacts. Equally germane, it suggests that a major change in physical type may precede a major change in artifacts.

    The present writer believes that the similarity between MSA and the European/Middle East cultures is best explained by African early Homo sapiens carrying that culture to Europe rather than a similar Mousterian culture developing independently there. The probability of two similar cultures developing independently in different areas seems rather remote.

    A sample of DNA, recovered from a Neanderthal bone found at Shanidar, is currently undergoing tests at the U. S. Los Alamos National Laboratory. If successful, these tests will indicate the genetic distance between Neanderthal and ourselves (AMH) (Scientific American, 1992).

    Because they belonged to the same species and shared a similar cognitive capacity and culture, the hypothesized second migration of AMH from Africa to the Near East would have allowed both groups to interbreed. This need not necessarily have happened however. For a number of reasons they may have lived side by side without mating. This is a common occurrence as, for example, when modern Europeans met the original inhabitants of the Americas, Africa and Australia.

    The MSA differs from the succeeding Later Stone Age (LSA) in much the same way that the Mousterian differs from the succeeding Upper Palaeolithic.

    Characteristic Neanderthal Morphology

    Morphologically, the Neanderthals can be distinguished from all other people, fossil or living, primarily in the skull and face. Trinkaus (1986) and Klein (1989) has discussed the functional implications of this morphology:

  • i) The relative shortness of the forearm and lower leg may have been an adaptation to the cold climates that many Neanderthals faced;
  • ii) The functional interpretation of the Neanderthal facial structure i.e. the forward placement of the jaws and the large size of the incisors may reflect the habitual use of the anterior dentition as a tool, perhaps mostly as a clamp or vice. This use could also account, in whole or in part, for such well known Neanderthal features as the long face, the well-developed supraorbital torus, and even the long, low shape of the cranium;
  • iii) The large Neanderthal nose, located far in front of the brain could have functioned to warm cold air before it reached the lungs. It is also possible, however, that the large nose served to dissipate body heat during frequent periods of heightened activity.
  • The Migrations from Africa

    The dates of the migration of African AHS II and the subsequent migration of AMH are of interest in this matter.

    The hypothesized early migrants would have brought their lithic technology with them. This technology is called Mousterian in Europe and the Near East, and the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in Sub-Saharan Africa. The MSA started in Southern Africa about 180,000 BP. Therefore the AHS II migration could only have occurred after that. According to Cavalli-Sforza et al (1986) anatomically modern man migrated from Africa about 92,000 years BP. So based on this data, the initial migration of AHS was between, roughly, 180,000 BP and 92,000 BP.

    As Neanderthal is dated from about 120,000 BP in the Levant, a migration about 140,000 BP is reasonable.

    If the African AHS II migrated through the Levant to Europe, one would expect to find his earliest fossils in the Middle East. The earliest fossils from this area are:

  • i) Zuttiyeh;
  • (ii) Tabun.
  • i) Zuttiyeh. According to Vendermeersch (1989) this represents a pre-Mousterian, Acheulian population in the Levant. It has some Neanderthal features such as a marked brow ridge. However certain other features, which are already apparent in pre-last glaciation Preneanderthals, are different from Zuttiyeh. He states that the typical morphology of the Neanderthal skull had already been established (in all its features) by the middle of the Riss glacial period. Any proposal of a phyletic link between Zuttiyeh and the Neanderthals would have to admit two independent lineages leading to Neanderthal, an unlikely possibility. He completes his analysis by suggesting that the Zuttiyeh hominid, from an AHS population, evolved into a proto-Cro-Magnon population.
  • Trinkaus (1989) sees no uniquely derived features of either modern humans or Neanderthals in the fossil. He is quoted by Klein (1989) as being of the opinion that it is early Neanderthal.
  • Ofer Bar-Yosef (1989) states that the fragmentary skull from Zuttiyeh is
  • AHS dating from oxygen isotope stage 6 or 5e (145,000 - 97,000 B.P.).
  • In summary there is some evidence indicating that the Zuttiyeh fossil is archaic/early Neanderthal dating to a time compatible with a migration from Africa between 92,000 and 140,000 B.P. He/she either died out or developed into Neanderthal.
  • ii) Tabun. Trinkaus (1989) states that the layer E fossils preserve no uniquely derived features of either modern humans or Neanderthals. These fossils have been dated to 120,000 B.P. (Science 1991)
  • The fossils are compatible with the postulated migration from Africa of AHS.
  • The Cultural Status of Homo Erectus

    The fate of the late Homo erectus/archaic Homo sapiens population, if they did not evolve into AMH and Neanderthal, must be addressed.

    Although no Homo erectus fossils have been found in Europe, artifacts that he may have made can be identified by their contemporanity with Homo erectus elsewhere. These artifacts were part of the Acheulian tradition that was widespread both spatially and temporarily. However, Binford (1989) states that the remarkable similarity in early hominid technology over vast areas calls to mind what we see in other species of animals, namely, a generic organizational basis of behaviour that is common to the species. There is nothing in the data of the Oldowan or the Acheulian to suggest in any way a "cultural" or extrasomatic mechanism of inheritance serving to make possible the occupation of varying niches by sub-populations of a single species. We are not looking at rudimentary or nascent cultural systems, instead we have a technologically aided, biologically based, panspecific form of adaptation.

    In the same paper Binford also questions the hunting prowess of Homo erectus. There were, he argues, no mass kills at Torralba, no game drives, no activity areas in which large quantities of meat were processed by socially differentiated labour units. Also, the tool suite is associated with bones from lower limbs and heads. This association is recognised from earlier sites as a tentative indication of scavenging. It seems likely that, as elsewhere, these bones were accumulated by the hominids rather than representing animals killed there. There is no indication that the hominids hunted or caused the death of animals. In fact, the pattern of raw material use characteristic of this suite suggests that the hominids encountered the carcasses unexpectedly and were forced to produce the tools needed to deal with them using local sources and already present lithic remains. This behaviour is consistent, Binford argues, with scavenging, and little planning depth stands behind it.

    James (1989) rejects the use of fire by Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian. He states that what has passed for burnt bone in the past is in fact manganese staining. Binford and Ho (1985) point out that there are no structurally defined hearths there and that the so called ash layers appear to consist of owl droppings, hyena scats and other organic accumulations that have been decalcified and burned, perhaps as a result of spontaneous combustion or surface fires.

    Terra Amata, near Nice, has, since 1969, been accepted as a Homo erectus campsite. It was excavated by de Lumpy, and thought to date to about 300,000 BP. The excavators recovered the bones of wild oxen, stag etc. There were even imprints of skins that once covered the floor. There were holes for posts

    and some huts had a hearth in the centre. De Lumley concluded that Terra Amata was a seasonal camp occupied by a band of hunter-gatherers who returned to the same area every year.

    However, Paola Villa (1983) quoted in Fagan (1992) has thrown serious doubt on this original interpretation. She believes that soil creep, ice action, animal burrowing and even earthworm tunnelling transformed Terra Amata after its abandonment - to the point that the de Lumley huts of reeds and brush may not actually have existed.

    For these reasons, the present writer believes that serious doubt must be cast on the culture system of Homo erectus. Neither he nor AHS I show any cultural signs of an evolution to the culture possessed by the MSA Sub-Saharan people and the Mousterian population of the Middle East and Europe.

    As already postulated, the European late Homo erectus/AHS I died out as in East Asia.

    One population of Homo erectus had to evolve through AHS to AMH and Neanderthal. That population was in Africa.

    Present Problems Regarding the Relationship of Neanderthal and Anatomically Modern Homo

    There are, currently, two spatial and temporal areas with an overlap of Neanderthal and AMH.

  • i) In the Middle East Neanderthal fossils found at Tabun and Kabara have been dated in 120,000 and 60,000 BP respectively. AMH fossils have been found at Skhul and Qafzeh, both dated to about 100,000 BP. It therefore seems probable that both groups were contemporaries for some tens of thousands of years. It is debated whether one or two species are present (Science 1991). Stringer et al (1988) state that the two groups used indistinguishable Middle Palaeolithic technologies.
  • Stringer et al (Nature 1991) also discuss this problem. They feel that Neanderthal and AMH were probably sufficiently closely related to allow hybridisation. They make the point that mitochondrial DNA studies suggest that there is no trace of a genetic input from Neanderthal females in recent European samples. Had there been interaction then the mtDNA divergence of modern humans would be much greater than it is. This reasoning is based on Neanderthal being a very old species, descended from an older European species.
  • However, if my hypothesis is correct, interbreeding of the migrating anatomically modern Africans with the Neanderthal population of the Middle East and Europe would have been possible. Since both populations descended from the same anatomically archaic population in Africa, both would have nearly the same mtDNA divergence, as they had not been separated for more than 50,000 years at most.
  • Frayer (1992b) refers to a persistence of certain Neanderthal traits suggesting a degree of continuity which is only feasible with a model accepting some measure of genetic contribution of Neanderthals to subsequent Homo sapiens populations.
  • ii) Mercer et al (1991) have dated burnt flints associated with a Neanderthal skeleton from Saint - Césaire in France to about 36,000 ± 3,000 BP. This is one of the last known Neanderthals, and supports the proposition that the last Neanderthals coexisted with the first modern humans for several thousand years in Western Europe. This Chatelperronian technology may be based on the Aurignacian technology of the AMH.
  • The reason for this late arrival of AMH in Western Europe is discussed by F. C. Howell (1952) who argued that the Neanderthals in Western Europe (classic Neanderthals) were isolated by the patterns of glaciation during Würm II. East-central and Eastern Europe were not particularly isolated during the Early Last glacial. There was broad continuity at least as far East as the Crimea and southward into the Levant.
  • I postulate that the East European and Near Eastern populations (either mixed Neanderthal/anatomically modern population, or a 'pure' anatomically modern population) spread eventually into Western Europe during an interstadial. They did not mix at all or only very marginally. This lack of large-scale interbreeding could easily be explained by the higher cultural levels of the migrants, coupled with strong facial and other anatomical difference.
  • Neanderthals and Speech

    If Neanderthal and AMH belong to the same species then one would expect them to have had the same language capability. Since the publication of Lieberman et al (1971), European Neanderthals have been denied the full range of linguistic competence typical of AMH. Based on their reconstruction of the vocal tract of the Neanderthal skull from La Chapelle-aux-Saints, it has been argued for the last 20 years that Neanderthals lacked the ability to pronounce certain vowels, and were therefore incapable of modern speech. This was proffered as an explanation for Neanderthals inability to compete successfully or interbreed with AMH. In particular, it was the relatively flat cranial base of the reconstruction that led Lieberman and Crelin to deny modern speech to Neanderthal. Flattening is associated with a highly positioned larynx which is correlated with a reduced capacity to produce the sounds of human speech. AMH has an arched cranial base.

    A recent reconstruction of the La Chapelle-aux- Saints skull by Heim (1989) has demonstrated that the cranial base is not as flat as the Lieberman reconstruction. Heim's paper is discussed in Frayer (1992a). This latter's paper discusses the following:

  • i) that there is no fundamental difference between the new reconstruction and that of AMH in cranial base flattening. Consequently, all speculation about less than human language capacity, as judged from the previous incorrect reconstruction, must now be revised;
  • ii) a recent discovery by Arensberg et al (1990) of a hyoid bone found in association with the Near Eastern Kebara Neanderthal. It is the only one known for a Neanderthal anywhere. It is indistinguishable from the hyoid bone of AMH. This bone defines the upper limit of the larynx, and makes its owner as anatomically capable of speech as AMH.
  • If the above arguments are correct, then arguments about Neanderthals verbal ineptitude are no longer valid and must be abandoned.

    Part 2. The Origin of the Human Psyche

    By the human psyche is meant the entire collection of activities and tendencies that make up human mentality. Alexander (1989) include concepts such as:

  • i) consciousness (i.e. planning, purpose, reflection, deception, ability, etc.);
  • ii) cognition (learning, logic, etc.);
  • iii) linguistic ability;
  • iv) emotions (grief, excitement, guilt, etc.);
  • v) personality traits ( stubbornness, arrogance, persistence, etc.).
  • The present author would add myth and altruism, among others.

    Of interest in this paper are:

  • a) did all these concepts emerge together (unitary theory) as one package, or separately (modular theory)? For example, the ability to speak seems to include, automatically, the capacity to lie. Does this also imply the capacity for guilt? Does this further imply the capacity to distinguish truth from lies and an understanding that one or the other ought to be pursued in a specific, or all, instance(s)?.
  • b) when did the human psyche emerge, and where?
  • c) did it evolve, or emerge over a long or short period?
  • In view of the strong possibility that Homo erectus was completely devoid of a human type culture or psyche, the time left for the evolution of separate human psychic capacities was very short. This would favour the unitary theory.
  • Origin of Cognition

    Donald (1991) points out that the brains of apes and humans are so similar that one is left at a loss to explain the remarkable, and apparently discontinuous, nature of the mental capacity of humans in comparison with those of our primate cousins. He quotes Skinner (1957) and Myers (1976) as saying that apes have very little voluntary control over their vocalisations. They vocalize, but the patterns are highly stereotyped. An ape-like creature that could purposefully modulate vocalization could produce quite a wide variety of sounds. It is the brain, not the vocal cords, that matter. He also quotes Wind (1976) who supports these contentions.

    So, how did the modern mind evolve from its presymbolic form? Donald, in an attempt to erect an evolutionary scenario, proposes that there have been three radical transitions in the evolution of human culture and cognition since the time of our ape-like ancestors:

  • i) Starting about 2 million years ago, both a major expansion of the cerebrum and a radical cultural change occurred, whereby hominids (Homo erectus) commenced to accumulate skills that led to distinctive tool-making industries, systematic group hunting, seasonal home bases, migration out of Africa and the use of fire. These cultural changes, continues Donald, imply fundamental cognitive changes. He refers to the culture as mimetic - the ability to represent knowledge through non-linguistic voluntary motor acts;
  • ii) The second major transition is placed at the time of the speciation of Homo sapiens, about 200,000 BP, when both anatomy and culture again changed in a major way. The cerebrum expanded once again, to its present size, and the vocal apparatus changed. Cultural innovation became much more rapid. Speech emerged at this stage. The result was a cognitive system that allowed Homo sapiens to evolve a complex preliterate culture. Donald calls this the mythic culture, a culture which survives in many part of the world today;
  • iii) The third and final transition is the non-biological change that created modern humans. This new cultural level included the invention and use of graphics and writing, and theory construction. It started around 40,000 BP. Donald calls it the theoretic culture.
  • The present writer has argued above that Donald's first cultural transition did not happen. His third cultural transition can be accepted, but it does not necessarily mean or imply a cognitive change. Members of the mythic culture can, with training, participate effectively in the theoretic culture.

    So the attempt to establish an evolutionary model for cognition fails.

    The only part of the evolutionary model that can be broadly accepted is his second level which has common acceptance. If this analysis is correct there would therefore seem to have been only one cognitive transition, from apes to humans, around 200,000 BP.

    Origin of Language

  • i) Bichakjian et al (1992) state that both historical and theoretical linguists are non-evolutionists. As they scan the sequence of changes that relates a proto-language to each of its extant derivatives, historical linguists seem to be unable, perhaps unwilling, to observe any evolutionary processes.
  • The theoretical linguists cannot allow for language evolution without coming into conflict with their own theory. The linguists who work in Chomsky's framework postulate that, as the human species emerged, the new phenotype came equipped with the genetic material coding for the basic rules of grammar (Universal Grammar). Since it is assumed that the human species has remained static since that momentous set of mutations, the basic rules of grammar could not have changed, since the phenotype is unchanged. Language change is thus reduced to a case of erratic behaviour.
  • ii) Wind (1992) states that it is possible to produce speech without a larynx, as is shown by those people in whom the organ has been removed because of malignancy. They appear to be able to swallow some air, and use air burped into the pharynx to produce a type of speech that is often hardly discernible from the normal one.
  • Wind argues, in principle, that as the chimpanzee's larynx is virtually similar to the human one, then if this larynx were grafted into a human to replace his own, and if all the nerve endings etc. were connected then the human would produce a type of speech that would differ hardly at all from the normal. He gives further examples of these "thought" experiments of grafting primate voice organs onto humans to indicate that one cannot ascribe ineptitude of their peripheral vocal organs in animals for their inability to speak. The lack is something in the internal cerebral wiring.
  • iii) Ragir (1992) points out the difficulties associated with the evolutionary scenario for the emergence of language. Natural selection acts upon individual variations already present in the population. Language capacity enables the expression of a system of behaviour which cannot be generated by a single person. The first speaker would have no evolutionary advantage if his/her contemporaries were non-speaking - no one would understand. Whatever language capacity consists of, language itself could not emerge unless a whole community not only had a capacity for language but also a reason for using and developing it.
  • iv) Foster (1991) states that certain widely accepted tenets have implicitly or explicitly received common acceptance as requisite to the invention of language. In all scientific endeavours received wisdom often proves to be a relic of outmoded paradigms and must be explored and discarded if progress is to be made. She discusses seven such concepts of which only two will be discussed here.
  • a) Language originated for communicative purposes. This assumption is often coupled with an evolutionary economic determinism that considers hunting important to hominid survival. This is a curious assumption, she says, since our primate relatives have survived nicely as gatherers
  • , requiring neither hunting abilities nor language. We surely need language as much as to communicate with ourselves as with one another.
  • b) Language originated in animal vocalisation. Animals use calls for signaling rather than for representation, and representation of one thing by another is crucial to language. An extraordinary cognitive leap would be needed for a transition from vocal signaling to representation.
  • v) Bickerton (1990) states that the mechanisms of mental evolution are still without a history or convincing explanation. There are subtle but far reaching differences between language and animal communications that make it impossible to regard one as antecedent to the other. The net result of this is the Paradox of Continuity. Language must have evolved out of some prior system, and yet there does not seem to be any such system out of which it could have evolved. Arguments about the nature, origin and function of language have remained inextricably mired in this paradox. Bickerton seeks a way out, and argues that until we cease to regard language as primarily communicative and begin to treat it as primarily representational, we cannot hope to escape from the Continuity Paradox. As evolution requires that language have an ancestry of some sort, if there is to be continuity, it must be in some domain other than that of communication. Many people concerned with the origin of human language, or with the alleged language capacities of non-human species, have been led to propose grossly simplistic hypotheses about how language could have emerged, simply on the basis of a mistaken assumption. They assume that words are serially chained into phrases, and phrases into sentences. Nothing, he states, could be further from the truth. Phrases are like Chinese boxes, stacked one inside the other.
  • He offers a clear choice, either language as we know it sprang fully blown into the world, or it emerged originally in a much more primitive form. The first of these scenarios is unlikely. Evolution does not normally, if ever, involve leaps of this magnitude. The case for the second scenario would be strengthened if we could find, in our own species, forms of language, or something resembling language, that also lack some of the defining characteristics of language. He believes he has found this 'protolanguage' among:
  • a) the language production of trained apes;
  • b) small children;
  • c) speakers of pidgin;
  • d) language deprived individuals whose linguistic capabilities were severely retarded.
  • All of these productions show neglect of grammatical devices and syntactic hierarchical organisation. He calls the pre-language (or protolanguage) species-specific view of reality the primary representational system (PRS), and language a subsequent, secondary representational system (SRS). He assumes that only these two stages occurred. He states that Homo erectus, on account of its tool-making, fire-making, hunting and shelter-making ability, was the first hominid to have protolanguage. However, as the present writer has indicated above, these claims for Homo erectus are highly suspect and may have to be abandoned. Bickerton's PRS would have to be abandoned also.

    He emphasises the vast difference between pre-sapiens and sapiens artifacts and states that language was necessary for the production of the advanced artifacts. However, the suddenness of the enrichment at the erectus-sapiens interface suggests that some wholly new element had emerged. The relative absence of development during the million-year-plus erectus period suggests that this new elements emergence was sudden rather than gradual. If true language had developed during the erectus period, continues Bickerton, one might expect to find an equally gradual improvement in tool quality. Therefore protolanguage was replaced quite rapidly by language. The most likely causative factor for this would have been some change in the internal organisation of the brain that resulted from a single genetic mutation. This mutation most probably occurred in only one of the hominid populations. The chances of a similar occurrence in all populations is astronomical. It seems most likely, concludes Bickerton, that the development that gave us language took place in a single individual at a not very remote period. The progeny of this individual spread throughout the world, and superseded previous hominid populations in all parts.

    Although Bickerton is probably wrong in attributing protolanguage to Homo erectus, he may very well be correct in his analysis of the emergence of language.

    One would expect to see the introduction of language reflected in the archaeological record. The stone-tool evidence may bear witness to this. After the static Acheulean phase the tool-kit expands rapidly. The new manufacturing techniques of the MSA, about 180,000 BP, achieve great complexity. Because of the margin of error associated with both dates, the emergence of AHS II and the MSA could have coincided.

    Existing Language Families

    There are about 5000 spoken languages in the world. Most of them have been grouped into families of languages, the best known of which is Indo-European. There is a small difference of opinion as to how certain languages should be treated. However the number normally agreed is 17, as follows;

  • Khoisan
  • Niger-Kordofanian
  • Nilo-Saharan
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Caucasian
  • Indo-European
  • Uralic-Yukahir
  • Altaic
  • Chukchi-Kamchatkan
  • Eskimo-Aleut
  • Dravidian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Austric
  • Indo-Pacific
  • Australian
  • Na-Dene
  • Amerind
  • The Amerind group (by Greenberg) is the subject of much criticism, and is rejected by some linguists.

    The obvious question is whether these language families can be grouped into further super-families and possibly one super-family, the original language spoken in Africa about 180,000 BP.

    There are those linguists who argue that attempting to group families at such time depths is impossible. However, historical linguists in Russia and the United States have been attempting this. One such attempt has grouped Afro-Asiatic, Indo-European, Dravidian, Uralic-Yukaghir and Altaic into a super-family, which is called Nostratic.

    A very interesting study has been carried out in Stanford University by Cavalli-Sforza et al (1988). They grouped 38 related world populations, using non-DNA data, in a genetic tree. They then placed a list of the language families, appropriately ordered, beside the tree. The result indicated parallelism between the splitting up of groups as they diffused from Africa, and the splitting up of language super-families and families. They also determined the initial spread of anatomically modern humans from Africa at 92000 BP. These results, if correct, represent independent evidence for an African origin for our species, and its spread around the globe.

    The Origin of Myth-Making

    Donald (1991) suggests that one way of examining how language evolved is to look at the earliest uses to which it was put. Stone age cultures demonstrate how far language development initially outstripped technology. The latter was primitive, while language in social contexts soared to great heights. The most elevated use of language in tribal societies is in the area of mythic invention, accounts of creation and death. These uses, he states, were not late developments, after language had proven itself in concrete practical application; they were there from the beginning. He contrasts the simple technology of the !Kung Bushmen and their highly evolved language, myth, ritual and religious life, which permeates their every activity.

    Every hunter-gatherer society appears to have an elaborate mythological system that is similar in principle. Thus, although language was first and foremost a social device, it was not used initially to construct social or political organisations, or collective technologies, but rather to construct conceptual models of the human universe. He concludes that modern humans developed language in response to pressure to improve their conceptual apparatus, not vice versa.

    The Origin of Altruism

    Altruism is difficult to relate to an evolutionary scenario based on natural selection. The person practicing altruism suffers, and on occasion, dies. Eccles (1989) states that one should distinguish between the pseudaltruism or instinctive altruism of insects etc., and the true altruism of humans. The latter is distinguished by intent and regard for the interests of the other person or persons. He asks how far back in hominid evolution this moral behaviour was first practiced. He can find no sign of it in dolphins or chimpanzees.

    Turning to hominids, he refers to Neanderthals caring for the dead in ceremonial burial customs dating back to 80,000 BP. The discovery, at Shanidar, of the skeleton of a severely incapacitated Neanderthal man, dating to 60,000 BP indicated that he had been cared for by other for about 40 years. This is the earliest known example of human

    altruism.

  • Patrick Fleming
  • Dublin 3
  • Ireland
  • e-mail: flemingp@iol.ie

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