Inferring language from non-linguistic artifacts
In this week’s lecture and associated readings we have been looking at human evolution, with the aim of understanding the ecology that shaped the evolution of our species, but also in the hope that we might be able to glean some clues about when language evolved. Unfortunately, writing is a very recent invention, and spoken languages don’t leave direct traces in the archaeological record. However, it might be possible to make inferences about when language evolved, or whether some hominid population had language, if we can infer the presence of language from something that does show up in the archaeological record – tools, beads, ochre etc.
The question for this week’s tutorial is therefore: can we infer the presence (or absence) of language from the presence (or absence) of certain types of material culture in the archeological record? The set readings take opposing positions on this question. Henshilwood & Dubreuil (2009) argue that these kind of inferences can be made; Botha (2010) provides a very skeptical response. The Blombos cave in South Africa features quite prominently in both papers, so you might want to check out the wikipedia page on that. Make sure you have read at least one of the papers.
The references for the two readings are below - as usual these are available via these links if you are on the University network.
Botha, R. (2010). On the soundness of inferring modern language from symbolic behaviour. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 20, 345-356. Available online from the University network - just click “read article” near the top.
Henshilwood, C.S. & Dubreuil, B. (2009). Reading the artefacts: Gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa. In R. Botha & C. Knight (Eds.), The Cradle of Language (pp. 41-60). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available online from the University network - you can access the whole book from one of those links and if necessary scroll down the table of contents to find this chapter.
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