Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Deacon’s Challenge: From Calls to Words

  • Published:
Topoi Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A Darwinian theory of the evolution of language must be incremental: to explain the transition from a hominin baseline with great ape grade communicative capacities to language-equipped hominins as a series of small steps. This paper takes up that project for the special case of words, giving an incremental model of the call to word transition. The model is embedded in a general conception of human social evolution with independent empirical support, but it also depends on some more specific assumptions about language and about the earlier forms of hominin communication. Given these assumptions, the paper can be no more than a working draft of a more complete theory.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Our capacity to speak depends obviously depends on genetically-supported structural features of the mouth, tongue and larynx, together with very elaborate mechanisms of control (Fitch 2010). But it is not obvious that adaptations for vocal control evolved for language. Music is another possibility (Mithen 2009); so too are much simpler precursors to language.

  2. There is a well-known phenomenon in sociolinguistics known as low middle class hyper-correction; failed lower middle class attempts to identify and adopt high prestige speech patterns (as in Barry Humphries’ “Excuse I”).

  3. Such gestures are not innate, and show some variation from group to group (Whiten et al. 1999), though the “play face” signal of playful intent is innate.

  4. Many animal calls are probably best interpreted as expressions of motivational and emotional states (Maynard Smith and Harper 2003).

  5. This stimulus bound character of signalling is not intrinsic to Lewis-Skyrms models. In principle, the sender’s signal could specify some distant or future event. The response, likewise, could delayed in time and displaced in space from the signalling context. But in such cases, it is hard to see how a Lewis-Skyrms signalling equilibrium could emerge by associative learning. Association depends on immediacy.

  6. Though both these conceptions should be treated as the two ends of a continuum, with many intermediate possibilities (Dennett 2005; Sperber 2006; Boyd et al. 2011, 2013; Claidiere et al. 2014).

  7. See (Henrich and Henrich 2010), and also the work of Marvin Harris, who systematically explains food taboos and customs this way, though without an explicit evolutionary model (Harris 1985).

  8. As in models of cultural transmission which assume agents copy the most successful of the practices to which they are exposed.

  9. Though once an innovation has become part of a local group’s repertoire, its use can become automatic and unreflective.

  10. There is some evidence suggesting targeted hunting goes deep into hominin history [perhaps 1.7 mya, and thus early in the Acheulian technical tradition (Bunn 2007, 2012; Bunn and Pickering 2010)].

  11. For example, if ambush hunting was an important technique, they would need to decide in advice not just the targets and the location of an ambush, but some agents would have to wait concealed while others drove the game towards the trap. Roles would need to be decided in advance too. However, much of this might be done through default patterns, so the communicative load might be quite light.

References

  • Avital E, Jablonka E (2000) Animal traditions: behavioural inheritance in evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Barham L (2013) From hand to handle: the first industrial revolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Berlin B (1992) Ethnobiological Classification: Principles of Categorization of Plants and Animals in Traditional Societies. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Berwick R, Friederici Angela et al (2013) Evolution, brain, and the nature of language. Trends Cogn Sci 17(2):89–98

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bickerton D (2002) From protolanguage to language. In: Crow TJ (ed) The speciation of modern homo sapiens. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 120–193

    Google Scholar 

  • Bickerton D (2005, March 28, 2005) The origin of language in niche construction. www.derekbickerton.com/blog/SCIENCE/_archives/2005/3/28/486319.html

  • Bickerton D (2009) Adam’s tongue: how humans made language, how language made humans. Hill and Wang, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Binford L (1980) Willow smoke and dogs’ tails: hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation. Am Antiq 45(1):4–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Richerson P et al (2011) The cultural niche: why social learning is essential for human adaptation. Proc Natl Acad Sci 108:10918–10925

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Richerson P et al (2013) The Cultural Evolution of Technology. In: Richerson P, Christianssen M (eds) Cultural Evolution: Society, Technology, Language and Religion. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunn H (2007) Meat made us human. In: Ungar P (ed) Evolution of the human diet: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 191–211

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunn H (2012) Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat—foraging capabilities at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. European Society for the study of Human Evolution, Bordeaux

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunn H, Pickering T (2010) Bovid mortality profiles in paleoecological context falsify hypotheses of endurance running–hunting and passive scavenging by early pleistocene hominins. Quat Res 74(3):395–404

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calcott B (2008) Lineage explanations: explaining how biological mechanisms change. Br J Philos Sci 60:51–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Claidiere N, Scott-Phillips T et al (2014) How darwinian is cultural evolution? Philos Trans R Soc Ser B 369(1642). doi:10.1098/rstb.2013.0368

  • Corballis M (2011) The recursive mind: the origins of human language, thought, and civilization. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Csibra G, Gergely G (2011) Natural pedagogy as evolutionary adaptation. Philos Trans R Soc B 366:1149–1157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deacon T (1997) The symbolic species: the co-evolution of language and the brain. W. W Norton, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Deacon T (2003) Multilevel selection in a complex adaptive system: the problem of language origins. In: Weber B, Depew D (eds) Evolution and learning: the Baldwin effect reconsidered. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 81–106

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett DC (2005) From typo and to thinko. In: Levinson S, Jaisson P (eds) Evolution and culture. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitch WT (2010) The Evolution of language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Foley R, Gamble C (2009) The ecology of social transitions in human evolution. Philos Trans R Soc B 364:3267–3279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gamble C (1998) Palaeolithic society and the release from proximity: a network approach to intimate relations. World Archaeol 29(3):426–449

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gamble C, Gowlett J et al (2011) The social brain and the shape of the palaeolithic. Camb Archaeol J 21(1):115–136

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Godfrey-Smith P (2011) On signals: evolution, learning, and information. Mind 120(480):1288–1297

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Godfrey-Smith P (forthcoming) Sender-receiver systems within and between organisms. Philos Sci

  • Harris M (1985) Good to eat: riddles of food and culture. Simon and Shuster, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hauser MD, Chomsky N, Fitch WT (2002) The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298(5598):1569–1579

  • Henrich J, Henrich N (2010) The evolution of cultural adaptations: fijian food taboos protect against dangerous marine toxins. Philos Proc R Soc Ser B 277:3715–3724

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heyes C (2011) Automatic imitation. Psychol Bull 137:463–483

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill K (2012) Social structure and Inter-group interactions in hunter-gatherers: how humans achieved cumulative culture. Cultural evolution—patterns of cultural change and diversification. Stockholm

  • Hiscock P (2013) Learning in lithic landscapes: a reconsideration of the hominid ‘tool-using’ niche. Biol Theory 9(1):27–41

  • Jackendoff R (1999) Possible stages in the evolution of the language capacity. Trends Cogn Sci 3(7):272–279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson F (2010) Language, names and information. Wiley, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Layton R, O’Hara S et al (2012) Antiquity and social function of multilevel social organiization among human hunter-gatherers. Int J Primatol 33:1215–1245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis D (1975) Languages and language. In: Gunderson K (ed) Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science. University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota 1: 3–35

  • Lieberman P (1998) Eve spoke: human language and human evolution. W. W Norton, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Maynard Smith J, Harper D (2003) Animal signals. Oxford Universty Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • McGuigan N, Makinson J et al (2011) From over-imitation to super-copying: adults imitate causally irrelevant aspects of tool use with higher fidelity than young children. Br J Psychol 102(1):1–18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Millikan R (1989) Biosemantics. J Philos 86:281–297

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Millikan RG (2005) Pushmi-pullyu representations. In: Millikan RG (ed) Language: a biological model. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mithen S (2009) Holistic communication and the coevolution of language and music: resurrecting an old idea. In: Botha R, Knight C (eds) The Prehistory of Language. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 58–76

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Miyagawa S, R Berwick et al (2013) The emergence of hierarchical structure in human language. Front Psychol 4:1–6

  • Nielsen M, Tomaselli K (2010) Overimitation in kalahari bushman children and the origins of human cultural cognition. Psychol Sci 21(5):729–736

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Powell A, Shennan S et al (2009) Late pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior. Science 324:1298–1301

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Putnam H (1975) Mind, language and reality: philosophical papers, vol 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Saslis-Lagoudakis H, Hawkins J et al (2014) The evolution of traditional knowledge: environment shapes medicinal plant use in Nepal. Proc R Soc Ser B, London, p 281

    Google Scholar 

  • Skyrms B (2010) Signals: evolution, learning and information. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sperber D (2006) Why a deep understanding of cultural evolution is incompatible with shallow psychology. In: Enfield N, Levinson S (eds) Roots of human sociality: culture, cognition and interaction. Bloomsbury Academic, London, pp 431–449

    Google Scholar 

  • Sterelny K (2012) Language, gesture, skill: the coevolutionary foundations of language. Philos Trans R Soc Ser B 367(1599):2141–2151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sterelny K (2014) A paleolithic reciprocation crisis: symbols, signals, and normssymbols, signals and norms. Biol Theory 9(1):65–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sterelny K (under review) Cumulative cultural evolution and the origins of language. Mind Lang

  • Stiner MC (2002) Carnivory, coevolution, and the geographic spread of the genus homo. J Archaeol Res 10(1):1–63

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stout D (2002) Skill and cognition in stone tool production: an ethnographic case study from irian jaya. Curr Anthropol 43(5):693–722

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stout D (2010) The evolution of cognitive control. Top Cogn Sci 2(4):614–630

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stout D, Chaminade T (2012) Stone tools, language and the brain in human evolution. Philos Trans R Soc Ser B 367:75–87

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stringer C (2012) The status of homo heidelbergensis. Evolut Anthropol: Issues, News Rev 21(3):101–107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thornton A, Raihani NJ (2008) The evolution of teaching. Anim Behav 75(6):1823–1836

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M (2008) Origins of human communication. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M (2014) A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M, Melis A et al (2012) Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation: the interdependence hypothesis. Curr Anthropol 53(6):673–692

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • West-Eberhard MJ (2003) Developmental plasticity and evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Whallon R, Lovis W, et al eds. (2011) Information and its role in hunter-gatherer bands. Ideas, debates and perspectives. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Los Angles

  • Whiten A, Goodall J et al (1999) Culture in chimpanzees. Nature 399:682–685

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zollman K, Smead R (2010) Plasticity and language: an example of the Baldwin effect? Philos Stud 147(1):7–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy, Australian National University, Acton, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Kim Sterelny

Authors
  1. Kim Sterelny
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kim Sterelny.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sterelny, K. Deacon’s Challenge: From Calls to Words. Topoi 35, 271–282 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-014-9284-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-014-9284-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation