Book review: Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins

Abstract

Recently, we have witnessed an explosion of studies and discussions claiming that Neanderthals engaged in a range of “symbolic” behaviors, including personal ornament use (Radovčić et al. 2015), funerary practices (Balzeau et al. 2020), visual arts (Hoffmann et al. 2018), body aesthetics (Roebroeks et al. 2012), etc. In Palaeolithic archaeology, it has become mainstream to axiomatically infer from these putative behaviors that Neanderthals engaged in symbol use and that Neanderthals thus possessed some form of language. Rudolf Botha’s bombastic title Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins provides a detailed and very critical overview of the archaeological hypotheses and speculations about Neanderthal language.

Did Homo erectus Have Language? The Seafaring Inference

“…Cf. also Botha (2020) for how such theories feature in the study of linguistic abilities of early humans such as Neanderthals.…”

“…Using this approach is appropriate since it provides the conceptual constructs that make it possible to do two things in essence: (i) to draw inferences about prehistoric linguistic phenomena about which there is no direct evidence, and (ii) to appraise the soundness of such inferences. Particulars of the Windows Approach have been set out, illustrated and employed in a range of publications, including Botha (2001;2006;2009a, b;2016;2020;in press). As for the basis of the Windows Approach, Botha (2016, 26;2020, 27) explains that the concepts, distinctions, conditions and other constructs making it up do not embody prescriptions imposed from outside on work on language evolution and related other prehistorical phenomena.…”

Children of time: the geological recency of intelligence and its implications for SETI

“…Together with language (Berwick and Chomsky, 2016) and religious behaviour (Bloch, 2008), representational art is unknown outside of 'behaviourally modern' H. sapiens (Aubert et al, 2018;Botha, 2020). Mastery of these domains certainly appears to be a human singularity.…”

Stone tools, predictive processing and the evolution of language

“…All this is perfectly consistent with the claim that those syntax specific capacities had an evolutionary precursor in the structured representations required to produce stone tools; which is to say that it is perfectly consistent with a co-evolutionary error minimisation account. 23 20 For instance, Berwick and Chomsky (2017, p. 171) and Botha (2020) have criticised Stout and colleagues on such grounds. Gabri c (2021) makes a similar point to mine regarding the inadequacy of such criticisms.…”