Human origins: Out of Africa

Tattersall, Ian

doi:10.1073/pnas.0903207106

Cited by 116 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(46 reference statements)

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“…But based on brain size, ecology, and toolkits, it seems clear that the earliest hominins (e.g., australopithecines) did not have modern language, although they might have had some DCL precursors. Although things become less clear within the genus Homo, most experts accept that Neanderthals lacked at least some component of modern language (see Paleontological data section and Mellars, 1989;Tattersall, 2009). It is also clear that by the time modern humans dispersed out of Africa (by 60 thousand years ago), we had the full package of modern language DCLs, since all humans around the world have the same essential capacity to acquire any language.…”

Section: Conceptions Of Protolanguagementioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

2017

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The study of language evolution, and human cognitive evolution more generally, has often been ridiculed as unscientific, but in fact it differs little from many other disciplines that investigate past events, such as geology or cosmology. Well-crafted models of language evolution make numerous testable hypotheses, and if the principles of strong inference (simultaneous testing of multiple plausible hypotheses) are adopted, there is an increasing amount of relevant data allowing empirical evaluation of such models. The articles in this special issue provide a concise overview of current models of language evolution, emphasizing the testable predictions that they make, along with overviews of the many sources of data available to test them (emphasizing comparative, neural, and genetic data). The key challenge facing the study of language evolution is not a lack of data, but rather a weak commitment to hypothesistesting approaches and strong inference, exacerbated by the broad and highly interdisciplinary nature of the relevant data. This introduction offers an overview of the field, and a summary of what needed to evolve to provide our species with language-ready brains. It then briefly discusses different contemporary models of language evolution, followed by an overview of different sources of data to test these models. I conclude with my own multistage model of how different components of language could have evolved.

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Section: Conceptions Of Protolanguagementioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

2017

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“…Considering the role of the parietal areas in the perception and management of the relationships between inner and outer world (Bruner, 2010a), a two-part model of the evolution of modern humans might also explain some of the differences between early (Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic) and late (Later Stone Age/ Upper Paleolithic) modern human cultures (Klein, 2000(Klein, , 2008Foley and Lahr, 2003;Wynn and Coolidge, 2003;Coolidge and Wynn, 2005). It has been long suggested that morphological and behavioral modernity could have been decoupled along the evolution of H. sapiens and that 'modernity' evolved not as a single package but as a combination of characters evolved in different times and places (Stringer, 2006(Stringer, , 2007Tattersall, 2009). If physical and cognitive attributes have evolved separately in modern humans, it is not surprising to find geographically isolated populations, such as Jebel Irhoud, that display a subset of modern cranial traits while retaining non-modern brain morphology.…”

Section: Phylogeny and Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurocranial evolution in modern humans: the case of Jebel Irhoud 1

Bruner

Pearson

2013

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Jebel Irhoud 1 represents an almost complete cranium from the North African late Middle Pleistocene. Despite the good preservation of most of its anatomical regions, its phylogenetic position is still uncertain, particularly its relationship to the emergence of the modern human lineage. The present paper supplies a basic morphometric description and comparison of the endocast of Jebel Irhoud 1. The endocast's maximum width is large when compared with the hemispheric length, with values similar to those of Neandertals. Conversely, the frontal width is less pronounced, showing proportions compatible with modern and non-modern human taxa. The vertical proportions are similar to those displayed by Homo erectus, while the lateral proportions are comparable to Neandertals. Furthermore, the upper parietal areas show a certain parasagittal lateral bulging, as in European Neandertals. It remains to be established if this trait evolved independently in both the Neandertal and modern human lineages, or if it was already present in a common ancestor of these two groups. Given that Jebel Irhoud 1 in North Africa and Herto in East Africa have similar geological age, similar facial morphology, but different vault proportions, it seems likely that the origin of the modern human lineage may have predated the origin of many aspects of the modern human brain.

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“…It is now widely accepted that the species Homo sapiens, to which all modern humans belong, evolved in Africa before leaving to populate the rest of world (Tattersall, 2009). In order to successfully populate new and challenging environments hominins must have developed versatile and robust behaviors and survival strategies, with the most apparent hominin adaptation for versatility being the adoption of extra-genetic learning strategies such as social learning (Tomasello, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the Variability Selection Hypothesis: The Adoption of Social Learning in Increasingly Variable Environments

Borg¹,

Channon²

2012

Artificial Life 13

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The variability selection hypothesis predicts the adoption of versatile behaviors and survival strategies, in response to increasingly variable environments. In hominin evolution the most apparent adaptation for versatility is the adoption of social learning. The hypothesis that social learning will be adopted over other learning strategies, such as individual learning, when individuals are faced with increasingly variable environments is tested here using a genetic algorithm with steady state selection and constant population size. Individuals, constituted of binary string genotypes and phenotypes, are evaluated on their ability to match a target binary string, nominally known as the environment, with success being measured by the Hamming distance between the phenotype and environment. The state of any given locus in the environment is determined by a sine wave, the frequency of which increases as the simulation progresses thus providing increasing environmental variability. Populations exhibiting combinations of genetic evolution, individual learning and social learning are tested, with the learning rates of both individual and social learning allowed to evolve. We show that increasingly variable environments are sufficient but not necessary to provide an evolutionary advantage to those populations exhibiting the extra-genetic learning strategies, with social learning being favored over individual learning when populations are allowed to explore both strategies simultaneously. We also introduce a more biologically realistic model that allows for population collapse, and show that here the prior adoption of individual learning is a prerequisite for the successful adoption of social learning in increasingly variable environments.

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Human origins: Out of Africa

Cited by 116 publications

References 41 publications

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

Neurocranial evolution in modern humans: the case of Jebel Irhoud 1

Testing the Variability Selection Hypothesis: The Adoption of Social Learning in Increasingly Variable Environments

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