On the antiquity of language: the reinterpretation of Neandertal linguistic capacities and its consequences

Abstract

It is usually assumed that modern language is a recent phenomenon, coinciding with the emergence of modern humans themselves. Many assume as well that this is the result of a single, sudden mutation giving rise to the full “modern package.” However, we argue here that recognizably modern language is likely an ancient feature of our genus pre-dating at least the common ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals about half a million years ago. To this end, we adduce a broad range of evidence from linguistics, genetics, paleontology, and archaeology clearly suggesting that Neandertals shared with us something like modern speech and language. This reassessment of the antiquity of modern language, from the usually quoted 50,000–100,000 years to half a million years, has profound consequences for our understanding of our own evolution in general and especially for the sciences of speech and language. As such, it argues against a saltationist scenario for the evolution of language, and toward a gradual process of culture-gene co-evolution extending to the present day. Another consequence is that the present-day linguistic diversity might better reflect the properties of the design space for language and not just the vagaries of history, and could also contain traces of the languages spoken by other human forms such as the Neandertals.

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

“…Despite the excellent record, and their obvious cognitive sophistication, Neanderthals did not show the exponential rate of cultural change characterizing our own species from about 80,000 years ago to the present (Mellars, 1998b(Mellars, , 2004Tattersall, 1999). As already noted, most archaeologists and anthropologists conclude that, despite their many similarities to us, Neanderthals lacked some cognitive and/or linguistic features of our species (Gunz, Neubauer, Maureille, & Hublin, 2010;Hublin, 2009;Mellars, 1998a;Mithen, 2005;Schepartz, 1993;Shea, 2003;Wynn & Coolidge, 2004; for a dissenting view, see Dediu & Levinson, 2013). While I agree with the premise that Neanderthals lacked something, I think it unlikely that they lacked language entirely; rather, a multicomponent perspective suggests that they already possessed some aspects of modern language and cognition, but lacked one or more others.…”

“…Neanderthals had brain sizes identical to or exceeding those of modern humans, and their hunting practices and stone tool kits approached ours in complexity, but many crucial symbolic aspects of the artifacts of modern humans are found rarely or not at all in association with Neanderthals (Mellars, 1998b(Mellars, , 2004Tattersall, 2016). However, despite the excellent fossil and archaeological record left by Neanderthals, and decades of discussion, their cognitive abilities remain highly controversial (e.g., Dediu & Levinson, 2013;Lieberman, 2007;Stringer & Gamble, 1993;Wynn & Coolidge, 2004)-ranging from BNeanderthals were just like us^to Bthey lacked key cognitive capacities including symbolic language.^Given their utter disappearance in Europe shortly after the arrival of modern humans from Africa, it seems more plausible to assume at least some cognitive differences. Fortunately, high-quality paleogenetic data is now available for both Neanderthals and Denisovans, data which offers clear hope of progress beyond this impasse.…”

The origin of human multi-modal communication

“…Clearly, however, it must predate the great diaspora of modern humans thought to date to 60 000 years ago. In a recent meta-study surveying all the genetic, anatomical and archaeological evidence, Dediu & Levinson [7] argue that a compelling case can be made for a much earlier origin of modern vocal language at over half a million years ago, dating back to the common ancestor (often identified as Homo heidelbergensis) of modern humans and Neandertals (see [8] for additional evidence supporting the idea of an early origin of modern human language). The development of speech required a by-pass of the involuntary breathing control involved in primate calls and a direct connection to the primary motor cortex, on the one hand, and to the intercostal muscles via the vertebral column, on the other [9,10].…”

Insights into the Genetic Foundations of Human Communication

“…The genetic basis for these changes is not yet known. Anatomical adaptations evident in the fossil record, together with other evidence, suggest that the last common ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals already had at least some capacity for speech and language (Dediu and Levinson 2013). As a consequence, both genomic changes that have occurred since the humanNeandertal split, and changes that occurred earlier in the human lineage, may have contributed to language evolution.…”

“…The integration of genetic data with information from ethology, comparative neuroscience and archaeology is revitalizing thinking on the evolution of language (Fisher and Marcus 2006;Dediu and Levinson 2013;Rilling 2014). Looking ahead, an important complement to comparative genomics will be the use of comparative transcriptomics and proteomics to uncover evolutionary changes in the regulation of neural gene expression, which may have been more important than modifications of the genes themselves in the evolution of the human brain (Khan et al 2013).…”