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theshytype -> RE: Speech and Tool Making Evolved Together (9/10/2013 6:42:18 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt
And there is a big question as to *how* our brains evolved, the latest theory being that a climate changed caused the adaptable early humans to be dependent on a meat rich diet, which fueled our brain development.
I find it interesting that Neanderthal man, which we now know did co-exist with early humans and even mated with early humans, did not keep pace with them in terms of cognitive and social development. This despite having larger brains and larger skulls. And that seems to come down to language.
An example would be again tool making. When Neanderthal developed a new tool technique, this new technique never traveled very far, generally within a 50 mile radius. When early man developed new techniques, they were adopted by others very rapidly and traveled hundreds and even thousands of miles. And in my mind that has to be because of better language abilities which led to improved socialization, and thus sharing tool making techniques.
That's how I view things as well.
I believe that without our ability to verbally communicate, we wouldn't have succeeded as well as we have. That, without language, we would have been very limited to sharing ideas. Body language, for example, is a great form of communicating but is limited in what it tells us.
I'm not sure if you clicked on any of the links in the article I posted, but the crow I find to be the most interesting.
"However, Uek and Nalik, the two birds schooled in tool-making, carried and inserted twigs into crevices faster and more often than Oiseau and Corbeau, the two naïve crows. Also consistent with the idea that tool use among crows is partly inherited and partly learned, the researchers found that tools made by the four captive crows were crude compared with those made by adult crows living in the wild."
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