注:机翻:未校。
Semiotics and the Origin of Language in the Lower Palaeolithic
Published: 10 August 2020
Volume 28, pages 535–579, (2021)
Abstract 摘要
This paper argues that the origins of language can be detected one million years ago, if not earlier, in the archaeological record of Homo erectus. This controversial claim is based on a broad theoretical and evidential foundation with language defined as communication based on symbols rather than grammar. Peirce’s theory of signs (semiotics) underpins our analysis with its progression of signs (icon, index and symbol) used to identify artefact forms operating at the level of symbols. We draw on generalisations about the multiple social roles of technology in pre-industrial societies and on the contexts tool-use among non-human primates to argue for a deep evolutionary foundation for hominin symbol use. We conclude that symbol-based language is expressed materially in arbitrary social conventions that permeate the technologies of Homo erectus and its descendants, and in the extended planning involved in the caching of tools and in the early settlement of island Southeast Asia.
本文认为,语言的起源可以在 100 万年前,如果不是更早的话,在直立人的考古记录中被发现。这个有争议的说法是基于广泛的理论和证据基础,语言被定义为基于符号而不是语法的交流。皮尔斯的符号理论(符号学)以其符号(图标、索引和符号)的进展来支持我们的分析,这些符号用于识别在符号层面运行的人工制品形式。我们借鉴了技术在前工业化社会中的多重社会角色以及非人类灵长类动物使用工具的背景,为古人类符号的使用奠定了深厚的进化基础。我们得出结论,基于符号的语言在物质上表达于渗透到直立人及其后代技术的武断社会习俗中,以及在工具缓存和东南亚岛屿早期定居所涉及的扩展规划中。
Introduction 介绍
Language is biocultural behaviour (Darwin 1871; Sapir 1927; White 1940; Deacon 1997; Tomasello 2005; Christiansen et al. 2009; Fitch 2010; Arbib 2018); thus, research into its origins is necessarily an interdisciplinary exercise. Models of language origins typically integrate social, cognitive, anatomical and genetic data as well as broad comparative perspectives drawn from ethology (Tallerman and Gibson 2012). Archaeology provides the critical time depth for model building. Although there is broad agreement that symbols are crucial to language, there is profound disagreement on what constitutes language, when it evolved and on the interpretation of the material evidence (e.g. Noble and Davidson 1996; Deacon 1997; Corballis 2002; Hauser et al. 2002; Everett 2017; Fitch 2017; Boë et al. 2019).
语言是生物文化行为(Darwin 1871;Sapir 1927 年;怀特 1940 年;执事 1997;Tomasello 2005 年;Christiansen 等人,2009 年;Fitch 2010 年;Arbib 2018 年);因此,对其起源的研究必然是一项跨学科的工作。语言起源模型通常整合社会、认知、解剖和遗传数据以及从行为学中得出的广泛比较观点(Tallerman 和 Gibson 2012)。考古学为模型构建提供了关键时间深度。尽管人们普遍认为符号对语言至关重要,但对于语言的构成、语言的演变时间以及对物质证据的解释,存在着深刻的分歧(例如 Noble 和 Davidson 1996;执事 1997;Corballis 2002 年;Hauser 等人,2002 年;埃弗雷特 2017;惠誉 2017;Boë 等人,2019 年)。
We take a uniformitarian approach which assumes language evolved by natural selection from a primate heritage of vocal and gestural communication. Our theoretical foundation combines Peirce’s semiotics (1977), which distinguishes between index, icon and symbol, with ethnolinguistic data which challenge preconceptions about the inherent grammatical complexity of language (Everett 2005; Jackendoff and Wittenberg 2014).Footnote 1 Both sources enable us to broaden the search for the beginnings of language beyond the current consensus among archaeologists on what constitutes evidence of symbol use (e.g. Klein 2017). Comparative ethnographic and anatomical evidence also shows that language, defined here as communication based on symbols, does not depend on either a broad vocal repertoire or a fully modern vocal tract (Böe et al. 2017; Fitch 2018). We use these data to offer a model for a simple grammatical structure in the earliest language, with recursive grammar a later and non-essential component of language.
我们采用均变论的方法,假设语言是通过自然选择从灵长类动物的声音和手势交流遗产进化而来的。我们的理论基础结合了皮尔斯的符号学(1977 年),它区分了索引、图标和符号,以及挑战关于语言固有语法复杂性的先入之见的民族语言数据(Everett 2005;Jackendoff 和 Wittenberg 2014 年)。 脚注 1 这两个来源使我们能够扩大对语言起源的搜索,超越目前考古学家对符号使用证据的共识(例如 Klein 2017)。比较人种学和解剖学证据还表明,语言,在这里定义为基于符号的交流,既不依赖于广泛的声乐曲目,也不依赖于完全现代的声带(Böe 等人,2017 年;Fitch 2018 年)。我们使用这些数据为最早语言中的简单语法结构提供了一个模型,递归语法是语言的后期和非必要组成部分。
Sociological, ethnographic and ethological observations provide evidence of a central role for tools in the construction of society (Pfaffenberger 1992; Latour 1992; Hodder 1994, 2012; Gosden and Marshall 1999; Ingold 2001; Skibo and Schiffer 2008). Contemporary societies have names for tools and conventions for their making, and they carry expressive meaning beyond their utilitarian ends (Arthur 2018). In Peirce’s semiotic scheme, names are symbols, and by implication, the earliest evidence of symbols lies in conventional tool forms and the strategies for making them. Our summary in this paper of Peirce’s scheme has a secondary aim which is to reintroduce the study of signs to evolutionary cognitive archaeology as a complement to current models drawn from cognitive science (Wynn 2017). We do not set out to offer an entirely new theory of the origin of language, but rather a new perspective on the evidence base that supports the thesis that Homo erectus had language.
社会学、人种学和行为学观察提供了工具在社会建设中发挥核心作用的证据(Pfaffenberger 1992;Latour 1992 年;Hodder 1994, 2012;Gosden 和 Marshall 1999;Ingold 2001 年;Skibo 和 Schiffer 2008 年)。当代社会有工具的名称和制作它们的惯例,它们在其功利目的之外具有表达意义(Arthur 2018)。在皮尔斯的符号学方案中,名称就是符号,这意味着,符号的最早证据在于传统的工具形式和制作它们的策略。我们在这篇论文中对皮尔斯方案的总结有一个次要目标,即重新引入符号研究到进化认知考古学中,作为对当前认知科学模型的补充(Wynn 2017)。我们并不打算提供关于语言起源的全新理论,而是对支持直立人拥有语言这一论点的证据基础提出新的视角。
We begin with a brief review of the philosophical and historical context of the current debate over language origins, highlighting the contrast between punctuated and gradualist models. The hypothesis of a recent and rapid appearance of language, as defined by symbols organised in complex nested grammatical structures (recursion), continues to dominate interpretations of the archaeological record (e.g. Bolhuis et al. 2014; Klein 2008, 2017). This non-Darwinian perspective on language origins is founded on the work of the linguist Chomsky (1955, 1965). Proponents of gradualist hypotheses tend to posit a protolanguage phase which precedes the emergence of recursion-based language (e.g. Donald 1991; Corballis 2002; Bickerton 2014). We highlight previous applications of Peirce’s theory of signs to the issue of language evolution (Deacon 1997, 2010; Cousins 2014; Everett 2017). Our approach differs in accepting symbol use with a simple grammar as sufficient evidence for the existence of language with no need for a protolanguage. A three-part evolutionary typology of grammars lies at the foundation of Everett’s model(2017), in which symbols arose as a distinctive form of communication based on arbitrary conventions of meaning generated in cultural contexts (Everett 2016).
我们首先简要回顾了当前关于语言起源的辩论的哲学和历史背景,强调了标点模型和渐进主义模型之间的对比。语言最近迅速出现的假设,由以复杂的嵌套语法结构(递归)组织的符号定义,继续主导对考古记录的解释(例如 Bolhuis 等人,2014 年;Klein 2008 年、2017 年)。这种非达尔文主义的语言起源观点建立在语言学家乔姆斯基(Chomsky,1955,1965)的工作之上。渐进主义假说的支持者倾向于假设在基于递归的语言出现之前有一个原始语言阶段(例如 Donald 1991;Corballis 2002 年;Bickerton 2014 年)。我们重点介绍了皮尔斯的符号理论在语言进化问题上的先前应用(Deacon 1997, 2010;Cousins 2014 年;Everett 2017 年)。我们的方法不同之处在于接受使用具有简单语法的符号作为语言存在的充分证据,而不需要原始语言。语法的三部分进化类型学是 Everett 模型 (2017) 的基础,其中符号作为一种独特的交流形式出现,基于文化背景中产生的任意意义约定(Everett 2016)。
We then outline a theoretical foundation that defines symbols and considers the social contexts of symbol use in relation to technology. First is Peirce’s theory of signs and his concept of a semiotic progression from icon to index to symbol (Peirce 1998; Fisch 1986). Second, we draw generalisations about tools as symbols from observations by sociologists and anthropologists of contemporary and pre-industrial societies. These observations highlight the social construction of the meaning of tools and how decisions about production methods reflect social conventions (e.g. Latour 1992; Killick 2001). This section concludes with an assessment of the non-human primate capacity to generate perceptual and conceptual categories of objects (Grüber et al. 2015) as evidence of a deep evolutionary foundation for constructing symbols. Modern humans are distinctive among animals for using tools as symbols.
然后,我们概述了定义符号的理论基础,并考虑了符号使用与技术相关的社会背景。首先是皮尔斯的符号理论和他从图标到索引再到符号的符号学进展的概念(皮尔斯 1998;Fisch 1986 年)。其次,我们从当代和前工业化社会的社会学家和人类学家的观察中得出关于工具作为符号的概括。这些观察突出了工具含义的社会建构以及关于生产方法的决策如何反映社会习俗(例如 Latour 1992;Killick 2001 年)。本节最后评估了非人类灵长类动物产生物体的感知和概念类别的能力(Grüber 等人,2015 年),作为构建符号的深层进化基础的证据。现代人类在动物中以工具为象征而与众不同。
We then examine the early archaeological record for evidence of socially constructed conventions (symbols) with a focus on the Acheulean of Africa and Eurasia from about one million years ago onwards when conventional tool forms become a recurrent feature of the archaeological record. The evidence takes the form of regional and chronological changes in approaches to making large bifaces (cleavers, hand-axes), and in the life history of these technologies which demonstrate spatially extended chaîne opératoires including the caching of tools in the landscape (Preysler et al. 2018). Multiple ways of achieving similar ends (equifinality) become evident in core preparation strategies at this time (Sharon 2009; Galloti and Mussi 2017) which we interpret as evidence of culturally governed choices among viable alternatives (Latour 1992; Pfaffenberger 2001). Semantic scaffolds (words or gestures as labels) would have eased the cognitive demands created by some core strategies which involved nested hierarchies of steps in blank production (Herzlinger et al. 2017). Language (speech and gesture based) would also have facilitated the teaching of such complex routine to novices (Morgan et al. 2015; Gärdenfors and Högberg 2017:201). Evidence in the Acheulean for the caching of hand-axes is indicative of extended future planning, and arguably for abstract thought which is the foundation of symbol construction (Gärdenfors 2004). Language without complex grammar was sufficient for the transmission of all these aspects of Acheulean technological behaviours.
然后,我们检查早期考古记录,寻找社会建构的习俗(符号)的证据,重点是大约 100 万年前开始的非洲和欧亚大陆的 Acheulean,当时传统的工具形式成为考古记录中反复出现的特征。证据表现为制作大型双面(切肉刀、手斧)的方法的地区和时间变化,以及这些技术的生活历史,这些技术展示了空间扩展的 chaîne opératoires,包括在景观中缓存工具(Preysler 等人,2018 年)。此时,在核心准备策略中,实现相似目标(等终性)的多种方法变得很明显(Sharon 2009;Galloti 和 Mussi 2017),我们将其解释为在可行的替代方案中进行文化管理选择的证据(Latour 1992;Pfaffenberger 2001 年)。语义支架(作为标签的单词或手势)本可以缓解一些核心策略产生的认知需求,这些策略涉及空白生产中步骤的嵌套层次结构(Herzlinger 等人,2017 年)。语言(基于语音和手势)也有助于向新手教授这种复杂的例程(Morgan 等人,2015 年;Gärdenfors 和 Högberg 2017:201)。Acheulean 中手斧缓存的证据表明了扩展的未来规划,并且可以说是抽象思想,这是符号构建的基础(Gärdenfors 2004)。没有复杂语法的语言足以传播 Acheulean 技术行为的所有这些方面。
Additional support exists for an early emergence of language in the settlement of island Southeast Asia by hominins ~ 800,000 years ago (Bednarik 1997, 2014; van den Bergh et al. 2016; Ingicco et al. 2018). Early sea crossings arguably involved levels of coordinated planning and action that exceed the communicative capacity of gestures alone.
额外的支持是 ~ 800,000 年前人类在东南亚岛屿定居点早期出现的语言(Bednarik 1997、2014;van den Bergh 等人,2016 年;Ingicco 等人,2018 年)。可以说,早期的跨海行动涉及协调的计划和行动水平,这超出了手势本身的沟通能力。
The structure of our argument, building on Peirce, addresses five questions raised by Ingold (1993):337) and others since (Noble and Davidson 1996; Corbey et al. 2016; Tennie et al. 2016; Shea 2017) on the utility of hand-axes as evidence for early language: (1) can the longevity of the hand-axe (and cleaver) as forms be evidence of cultural norms given there is no modern analogue for such persistence; (2) does such persistence necessitate cultural transmission; (3) did the objects conform to a representation in the mind of the maker; (4) do they tell us anything about hominin sociality; and (5) might they have had “communicative or semiotic as well as technical functions?” We return to these questions in the discussion and conclude with the implications of attributing language to Homo erectus and erectus-like species.
我们的论点结构以皮尔斯为基础,解决了 Ingold (1993):337) 和此后其他人提出的五个问题 (Noble 和 Davidson 1996;Corbey 等人,2016 年;Tennie 等人,2016 年;Shea 2017)关于手斧作为早期语言证据的效用:(1) 手斧(和切肉刀)作为形式的寿命是否可以成为文化规范的证据,因为没有现代类似物可以证明这种持久性;(2) 这种持续性是否需要文化传播;(3) 这些物品是否符合制造者心中的表征;(4) 他们是否告诉我们有关古人类社会性的任何事情;(5) 他们是否具有“交际或符号学以及技术功能”?我们在讨论中回到这些问题,并以将语言归因于直立人和类似直立人物种的含义作为结论。
From Plato to Chomsky: Epistemologies of Language Origins 从柏拉图到乔姆斯基:语言起源的认识论
A fundamental division characterises current research on how and when language began. The split lies along deep philosophical fault lines that separate Platonists—who believe in universal or innate ideas shared by all humans (Defez 2013)—and the Aristotelian view of language as an inherently cultural phenomenon, learned in social contexts from a young age (Corballis 2002; Tomasello 2005, 2014; Everett 2016, 247ff) and based on neurobiological capacities for acquiring language (see Tallerman and Gibson 2012 for a summary of a debate on language specific vs. generalised biological structures for language learning).
当前关于语言如何以及何时开始的研究有一个基本划分。这种分裂在于深层的哲学断层线,将柏拉图主义者——他们相信全人类共有的普遍或先天的想法(Defez 2013)——与亚里士多德认为语言是一种固有的文化现象,从小就在社会环境中学习(Corballis 2002;Tomasello 2005, 2014;Everett 2016, 247ff) 和基于获得语言的神经生物学能力(参见 Tallerman 和 Gibson 2012 关于语言学习的特定生物结构与广义生物结构的辩论摘要)。
These contrasting positions formed the basis of discussions on the origins of language in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Plato’s perspective of language as an innately human faculty was transformed into a theological position of human exceptionalism explained by the divine origin of reason (Müller 1864). The Société Linguistique de Paris, in 1866, famously decreed that it would no longer discuss the issue at its meetings as it was an insoluble metaphysical problem (Defez 2013). Darwin (1871) took a more broadly comparative approach to the problem of language origins, finding continuity between human and non-human forms of communication. Natural and sexual selection supplanted, in his view, essentialism as mechanisms for understanding how language evolved. Darwin’s gradualist view of language origins follows from his view of evolution as an accumulative process that can produce complexity. New traits emerge from existing traits, and abilities related to human language will be found in other species, and particularly among primates.
这些截然不同的立场构成了 18 世纪和 19 世纪语言起源讨论的基础。柏拉图将语言视为人类与生俱来的能力的观点被转化为人类例外论的神学立场,由理性的神圣起源来解释(Müller 1864)。1866 年,巴黎语言学会 (Société Linguistique de Paris) 颁布了著名的法令,即它将不再在其会议上讨论这个问题,因为它是一个无法解决的形而上学问题(Defez 2013)。达尔文(Darwin,1871)对语言起源问题采取了更广泛的比较方法,发现了人类和非人类交流形式之间的连续性。在他看来,自然选择和性选择取代了本质主义,成为理解语言如何进化的机制。达尔文关于语言起源的渐进主义观点遵循他的观点,即进化是一个可以产生复杂性的累积过程。新的特征从现有的特征中出现,与人类语言相关的能力将在其他物种中发现,尤其是在灵长类动物中。
Platonism returned in force in the mid-twentieth century with the work of Chomsky (e.g. 1956, 1965, 1959, 1995). In his Transformational-Generative Grammar (or Minimalism), language is a grammatical system above all else. Chomsky’s embrace of Cartesian dualism leads him to reject Darwin’s idea that we might find the precursors of human language in other species (Berwick and Chomsky 2016). Indeed Chomsky and his followers have argued explicitly against Darwinism (e.g. Piatelli-Palmarini 2010), in favour of the position of Alfred Wallace that language could not result from Darwinian evolution. Bickerton (2014) refers to this as “Wallace’s Problem”.Footnote 2
柏拉图主义在 20 世纪中叶随着乔姆斯基的著作(例如 1956、1965、1959、1995)重新生效。在他的 Transformational-Generative Grammar(或极简主义)中,语言是一个高于一切的语法系统。乔姆斯基对笛卡尔二元论的接受使他拒绝了达尔文的观点,即我们可能会在其他物种中找到人类语言的前身(Berwick 和 Chomsky 2016)。事实上,乔姆斯基和他的追随者已经明确反对达尔文主义(例如 Piatelli-Palmarini 2010),支持阿尔弗雷德·华莱士的立场,即语言不可能来自达尔文进化论。Bickerton (2014) 将此称为“华莱士问题”。 脚注 2
In the late twentieth century, the case for language as product of gradual natural selection was articulated by Pinker and Bloom (1990). More recently, the evolution of language has been framed in the context of more holistic approaches to cultural evolution which recognise the importance of social learning in the acquisition of language (Richerson and Boyd 2005; Tomasello 2005), and in the gradual development of linguistic structures (e.g. Christiansen and Kirby 2003; Steels 2012; Hurford 2004, 2014).
在 20 世纪后期,Pinker 和 Bloom (1990) 阐明了语言是逐渐自然选择的产物。最近,语言的演变是在更全面的文化进化方法的背景下构建的,该方法认识到社会学习在语言习得中的重要性(Richerson 和 Boyd 2005;Tomasello 2005 年),以及语言结构的逐渐发展(例如 Christiansen 和 Kirby 2003 年;Steels 2012 年;Hurford 2004 年、2014 年)。
Models of Language Origins and the Interpretation of the Archaeological Record 语言起源模型和考古记录的解释
Given Chomsky’s enormous influence in linguistics and related disciplines, a philosophical divide continues between supporters of a recent punctuated origin of language and those who maintain a gradualist evolutionary position (summarised in Tallerman and Gibson 2012; Haspelmath 2020). The material evidence used by both camps incorporates both the archaeological and fossil record, with inferences drawn about the need for language (symbols) in relation to the hierarchical complexity of a task (Wynn 2002), and from the fossil record in relation to the capacity to produce speech as a component of language (e.g. Lieberman 2007). We start with the essentialist position of Chomsky and illustrate its lasting impact on archaeological theory and method. The gradualist position lacks a figurehead and instead manifests itself in a variety of accretionary hypotheses including our semiotics-based position presented here.
鉴于乔姆斯基在语言学和相关学科中的巨大影响力,在支持最近间断续续的语言起源的人和保持渐进主义进化论立场的人之间仍然存在哲学分歧(总结于 Tallerman 和 Gibson 2012;Haspelmath 2020 年)。两个阵营使用的物证都结合了考古学和化石记录,并得出了与任务的层次结构复杂性相关的语言(符号)需求(Wynn 2002)的推论,以及从化石记录中得出的与作为语言组成部分的产生语言的能力相关的推论(例如 Lieberman 2007)。我们从乔姆斯基的本质主义立场开始,说明它对考古学理论和方法的持久影响。渐进主义的立场缺乏一个傀儡,而是表现在各种增生假设中,包括我们在这里介绍的基于符号学的立场。
A Punctuated Origin 标点状起源
The most enduring model developed since the 1950s is that of Chomsky, in which human language is distinguished from other forms of communication by the presence of hierarchical recursive grammar generated by a computational system in the brain, independently of cultural context (Chomsky 1965; Chomsky and Scutzenberger 1963; Hauser et al. 2002). Recursion involves embedding sub-phrases into phrases of similar type, and in theory enabling an unlimited range of sentences (and meanings) to be constructed from a limited range of sounds. According to this innatist view, all modern humans are born with this uniquely human faculty for producing language with recursion (universal grammar) which arose suddenly in Homo sapiens from a genetic mutation in the brain sometime between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago (Bolhuis et al. 2014). The most relevant archaeological evidence for language takes the form of proxies for symbol use because “language is interdependent with symbolic thought” (Bolhuis et al. 2014:3). Botha (2010):202) adds the requirement of a bridging theory between claimed evidence for symbol use and fully syntactical language (or recursion). Such a theory should incorporate testable hypotheses, such as those drawn from neuroscience, marshal factual evidence and not be ad hoc. At the core of this approach is a computational model of the mind in which the language mutation represents a marked increase in information processing capacity, independent of cultural context.
自 1950 年代以来发展起来的最持久的模型是乔姆斯基模型,其中人类语言与其他形式的交流区别在于大脑中计算系统生成的分层递归语法的存在,独立于文化背景(Chomsky 1965;Chomsky 和 Scutzenberger 1963;Hauser 等人,2002 年)。递归涉及将子短语嵌入到相似类型的短语中,理论上允许从有限范围的发音构建无限范围的句子(和含义)。根据这种先天主义的观点,所有现代人都天生就具有这种独特的人类能力,即通过递归(通用语法)产生语言,这种能力在 70,000 到 50,000 年前的某个时候从大脑中的基因突变中突然出现在智人中(Bolhuis 等人,2014 年)。语言最相关的考古证据采用符号使用的代理形式,因为“语言与符号思想相互依存”(Bolhuis 等人,2014:3)。Botha (2010):202) 增加了在声称的符号使用证据和完全句法语言(或递归)之间桥接理论的要求。这样的理论应该包含可检验的假设,例如来自神经科学的假设,整理事实证据,而不是临时的。这种方法的核心是心智的计算模型,其中语言突变代表了信息处理能力的显着增加,独立于文化背景。
The proposition that recursion is the essence of language has never been fully accepted by all linguists (see Tallerman and Gibson 2012), but it entered the mainstream of archaeological interpretation in the 1970s in a regional analysis of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in southwestern France (Mellars 1973). Stark contrasts were drawn between the two behavioural records produced by two different species, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens respectively. These became the unintended foundation of the concept of a more general “Human Revolution” (Mellars 1989, 2005) in which symbol use and complex (recursive) language marked the emergence of behavioural modernity (Henshilwood and Marean 2003).
递归是语言本质的命题从未被所有语言学家完全接受(参见 Tallerman 和 Gibson 2012),但它在 1970 年代对法国西南部旧石器时代中晚期过渡的区域分析中进入了考古学解释的主流(Mellars 1973)。两个不同物种(尼安德特人和智人)产生的两种行为记录之间形成了鲜明的对比。这些无意中成为更普遍的“人间革命”概念的基础(Mellars 1989,2005),其中符号的使用和复杂的(递归)语言标志着行为现代性的出现(Henshilwood 和 Marean 2003)。
The human faculty for producing recursive grammar, or its equivalent “fully syntactical language”, features consistently as the key advantage that Homo sapiens possessed over other hominins, especially in relation to Neanderthals. The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition reflects this underlying difference in communicative superiority, with anatomically modern humans able to produce a range of behaviours far beyond the capacity of Neanderthals (Mellars 1973, 1989, 2005). Complex language enabled the development of new kinds of standardised stone tools (blades), organic artefacts, long-distance transport of materials, new subsistence behaviours and objects bearing symbolic value as well as the capacity to innovate quickly. Symbolic value was recognised to reside in abstractions such as cave and portable art as well as personal jewellery and the act of burial with grave goods.
人类产生递归语法的能力,或等价的“完全句法语言”,一直是智人相对于其他古人类所拥有的关键优势,尤其是在与尼安德特人有关方面。旧石器时代中晚期的过渡反映了这种交际优势的潜在差异,从解剖学上讲,现代人能够产生远远超出尼安德特人能力的一系列行为(Mellars 1973, 1989, 2005)。复杂的语言使新型标准化石器(刀片)、有机人工制品、材料的长途运输、新的生存行为和具有象征价值的物品以及快速创新的能力成为可能。象征价值被认为存在于抽象作品中,例如洞穴和便携式艺术,以及个人珠宝和与陪葬品一起埋葬的行为。
The relatively abrupt transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic marked a symbolic explosion which “must reflect the existence of relatively complicated and highly structured forms of language” associated with H. sapiens (Mellars 1989:359). Similar interpretations were made of this transition in the 1980s and 1990s (Chase and Dibble 1987; Davidson and Noble 1989; Byers 1994) with the more recent addition of demographic superiority as a consequence of the human capacity for innovation founded on fully syntactic language (Mellars and French 2011).
从旧石器时代中期到旧石器时代晚期的相对突然的过渡标志着一场象征性的爆炸,它“必须反映与 H. sapiens 相关的相对复杂和高度结构化的语言形式的存在”(Mellars 1989:359)。在 1980 年代和 1990 年代,对这种转变进行了类似的解释(Chase 和 Dibble 1987;Davidson 和 Noble 1989;Byers 1994),由于建立在完全句法语言基础上的人类创新能力,最近增加了人口优势(Mellars 和 French 2011)。
Elements of the “Revolution” have since been found in the African Middle Stone Age (from 300,000 years ago with regionally variable end dates) associated with Homo sapiens, supporting arguments for an earlier development of symbol use in Africa than in Europe (McBrearty and Brooks 2000; Henshilwood and Marean 2003; Barham and Mitchell 2008; Wadley 2015). This evidence has been incorporated into the essentialist paradigm as evidence of the language mutation occurring as early as 70,000 years ago with Homo sapiens in Africa (Bolhuis et al. 2014), or even later once there is consistent rather than episodic evidence of symbolic behaviours in the African record (Klein 2008, 2017; see Fisher 2017 for a critique of the genetic evidence).
此后,在非洲中石器时代(从 300,000 年前开始,结束日期因地区而异)中发现了与智人相关的元素,支持了非洲符号使用比欧洲更早发展的论点(McBrearty 和 Brooks 2000;Henshilwood 和 Marean 2003;Barham 和 Mitchell 2008;Wadley 2015 年)。这些证据已被纳入本质主义范式,作为早在 70,000 年前非洲智人中发生语言突变的证据(Bolhuis 等人,2014 年),或者甚至更晚,一旦非洲记录中存在一致而不是偶发的象征行为证据(Klein 2008,2017;参见 Fisher 2017 对遗传证据的批评)。
The latter interpretation takes an absolutist position that Dawkins, in a blogpost (2011), calls the “tyranny of the discontinuous mind” which is “blind to intermediaries”. Clear discontinuities should exist, in this extreme view, between the modern human capacity for recursion-based language and the more limited linguistic capacities of other hominins (Zilhão 2019). Recent discoveries of evidence for the capacity of Neanderthals to create a range of symbolic objects appear to give this hominin membership in the once exclusive club of symbol makers (e.g. d’Errico and Stringer 2011; Finlayson et al. 2012; Aubert et al. 2014; Villa and Roebroeks 2014; Jaubert et al. 2016; Hoffmann et al. 2018). There have been challenges to the claims of Neanderthal authorship of rock art based on issues of contamination with the dating, and similarly with the early dates attributed to some personal ornaments (White et al. 2019; Pons-Branchu et al. 2020).
后一种解释采取了绝对主义的立场,道金斯在一篇博文(2011 年)中称之为“不连续心灵的暴政”,即“对中介视而不见”。在这种极端的观点中,现代人类基于递归的语言能力与其他人类更有限的语言能力之间应该存在明显的不连续性(Zilhão 2019)。最近发现的证据证明尼安德特人有能力创造一系列象征性物体,这似乎使这种古人类成为曾经排他性的符号制造者俱乐部的成员(例如 d’Errico 和 Stringer 2011;Finlayson 等人,2012 年;Aubert 等人,2014 年;Villa 和 Roebroeks 2014;Jaubert 等人,2016 年;Hoffmann 等人,2018 年)。基于年代污染问题,以及归因于一些个人装饰品的早期日期(White 等人,2019 年;Pons-Branchu 等人,2020 年)。
An extended assessment of the evidence for Neanderthal symbol use and language concludes that to organise the hunting of large game they had to refer to abstractions of space and time in the planning (i.e. not here, not now). To do so required the capacity to construct “arbitrary Saussurean linguistic signs” Botha (2020):155) which in Peirce’s semiotics (below) would be symbols. He concludes that they lacked the necessary brain structures to produce complex grammar (recursion), but may have had the capacity to string together simple sentences. In the gradualist model developed in this paper, the capacity to create symbols is sufficient for language with no need for complex grammar to communicate complex thought. If we attribute this capacity to Neanderthals, then parsimony points to an earlier origin of language with the common ancestor of H. sapiens and Neanderthals (Deacon and Wurz 2001), now thought to have existed at least 600,000 years ago (Martinon-Torres et al. 2018; Welker et al. 2020), or to convergence through separate, independent evolution. The first position opens the door to the roots of language with Homo erectus or its descendants, and the second suggests the foundations for symbol making were widespread among other hominins, with the possibility that language evolved independently more than once.
对尼安德特人符号使用和语言证据的扩展评估得出结论,为了组织大型猎物的狩猎,他们必须在规划中参考空间和时间的抽象概念(即不在这里,不是现在)。要做到这一点,需要构建“任意的索绪尔语言符号”的能力 Botha (2020):155),在皮尔斯的符号学(下图)中,这将是符号。他得出的结论是,它们缺乏产生复杂语法(递归)所需的大脑结构,但可能有能力将简单的句子串在一起。在本文开发的渐进主义模型中,创建符号的能力对于不需要复杂语法来传达复杂思想的语言来说就足够了。如果我们将这种能力归因于尼安德特人,那么吝啬指向语言的早期起源,即智人和尼安德特人的共同祖先(Deacon 和 Wurz 2001),现在被认为至少在 600,000 年前就存在了(Martinon-Torres 等人,2018 年;Welker 等人,2020 年),或通过单独、独立的进化趋同。第一个位置打开了通往直立人或其后代语言根源的大门,第二个位置表明符号制作的基础在其他古人类中很普遍,语言可能不止一次独立进化。
A Gradual Evolution of Language 语言的逐渐演变
Gradualist models have a long pedigree (Darwin 1871), but placed in the time frame of Chomsky’s influence, a variety of approaches have emerged that vary in emphasis on the biological or cultural factors influencing the origin of language, and in their interpretation of the archaeological record (e.g. Donald 1991; Dunbar 1996; Noble and Davidson 1996; Mithen 1996; Power 2009; Corballis 2002; Bickerton 1990, Bickerton 2014; Coolidge and Wynn 2009; Rossano 2010; Lombard and Gärdenfors 2017). Deacon (1989; 2010), Cousins (2014) and Everett(2017) stand apart from other gradualists in using Peirce’s theory of signs. None is an archaeologist, which is noteworthy given the rarity of engagement with Peirce by Palaeolithic archaeologists (Iliopoulos 2016; Wynn 2017; Ruck and Uomini in press). This reluctance by archaeologists to apply semiotics to the deep past may reflect unfamiliarity with Peirce’s work, or resistance to it because of its association in recent decades with structuralism and the post-structuralist critique of positivist science (Preucel 2006). In this context, the work of evolutionary biologist Deacon (1997) marks a key development in using Peirce’s triad of signs (icon, index and symbols) as a framework for the evolution of human consciousness. He argues that only humans represent or give meaning to experience through arbitrary symbols (language) and that Homo erectus had the capacity to form language-based societies, but lacked the anatomical ability to produce articulate speech, citing Lieberman’s reconstruction of the anatomical constraints of the pre-sapiens larynx (Lieberman 1984). These societies communicated using a mix of limited sounds that carried symbolic meaning coupled with gesture, and over time, a linguistic niche evolved (though cf. Everett 2016, 170ff for a critique of “niche construction theory”). The coevolution of an extended childhood and articulate language followed a Baldwinian trajectory which favours the selection for traits which facilitate social learning (Deacon 2010).
渐进主义模型有着悠久的历史(达尔文 1871 年),但在乔姆斯基影响的时间框架内,出现了各种方法,这些方法在强调影响语言起源的生物或文化因素以及对考古记录的解释方面各不相同(例如 Donald 1991;Dunbar 1996 年;Noble 和 Davidson 1996;Mithen 1996 年;Power 2009 年;Corballis 2002 年;Bickerton 1990 年,Bickerton 2014 年;Coolidge 和 Wynn 2009;Rossano 2010 年;Lombard 和 Gärdenfors 2017)。Deacon (1989; 2010)、Cousins (2014) 和 Everett (2017) 在使用皮尔斯的符号理论方面与其他渐进论者不同。没有人是考古学家,鉴于旧石器时代考古学家与皮尔斯接触的罕见性,这一点值得注意(Iliopoulos 2016;永利 2017;Ruck 和 Uomini 出版)。考古学家不愿意将符号学应用于深远的过去,这可能反映了对皮尔斯作品的不熟悉,或者是因为近几十年来它与结构主义和后结构主义对实证主义科学的批判有关(Preucel 2006)。在此背景下,进化生物学家 Deacon (1997) 的工作标志着使用皮尔斯的符号三元组(图标、索引和符号)作为人类意识进化框架的关键发展。他认为,只有人类通过任意符号(语言)来代表或赋予经验意义,直立人有能力形成基于语言的社会,但缺乏产生清晰语言的解剖学能力,引用了利伯曼对前智人喉部解剖学限制的重建(Lieberman 1984)。这些社会使用带有象征意义的有限声音和手势的混合进行交流,随着时间的推移,语言生态位不断发展(尽管参见 Everett 2016, 170ff 对“生态位构建理论”的批评)。延长的童年和清晰的语言的共同进化遵循鲍德温的轨迹,该轨迹有利于选择促进社会学习的特征(Deacon 2010)。
Deacon’s characterisation of the limited capacity for articulate speech with H. erectus plays a critical role in his gradualist model of a developing language niche. That status of the vocal tract as critical to articulate speech production has since been challenged (see Laitman 1984; Boe et al. 2013; de Boer 2017; Fitch 2018; Boë et al. 2019 for syntheses of human and non-human primate evidence and Dediu et al. 2017 for variability of the vocal tract in modern human populations). The fossil evidence now indicates that modern-like speech and auditory capacities had evolved by at least 430,000 years ago in the ancestor of Neanderthals and Denisovans (Martínez et al. 2004, 2008; Gómez-Olivencia et al. 2007; Dediu and Levinson 2013; Steele et al. 2013; Aboitz 2018). The neurological control of breathing to produce articulate speech may have evolved as early as 1.8 Ma with Homo erectus, but was not present in australopithecines (Meyer 2016; Meyer and Haeusler 2015; cf. MacLarnon and Hewitt 2004).
Deacon 对直立猿人清晰语言能力有限的描述在他关于发展中的语言生态位的渐进主义模型中起着关键作用。声带对清晰语音产生至关重要的地位此后受到了挑战(参见 Laitman 1984;Boe 等人,2013 年;de Boer 2017 年;惠誉 2018;Boë 等人,2019 年用于人类和非人类灵长类动物证据的综合,以及 Dediu 等人,2017 年,用于现代人类群体中声带的变异性)。化石证据表明,尼安德特人和丹尼索瓦人的祖先至少在 430,000 年前进化了类似现代的语音和听觉能力(Martínez 等人,2004 年,2008 年;Gómez-Olivencia 等人,2007 年;Dediu 和 Levinson 2013;Steele 等人,2013 年;Aboitz 2018 年)。呼吸产生清晰言语的神经控制可能早在 1.8 马 与直立人一起进化,但在南方古猿中不存在(迈耶 2016 年;Meyer 和 Haeusler 2015;参见 MacLarnon 和 Hewitt 2004)。
Comparative linguistic data provides additional support for the observation that only a few sounds are needed to produce language (Newbrand 1951; Firchow and Firchow 1969; Everett 1979), and the majority of the world’s languages (60–70%) employ tones to distinguish words (Yip 2002) along with other prosodic features that rely on laryngeal features that do not implicate the vocal apparatus directly (Everett 2012). Homo erectus, and other hominins, could have used tones to supplement a small phonemic inventory to clarify, as all tone languages do, words that might otherwise sound alike.
比较语言学数据为以下观察提供了额外的支持,即只需要几个声音就可以产生语言(Newbrand 1951;Firchow 和 Firchow 1969;Everett 1979),世界上大多数语言 (60-70%) 使用声调来区分单词 (Yip 2002) 以及其他依赖于喉部特征的韵律特征,这些特征并不直接涉及发声器官 (Everett 2012)。直立人和其他古人类可以像所有声调语言一样,使用声调来补充一个小的音素清单,以澄清原本听起来可能相似的单词。
Cousins (2014):163), a cultural psychologist, uses Peirce’s framework to argue for a “semiotic coevolution” of the capacity for meaning-making with supportive cognitive, social and vocal structures. Agreed meaning is only adaptive in the context of “culturally grounded knowledge about the world – conventions, narrative, beliefs” (Cousins 2014:164). In this model, cultural knowledge emerged from tool-making, starting with the Oldowan, as a physical nexus for cooperation between individuals. Tool-making, language and social learning co-evolved, creating a distinctive cultural niche. As with Deacon, Cousins (2014):164) posits an initial protolanguage based on a few words (symbols) which gradually evolves through Baldwinian selection into more a grammatically complex language.
文化心理学家 Cousins (2014):163) 使用皮尔斯的框架来论证意义创造能力与支持性认知、社会和声音结构的“符号学协同进化”。商定的意义只有在“基于文化的关于世界的知识——惯例、叙述、信仰”的背景下才具有适应性(Cousins 2014:164)。在这种模式下,文化知识从工具制造中出现,从 Oldowan 开始,作为个人之间合作的物理纽带。工具制作、语言和社会学习共同发展,创造了一个独特的文化利基。与 Deacon 一样,Cousins (2014):164) 假设了一种基于几个单词(符号)的初始原始语言,它通过鲍德温的选择逐渐演变成一种语法更复杂的语言。
Everett (2008, 2016, 2017) applies his perspective as an ethnolinguist, with a long experience working among South American hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists, to developing a model of language evolution that draws directly on Peirce’s theory of signs. Underlying Everett’s approach is a three-stage typology of grammatical complexity that recognises the variability observed among contemporary languages, including those lacking recursion, as found in some small-scale societies (Jackendoff 1999; Everett 2005; Gil 2009; Jackendoff and Wittenberg 2014). A meta-analysis of the morphological and syntactical structures of > 2000 languages has shown a significant correlation between group size and language structure (Lupyan and Dale 2010). Speakers of languages in small societies use fewer words, but more inflection to express meaning than speakers of languages in large groups who typically rely on increased word content and grammatical complexity to convey meaning.
Everett (2008, 2016, 2017) 运用他作为民族语言学家的观点,在南美狩猎采集者和园艺学家中工作的长期经验,开发了一个直接借鉴皮尔斯符号理论的语言进化模型。埃弗雷特方法的基础是语法复杂性的三阶段类型学,它认识到在当代语言中观察到的可变性,包括那些缺乏递归的语言,如在一些小规模社会中发现的(Jackendoff 1999;Everett 2005 年;Gil 2009 年;Jackendoff 和 Wittenberg 2014 年)。对 > 2000 种语言的形态和句法结构的荟萃分析表明,群体规模和语言结构之间存在显著的相关性(Lupyan 和 Dale 2010)。与大型群体中的语言使用者相比,小社会中的语言使用者使用较少的单词,但更多的词调来表达意义,而大型群体中的语言使用者通常依靠增加的单词内容和语法复杂性来传达含义。
In Everett’s typology, the most basic grammar, referred to as G1, has a linear word order (subject-verb-object) that conveys meaning (Fig. 1). G2 languages have hierarchical structures but no recursion (Fig. 2), and G3 languages have recursion (Fig. 3) (Everett 2017: Chapter 9). In this hierarchy of grammars, there is no need for a protolanguage in language evolution; a G1 language is sufficient to convey nuanced, abstract meaning. G1 languages evolved first, with recursion a late and unnecessary expectation for early languages (Karlsson 2009; Everett 2012). G1–G3 coexist today with G1 and G2 languages found in societies without written languages (Everett 2005; Gil 2009).
在 Everett 的类型学中,最基本的语法,称为 G1,具有传达含义的线性词序(主语-动词-宾语)(图 1)。G2 语言具有层次结构但没有递归(图 2),而 G3 语言具有递归(图 3)(Everett 2017:第 9 章)。在这种语法层次结构中,语言进化中不需要原始语言;G1 语言足以传达细微的抽象含义。G1 语言首先进化,递归是早期语言的晚期和不必要的期望(Karlsson 2009;Everett 2012 年)。G1-G3 今天与在没有书面语言的社会中发现的 G1 和 G2 语言共存(Everett 2005;Gil 2009 年)。
Fig. 1
a–c Three diagrams illustrating the linear sentence structures enabled by G1 languages
a–c 三个图表,说明了 G1 语言实现的线性句子结构
Fig. 2
An example of the hierarchical nesting of sub-phrases in a G2 language
G2 语言中子短语的分层嵌套示例
Fig. 3
Diagram of the embedded structure of a G3 language with recursion
具有递归的 G3 语言的嵌入式结构图
The empirical differences in these three grammars are illustrated diagrammatically using sentences 1–3, in Fig. 1a–c:
这三种语法的经验差异在图 1a-c 中用句子 1-3 以图解方式说明:
-
John came in the room. John sat. John slept.
约翰走进了房间。约翰坐着。约翰睡着了。 -
John entered the room by the garden. John slept.
约翰走进了花园边的房间。约翰睡着了。 -
John came in the room, sat, and slept.
约翰进来,坐下,睡着了。
The illustrations in Fig. 1a–c conform to a G1 grammar.
图 1a-c 中的插图符合 G1 语法。
In these diagrams, there are no category labels, e.g. “noun” or “verb”, and no phrase labels, such as “verb phrase”. The simplest grammatical structure would be a linear arrangement of words as a proposition/sentence. There are modern languages represented by G1 grammars, for example, Pirahã (see also Futrell et al. 2016; Everett and Gibson 2019) but also Warlpiri, Wargamay, Hixkaryána, Kayardild, Gavião and Amele among others (Pullum 2020).
在这些图表中,没有类别标签,例如 “noun” 或 “verb”,也没有短语标签,例如 “verb phrase”。最简单的语法结构是将单词线性排列为命题/句子。有以 G1 语法为代表的现代语言,例如皮拉哈语(另见 Futrell 等人,2016 年;Everett 和 Gibson 2019),还有 Warlpiri、Wargamay、Hixkaryána、Kayardild、Gavião 和 Amele 等(Pullum 2020)。
A G2 grammar would allow the structure in Fig. 2 which shows hierarchical nesting of sub-phrases.
G2 语法将允许图 2 中的结构,该结构显示了子短语的分层嵌套。
A G3 grammar would allow structures such as that shown in Fig. 3.
G3 语法将允许如图 3 所示的结构。
Two sentences are contained in or “dominated by” the highest sentence making this a grammar without constraints on recursion.
两个句子包含在或“受其支配”的最高句子中,这使得这是一种不受递归约束的语法。
Everett(2017) uses Peirce’s theory of signs (below) to outline an evolutionary pathway to symbol-based language based on speech and gestures. The archaeological record of Homo erectus provides the material evidence for concluding that this hominin used symbols and at least a G1 level of language to transmit complex cultural knowledge (Everett 2016). We develop that evidence in detail here.
Everett(2017) 使用皮尔斯的符号理论(下图)概述了基于语音和手势的基于符号的语言的进化途径。直立人的考古记录为得出结论,这种古人类使用符号和至少 G1 级别的语言来传播复杂的文化知识提供了重要证据(Everett 2016)。我们在这里详细阐述了这些证据。
Defining and Recognising Symbols; Peirce’s Semiotics 定义和识别符号;皮尔斯的符号学
Between the late 1800s and his death in 1914, Peirce developed one of the most comprehensive philosophical programs since Aristotle. Semiotics, the theory of signs, was Peirce’s focus and touchstone (Peirce 1992, 1998). His symbolic system was the result of neither nature nor nurture, but was constrained by logic (as it in turn constrained logic), a theory opposed to Cartesian dualism, introspection and intuition, all of which Peirce considered deeply unscientific. Perhaps because of the popularity of the simpler, dyadic semiotic system of Saussure (1916 [1983]), those unfamiliar with the triadic Peircean system might be excused for confusing signs and symbols. Whereas Saussure postulated only a dyadic sign-form-meaning composite, Peirce postulates a triadic theory of signs.
从 1800 年代后期到 1914 年去世,皮尔斯开发了自亚里士多德以来最全面的哲学课程之一。符号学,即符号理论,是皮尔斯的重点和试金石(皮尔斯 1992,1998)。他的符号系统既不是天生也不是后天的结果,而是受到逻辑的约束(反过来又约束逻辑),一种与笛卡尔二元论、内省和直觉相反的理论,所有这些都被皮尔斯认为非常不科学。也许是因为索绪尔 (Saussure, 1916 [1983])更简单的二元符号学系统的流行,那些不熟悉三元皮尔斯系统的人可能会因为混淆符号和符号而情有可原。索绪尔只假设了一个二元符号-形式-意义复合体,而皮尔斯则假设了一个符号的三元理论。
Peirce contended that all living systems communicate with their surroundings by responding to visual, acoustic and chemical cues (signs); a founding principle of biosemiotics (Barbieri 2008) and zoosemiotics (see Delahaye 2019 for an overview of these fields). In this framework, signs communicate an object to an interpreter, and the response by the interpreter is called the interpretant (Peirce 1998). Most signs (indexes and icons, below) do not require conventions to understand and respond to the cues, but humans in particular generate meaning from signs based on socially learned conventions (symbols).
皮尔斯认为,所有生命系统都通过响应视觉、听觉和化学线索(标志)来与周围环境进行交流;生物符号学 (Barbieri 2008) 和动物符号学 (有关这些领域的概述,请参见 Delahaye 2019) 的基本原则。在这个框架中,符号将对象传达给解释者,解释者的回应称为解释者 (Peirce 1998)。大多数标志(下面的索引和图标)不需要约定俗成来理解和响应提示,但人类尤其根据社会习得的约定俗成(符号)从标志中产生意义。
The ability to use symbols exists among non-human primates as in the case of the bonobo, Kanzi, who was taught by humans to communicate using visual symbols (Gibson 2002; Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 2004). Vocal symbols also exist among some primates, as in the case of vervet monkeys which learn over time how to respond to the group’s alarm calls linked to specific external threats (Ribiero et al. 2006). Vervet symbol use, however, differs from the human faculty for using symbols to generate a potentially infinite number of new combinations and meanings (Piantadosi and Fedorenko 2017).
使用符号的能力存在于非人类灵长类动物中,例如倭黑猩猩 Kanzi,它被人类教会使用视觉符号进行交流(Gibson 2002;Savage-Rumbaugh 等人,2004 年)。一些灵长类动物也存在声音符号,例如长尾猴的情况,它们会随着时间的推移学习如何响应群体与特定外部威胁相关的警报电话(Ribiero 等人,2006 年)。然而,Vervet 符号的使用与人类使用符号来产生潜在无限数量的新组合和含义的能力不同(Piantadosi 和 Fedorenko 2017)。
Peirce’s theory of signs encompasses a wide empirical range, and we discuss only five key components needed for understanding our claim that H. erectus possessed a symbolic system and language: icon, index, symbol, object and interpretant.
皮尔斯的符号理论涵盖了广泛的实证范围,我们只讨论了理解我们关于直立猿拥有符号系统和语言的说法所需的五个关键组成部分:图标、索引、符号、物体和解释者。
Icons resemble their referents (objects). They are not merely reflections, photos or drawings and can be anything which resembles “in some way”. For example, ground moisture level can be a cue or icon, “telling” an earthworm to surface. When an earthworm “decides” the amount of water that passes its threshold, the amount of water is an icon of maximum tolerable exposure. A human face’s reflection in the water is an icon of the face (and other faces generally). In grammar, examples of iconicity can be seen in the fact that prepositions with more content (“before”, “towards”) tend to be longer than prepositions with less content (“to”, “in”).
图标类似于它们的引用对象(对象)。它们不仅仅是倒影、照片或图画,可以是“以某种方式”相似的任何东西。例如,地面湿度水平可以是一个提示或图标,“告诉”蚯蚓到表面。当蚯蚓“决定”超过其阈值的水量时,水量是最大可容忍暴露量的标志。人脸在水中的倒影是人脸(以及通常的其他人脸)的图标。在语法中,标志性的例子可以从以下事实中看出:内容较多的介词(“before”、“towards”)往往比内容较少的介词(“to”、“in”)更长。
Indexes signal a spatial, temporal or other physical relationship with the object. A mouse rustling in grass is an acoustic index-sign to a cat. Humans also use indexes (smells, footprints, sounds) and images, and natural tolerances, such as temperature, taste and texture, but use more complex versions of these signs. Indexes may be pronouns like “here”, “there”, or simply pointing to something where the line from the pointing appendage to the object is an imaginary connection.
索引表示与对象的空间、时间或其他物理关系。老鼠在草地上沙沙作响是猫的声学索引符号。人类还使用索引(气味、脚印、声音)和图像,以及温度、味道和质地等自然耐受性,但使用这些符号的更复杂的版本。索引可以是代词,如 “here”、“there”,或者只是指向从指向附件到对象的线是虚构连接的事物。
A symbol is in general any sign by which the form signals its meaning by a conventional cultural interpretation, linking object, interpretant and the sign. The symbol “dog” means Canis familiaris in English because the culture from which “dog” emerged valued this concept and agreed (by practice) to link the phonetic form, i.e. oral sign, [dɔg] with the object, a specific dog or the class of dogs, via a culturally agreed interpretation.
符号通常是任何符号,形式通过传统的文化解释来表达其含义,将对象、解释者和符号联系起来。符号 “dog” 在英语中意为 Canis familiaris,因为 “dog” 一词产生的文化重视这个概念,并同意(通过实践)通过文化上商定的解释将语音形式(即口头符号 [dɔg] 与宾语、特定的狗或狗的类别)联系起来。
Indexes and icons in language function only because their forms and relations are conventional, that is they are simultaneously symbolic and indexical, symbols-as-icons and symbols-as-indexes. This multiplicity of meaning also applies to material objects, such as a steel butter knife which operates simultaneously as an icon of the category of knife, an index of the metal, its properties and intended function/spreading movement, and as a symbol of the process of preparing food or the habitual time of use, such as breakfast. These multiple functions coexist in the object, and as habituated users we are unaware of these learned associations and the range of interpretations they represent. Humans and animals overlap in using indexes and icons and needing to interpret them, they differ in that humans use and create symbols habitually, and no known non-human systems require or manifest culturally productive symbols (Hurford 2004; Piantadosi and Fedorenko 2017).Yet no human language lacks symbols (Everett 2016), and we have the socio-cognitive foundations for creating symbols (Callaghan 2020).
语言中的索引和图标之所以起作用,只是因为它们的形式和关系是约定俗成的,也就是说,它们同时是符号和索引,符号作为图标,符号作为索引。这种多重含义也适用于物质对象,例如钢制黄油刀,它同时作为刀类别的图标、金属、其特性和预期功能/传播运动的索引,以及作为准备食物的过程或习惯使用时间的象征,例如早餐。这些多重功能在物体中共存,作为习惯的使用者,我们不知道这些习得的联想和它们所代表的解释范围。人类和动物在使用索引和图标方面重叠并需要解释它们,它们的不同之处在于人类习惯性地使用和创造符号,并且没有已知的非人类系统需要或表现出具有文化生产力的符号(Hurford 2004;Piantadosi 和 Fedorenko 2017 年)。然而,没有一种人类语言缺乏符号(Everett 2016),我们拥有创造符号的社会认知基础(Callaghan 2020)。
Once symbols have arisen through convention (e.g. recognising a tool as more than an icon and an index, but also a symbol of craftsmanship, cultural purpose and personal identity), how does this new set of conventional signs acquire a grammar? Bates and Goodman (1999), Goldberg (2019) and Fedorenko et al. (2012), inter alia, offer a valuable clue. Symbols (what these authors refer to as words and “constructions”) are claimed to be not only logically prior to grammar, as Peirce would claim, but also psychologically foundational for grammar (Bates and Goodman 1999) and neurologically more significant than grammar per se (Fedorenko et al. 2012). The grammar of symbols becomes in this view, the “choice” of how to arrange the symbols of a particular culture (Everett 2012, 2017). This arrangement can be complicated as in many modern languages, but given the variation found in the world’s languages, there is no one model of complexity required for the first languages contra Chomsky (1995). Everett’s G1 is the simplest option for communicating meaning, and logically the earliest in a gradualist model of language evolution.
一旦符号通过约定俗成出现(例如,将工具视为不仅仅是图标和索引,还是工艺、文化目的和个人身份的象征),这组新的传统符号如何获得语法?Bates 和 Goodman (1999)、Goldberg (2019) 和 Fedorenko 等人 (2012) 等人提供了宝贵的线索。正如皮尔斯所声称的那样,符号(这些作者称之为单词和“结构”)不仅在逻辑上先于语法,而且在心理学上也是语法的基础(Bates 和 Goodman 1999),并且在神经学上比语法本身更重要(Fedorenko et al. 2012)。在这种观点中,符号的语法变成了如何排列特定文化符号的“选择”(Everett 2012,2017)。这种安排可能像许多现代语言一样复杂,但考虑到世界语言的差异,第一语言不需要一种复杂度模型,这与 Chomsky (1995) 相反。Everett 的 G1 是传达意义的最简单选项,从逻辑上讲,它是语言进化的渐进主义模型中最早的。
Chase (1991) considers stone tools as iconic objects created as a result of an understanding of the cause and effect relationship of the properties of stone in relation to the laws of physics. But as Cousins (2014):179) observes, there is nothing inherent in the stone that leads to an awareness of the variables to be managed in order to strike a flake from a core with consistency. The physical properties of the core, the hammer, and the control of the angle and force of blow are not inherent in the materials; they are interpretations made of the materials as part of a process of meaning-making. This is a semiotic perspective which then raises issues of the context of learning—is it shared intentionally through teaching (e.g. Morgan et al. 2015; Lombao et al. 2017) or learned individually by trial and error (Tennie et al. 2016)?
Chase (1991) 认为石器是由于理解石头特性与物理定律的因果关系而创造的标志性物体。但正如 Cousins (2014):179) 所观察到的那样,石头中没有任何固有的东西可以导致人们意识到要管理的变量,以便始终如一地从核心中敲出薄片。芯、锤的物理特性以及对打击角度和力的控制并不是材料所固有的;它们是作为意义构建过程的一部分对材料进行的解释。这是一个符号学的观点,然后提出了学习背景的问题——它是否通过教学有意识地分享(例如 Morgan 等人,2015 年;Lombao 等人,2017 年)还是通过反复试验单独学习(Tennie 等人,2016 年)?
Wynn (1993):402) acknowledges that certain elaborated tools, like hand-axes, can be indexes of the hierarchical process of making the object and come to represent the maker. If the object represents an activity and the maker, and does so through repetition rather than shared intention, then in Wynn’s perspective, the hand-axe is an index. When shared intention is involved, then the object becomes a symbol. The question becomes how do archaeologists, as observers of the objects separated by deep time from the social contexts of makers and users, recognize shared intention in the Palaeolithic record? The question is not new (see Holloway 1969), and we incorporate the two criteria, restated by Davidson (2002):181), of Noble and Davidson (1996) into our analysis: “the manufacture of tools of preconceived form, produced outside the immediate context of use, must entail a representation of intention, something that we may consider indicative of language as communication using symbols”.
Wynn (1993):402) 承认某些精心制作的工具,如手斧,可以成为制作物品的层次结构过程的索引,并代表制造者。如果物体代表一项活动和创造者,并且通过重复而不是共同意图来实现这一点,那么在 Wynn 看来,手斧就是一个索引。当涉及共享意图时,对象将变为元件。问题就变成了考古学家,作为被深层时间与制造者和使用者的社会背景分开的物品的观察者,如何识别旧石器时代记录中的共同意图?这个问题并不新鲜(参见 Holloway 1969),我们将 Noble 和 Davidson (1996) 的 Davidson (2002):181 重申的两个标准纳入我们的分析中:“制造先入为主形式的工具,在直接使用环境之外生产,必须包含意图的表征,我们可以认为这是使用符号的语言交流的标志”。
The difficulty of distinguishing between icon and symbol in objects which are unfamiliar to us is one reason archaeologists have focused on representational images in cave art as markers of symbol use (e.g. Mellars 1973, 1989, 2005). These images show contemplation and attention to meaning, but in the absence of other contextual data, representational (depictive) art is not symbolic. It is only iconic, but non-representational images, such as the abundant dots and grids in Upper Palaeolithic cave art (Bahn and Vertut 1997), have potential symbolic content given they are arbitrary, repeated forms.
在我们不熟悉的物体中区分图标和符号的困难是考古学家专注于洞穴艺术中的具象图像作为符号使用标志的原因之一(例如 Mellars 1973、1989、2005)。这些图像显示了沉思和对意义的关注,但在缺乏其他背景数据的情况下,具象(描绘)艺术不是象征性的。它只是标志性的,但非具象的图像,例如旧石器时代晚期洞穴艺术中丰富的点和网格(Bahn 和 Vertut 1997),鉴于它们是任意的、重复的形式,因此具有潜在的象征性内容。
Symbols can originate in many ways, exploiting the different senses, including visually, as with tools, and orally. Orally, symbols arise through sound symbolism, such as onomatopoetic words like “crash”, “bang” and “boom”. We can also see sound symbolism in clusters of sounds in words with similar meanings, such as gleam, glow, glitter and glisten. It can be seen in particular sounds that show intensity, such as tamp vs. tap, stomp vs step. Sound symbolism is common across the world’s languages (Sapir 1915; Urban 1988; Everett 1979). Each sign needs a physical form, and vocal sounds are the best solution to providing form for signs (Everett 2012).
符号可以以多种方式产生,利用不同的感官,包括视觉、工具和口头。在口头上,符号通过声音象征语出现,例如“crash”、“bang”和“boom”等拟声词。我们还可以在具有相似含义的单词中的声音集群中看到声音的象征意义,例如 gleam、glow、glitter 和 glisten。在显示强度的声音中可以看到它,例如 tamp 与 tap、stomp 与 step。声音象征主义在世界语言中很常见(Sapir 1915;Urban 1988 年;Everett 1979 年)。每个标志都需要一个物理形式,而发声是为标志提供形式的最佳解决方案(Everett 2012)。
An interpretant is necessary for the arbitrary content of symbols to be meaningful to a viewer or listener. A bridging component, the interpretant, can take the form of other signs and meaningful conventions: “In a world without interpretants a sickle and hammer would only mean a sickle crossed with a hammer. And Leonardo’s Last Supper would only be a very gloomy dinner or a meeting of thirteen unshaven men” (Eco 1976:1467). With material objects, interpretants may become part of the learned cultural knowledge, signalling aspects of the object that the viewer will recognize implicitly as meaningful. This meaning is ephemeral and context specific, as in the case of the butter knife. It is not accessible by a viewer separated in time, space and culturally from this implicit knowledge, but as with icons we can infer that interpretants existed when we find repeated (conventional) artefact forms and selection among a range of strategies for making these objects.
要使符号的任意内容对观众或听众有意义,解释器是必不可少的。一个桥接成分,解释者,可以采取其他符号和有意义的约定的形式:“在一个没有解释者的世界里,镰刀和锤子只意味着镰刀与锤子交叉。而达芬奇的《最后的晚餐》只会是一顿非常阴郁的晚餐,或者是 13 个没有刮胡子的男人的会议“(Eco 1976:1467)。对于物质物体,解释者可能成为所学文化知识的一部分,表明观众会隐含地认识到物体的意义。这个含义是短暂的,并且特定于上下文,就像黄油刀一样。在时间、空间和文化上与这种隐含知识分离的观众无法接触到它,但就像图标一样,当我们发现重复的(传统的)人工制品形式并在制作这些对象的一系列策略中进行选择时,我们可以推断出解释者的存在。
In summary, symbols are both necessary and sufficient conditions for language. Complex recursive grammar is not the point of origin for all human languages (contra Hauser et al. 2002; Berwick and Chomsky 2016), and grammatical structure alone is not sufficient for language; for any human syntax, each node in a syntactic tree must be labelled (e.g. noun phrase, verb phrase; Murphy 2015:715). Labels are symbols in the Peircean sense—conventional, categorising generalisations across different units of linguistic representation.
总之,符号既是语言的必要条件,也是充分条件。复杂的递归语法并不是所有人类语言的起源点(与 Hauser 等人相反,2002 年;Berwick 和 Chomsky 2016),仅靠语法结构不足以证明语言;对于任何人类语法,句法树中的每个节点都必须被标记(例如名词短语、动词短语;墨菲 2015:715)。标签是皮尔西意义上的符号——传统的、对语言表征的不同单位进行分类的概括。
Tools as Social Conventions and Symbols 作为社会习俗和符号的工具
To support a claim that tools of the Lower Palaeolithic carried symbolic meaning, this section draws generalisations from sociological, ethnographic and ethological research about tool-making as socially learned, conventionalised knowledge. It starts with contexts of meaning generation and discusses the distinction between utilitarian and symbolic objects as a potential obstacle to a uniformitarian approach. A comparative assessment follows of the social contexts of tool use among non-human primates with a focus on chimpanzees as our closest genetic relatives. Their cognitive capacity to discriminate between kinds of tools is relevant in the evolution of the capacity to create symbols.
为了支持旧石器时代晚期工具具有象征意义的说法,本节从社会学、人种学和行为学研究中得出了关于工具制作作为社会学习的、约定俗成的知识的概括。它从意义生成的语境开始,讨论了功利主义和象征性物体之间的区别,这是均变主义方法的潜在障碍。随后对非人类灵长类动物使用工具的社会背景进行了比较评估,重点是黑猩猩作为我们最近的遗传亲戚。他们区分各种工具的认知能力与创建符号的能力的进化有关。
Tool use is widespread in the animal kingdom (Lefebvre et al. 2002; Beck 1980; Aunger 2010, Bentley-Condit and Smith 2010; Shumaker et al. 2011), but tool-making as the deliberate modification of an object is relatively rare among animals (Biro et al. 2013). The creation and sharing of tools in the human context differs from that of other animals in that it combines the material with the ideational. Human technologies materialise and sustain worldviews, identities, social relations and life-ways (Guindon 2015:79–80). Perhaps the most unusual aspect of tool use for humans is that tools become symbols, as well as functioning as indexes and icons (Pfaffenberger 2001).
工具的使用在动物界很普遍(Lefebvre 等人,2002 年;Beck 1980 年;Aunger 2010 年,Bentley-Condit 和 Smith 2010 年;Shumaker 等人,2011 年),但作为对物体的故意修改而制造的工具在动物中相对罕见(Biro 等人,2013 年)。在人类环境中创造和分享工具与其他动物的不同之处在于它将材料与概念相结合。人类技术实现并维持世界观、身份、社会关系和生活方式(Guindon 2015:79-80)。也许人类使用工具最不寻常的方面是工具成为符号,同时也起到索引和图标的作用(Pfaffenberger 2001)。
The symbolic aspect of technology is well theorised and empirically supported in sociological studies of technologies in contemporary and historical contexts and in archaeological contexts with diverse and chronologically well-constrained data (e.g. Hodder 1982, 2012; Kopytoff 1986; Pinch and Bijker 1984; Latour 1992; Ingold 1993; Gosden 2005; Wallis 2013). The obvious limitation of this approach for archaeologists working with early to mid-Pleistocene material is that we do not have access to texts or verbal accounts that enrich sociological analyses. Nor do we have the broader range of material culture found in some later Pleistocene contexts with which to distinguish indexes and icons as well as a range of tool-making conventions, and we must contend with a discontinuous and often poorly dated record (Shea 2017). We can, however, draw inferences about the past existence of meaning-making in a semiotic sense from the judicious use of human and non-human analogues, recognising their inherent limitations (e.g. Wobst 1978; McGrew 2010), combined with experimental archaeology with direct application to the archaeological record (Stout et al. 2019). The latter generates observations on the social and cognitive processes involved in interactions with objects (Gärdenfors and Högberg 2017). Research in cognitive archaeology adds to the understanding of tool-making and use as embodied biocultural behaviours integrating perception and action within wider physical and social environments (Leroi-Gourhan 1993; Stout 2002; Stout et al. 2019; Malafouris 2013; Uomini and Meyer 2013; Fairlie and Barham 2016; Overmann and Wynn 2019).
在当代和历史背景下的技术社会学研究中,以及在具有多样化和时间顺序上严格限制的数据的考古学研究中,技术的象征性方面得到了很好的理论化和实证支持(例如 Hodder 1982,2012;Kopytoff 1986 年;Pinch 和 Bijker 1984;Latour 1992 年;Ingold 1993 年;Gosden 2005 年;Wallis 2013 年)。对于处理更新世早期至中期材料的考古学家来说,这种方法的明显局限性是我们无法获得丰富社会学分析的文本或口头描述。我们也没有在一些更新世后期的背景下发现的更广泛的物质文化来区分索引和图标以及一系列工具制造惯例,我们必须与不连续且通常过时不佳的记录作斗争(Shea 2017)。然而,我们可以从对人类和非人类类似物的明智使用中,从符号学意义上推断出意义建构的过去存在,认识到它们固有的局限性(例如 Wobst 1978;McGrow 2010 年),结合实验考古学并直接应用于考古记录(Stout 等人,2019 年)。后者产生了对与物体互动所涉及的社会和认知过程的观察(Gärdenfors 和 Högberg 2017)。认知考古学的研究增加了对工具制造和使用的理解,这些工具作为具身的生物文化行为,将感知和行动整合到更广泛的物理和社会环境中(Leroi-Gourhan 1993;斯托特 2002;Stout 等人,2019 年;Malafouris 2013 年;Uomini 和 Meyer 2013;Fairlie 和 Barham 2016;Overmann 和 Wynn 2019)。
Creating Meaning with Tools: Inferences from Social Constructionism 用工具创造意义:来自社会建构主义的推论
Social constructionists working cross-culturally among pre-industrial societies, and with an eye to the archaeological record, provide useful generalisations on symbol use applicable to the past. Killick (2004:573-4) outlines three basic differences between pre-industrial and industrial societies in relation to the social transmission of technologies, and the ideational roles of tools and technologies. The learning of technical skills takes place using a combination of language, gesture, imitation and guided intervention or teaching in what Csibra and Gergely (2011) call “natural pedagogy” (e.g. Draper 1976:210, learning leather-work among Ju/’hoansi children, Botswana). Technology shapes the social persona and world view of the individual, as among Nuer pastoralists of the Sudan (Evans-Pritchard (1976:89 [1940]) for whom their limited material culture serves as “chains along which social relationships run, and the simpler is a material culture the more numerous are the relationships expressed through it.” Theories of technology (ontologies) in pre-industrial societies are often linked to social processes and natural phenomena (Stout 2002). Gamo horticultural communities (Ethiopia) are one of the few remaining makers of stone tools, and perceive their tool-stone as a named living and social being with a life history that mirrors that of the tool-maker (Arthur 2018).
社会建构主义者在前工业化社会中进行跨文化工作,并着眼于考古记录,为适用于过去的符号使用提供了有用的概括。Killick (2004:573-4) 概述了前工业化社会和工业化社会在技术社会传播以及工具和技术的意识形态作用方面的三个基本区别。技术技能的学习是通过语言、手势、模仿和引导干预或教学相结合的方式进行的,Csibra 和 Gergely (2011) 称之为“自然教育法”(例如 Draper 1976:210,在博茨瓦纳的 Ju/'hoansi 儿童中学习皮革工作)。技术塑造了个人的社会形象和世界观,就像苏丹的努尔牧民一样(Evans-Pritchard (1976:89 [1940]),对他们来说,他们有限的物质文化是“社会关系运行的链条,物质文化越简单,通过它表达的关系就越多。前工业化社会的技术理论(本体论)通常与社会过程和自然现象相关联(Stout 2002)。Gamo 园艺社区(埃塞俄比亚)是仅存的少数石器制造者之一,并将他们的工具石视为一种命名的生活和社会存在,其生活史反映了工具制造者的生活史(Arthur 2018)。
Among recent and historical hunter-gatherers, the cultural act of attributing symbolic value to raw materials is widespread (e.g. Gould et al. 1971, Australia; Tayanin and Lindell 2012, Southeast Asia; Brandišauskas 2016, Siberia; Guindon 2015, Canadian subarctic; and papers in Boivin and Owoc 2004 for cultural perceptions of soils and minerals). Objects also carry meaning as arbitrary conventions linking the object to social personas. The sharing of object names with social persona and personal identity is seen with the woman’s kaross among the Ju’/hoansi (chi!kan) which doubles as a colloquial term for “women” (Lee 1979:124); in the names of tools among the Netsilik (Canada) which are selected as personal names for individuals as protection from misfortune (Balikçi 1970:199–200); and among the Piraha (Brasil), the hunting bow (hóií) is used by men only, but the bowstring (hóií hoí) is made by the man’s wife, with the complete bow symbolising their union (Everett 2016). These examples show raw materials and tools operating simultaneously across the semiotic range with their material properties integrated into making and transforming systems of meaning (Wallis 2013:209).
在近代和历史上的狩猎采集者中,赋予原材料象征价值的文化行为很普遍(例如 Gould 等人,1971 年,澳大利亚;Tayanin 和 Lindell 2012,东南亚;Brandišauskas 2016,西伯利亚;Guindon 2015,加拿大亚北极;以及 Boivin 和 Owoc 2004 年关于土壤和矿物的文化感知的论文)。对象还带有将对象与社会角色联系起来的任意约定的意义。对象名称与社会角色和个人身份的共享体现在女性在 Ju’/hoansi (chi!kan) 中的 kaross 中,它兼作“女性”的口语术语(Lee 1979:124);在 Netsilik(加拿大)中的工具名称中,这些工具被选为个人的个人名称,以保护自己免受不幸(Balikçi 1970:199-200);在 Piraha(巴西)中,狩猎弓 (hóií) 仅供男性使用,但弓弦 (hóií hoí) 是由男性的妻子制作的,完整的弓象征着他们的结合(Everett 2016)。这些例子显示了原材料和工具在符号学范围内同时运作,它们的材料属性被整合到意义的制造和转换系统中(Wallis 2013:209)。
Creating Meaning with Tools 使用工具创造意义
As Pfaffenberger (2001:77–78) observes, tool-related activities are contexts for learning from others, for creating and maintaining relationships, for reinforcing world views; they are not passive settings limited to functional ends. Tools as symbols, icons and indexes bear multiple kinds of meaning and values depending on where they are made, used and seen. From almost the start of their lives, children learn the social value of objects, including tools, from adults who act as “symbol maker” with the child as pointing to things to make intentions clear, using objects in conventional socially agreed ways and talking to the child (Rodríguez and Moro 2008:111; Tomasello 2005; West 2018). The learning process is intimate, interactive, embodied and cumulative starting with perceptual categories moving to higher-level conceptual categories (symbols) (Sloutsky 2010; Trevarthen and Delafield-Butt 2013). The physical relation between infant and parent (intersubjectivity) and the joint attention given to an object are both critical to word (symbol) learning (Studdert-Kennedy and Herbert 2017). The cooperation involved in infant learning has parallels with a novice learning to make tools from an expert with words (speech and gestures) used to convey conceptually opaque actions and their consequences (Csibra and Gergely 2011; Barham 2013; Herzlinger et al. 2017). Simple utterances of just a few words, as in a G1 grammar (“hit there”; “turn it over”), can greatly enhance knowledge transfer (Laland 2017).
正如 Pfaffenberger (2001:77-78) 所观察到的,与工具相关的活动是向他人学习、建立和维护关系、加强世界观的背景;它们不是仅限于功能目的的被动设置。作为符号、图标和索引的工具具有多种含义和价值,具体取决于它们的制造、使用和看到的地方。几乎从他们生命的开始,孩子们就从成年人那里学习物体的社会价值,包括工具,这些成年人充当“符号制造者”,与孩子一起指着事物以明确意图,以传统的社会商定方式使用物体并与孩子交谈(Rodríguez 和 Moro 2008:111;Tomasello 2005 年;West 2018 年)。学习过程是亲密的、互动的、具身的和累积的,从感知类别开始,然后转向更高层次的概念类别(符号)(Sloutsky 2010;Trevarthen 和 Delafield-Butt 2013 年)。婴儿和父母之间的物理关系(主体间性)和对物体的共同关注对于单词(符号)学习都至关重要(Studdert-Kennedy 和 Herbert 2017)。婴儿学习中涉及的合作与新手学习从专家那里制作工具有相似之处,这些工具使用语言(语音和手势)来传达概念上不透明的动作及其后果(Csibra 和 Gergely 2011;Barham 2013 年;Herzlinger 等人,2017 年)。只有几个单词的简单话语,就像在 G1 语法中一样(“hit there”;“把它翻过来”),可以大大增强知识转移(Laland 2017)。
The study of social learning among hunter-gatherers provides insight into processes operating in recent small-scale, non-hierarchical societies and offers analogues of relevance here for the deeper evolutionary past (Marlowe 2005). Comparative studies show that at the community level, the transmission of knowledge and know-how is affected by demographic variables including size of age cohorts, rates of interaction between generations and with non-kin (Migliano et al. 2017). For example, among the egalitarian Aka foragers (Central African Republic), most early learning (80%) takes place between parent and child, and this form of vertical transmission promotes stability while allowing for some individual variation (Hewlett and Cavalli-Sforza 1986:932). From middle childhood on into adolescence, more learning takes place from peers and unrelated adults (Hewlett 2016). Cross-cultural data shows that learning to make tools is similar to the pattern seen among the Aka, namely transmission of knowledge from parents and older children to the novice (MacDonald 2007), with increased teaching (by verbal instruction, demonstration, pointing) in early adolescence related to more complex technologies and demanding activities such as big game hunting (Lew-Levy et al. 2017, 2018).
对狩猎采集者社会学习的研究提供了对近代小规模、无等级社会运作过程的见解,并为更深层次的进化历史提供了相关性的类似物(Marlowe 2005)。比较研究表明,在社区层面,知识和技能的传播受到人口变量的影响,包括年龄组的大小、代际间以及与非亲属的互动率(Migliano 等人,2017 年)。例如,在平等主义的 Aka 觅食者(中非共和国)中,大多数早期学习 (80%) 发生在父母和孩子之间,这种形式的垂直传播促进了稳定性,同时允许一些个体差异(Hewlett 和 Cavalli-Sforza 1986:932)。从童年中期到青春期,更多的学习发生在同龄人和没有血缘关系的成年人那里(Hewlett 2016)。跨文化数据显示,学习制作工具类似于 Aka 中的模式,即将知识从父母和年龄较大的孩子传授给新手(MacDonald 2007),在青春期早期增加与更复杂的技术和大型狩猎等要求苛刻的活动相关的教学(通过口头指导、示范、指向)(Lew-Levy 等人,2017 年, 2018).
At the population level, quantitative modelling of social learning from an evolutionary perspective, predicts that the intensity of interaction between individuals and groups is more important for the transmission of information than is population size alone (Powell et al. 2009; Grove 2016). As the scale of analysis broadens to include social learning among Acheulean tool-makers, then issues of habitat instability, population isolation and local extinctions add to the list of factors that disrupt cumulative learning (Hopkinson et al. 2013).
在人口层面,从进化的角度对社会学习进行定量建模,预测个体和群体之间互动的强度对于信息的传递比单独的人口规模更重要(Powell 等人,2009 年;格罗夫 2016 年)。随着分析范围扩大到包括 Acheulean 工具制造者的社会学习,栖息地不稳定、种群隔离和局部灭绝等问题增加了破坏累积学习的因素清单(Hopkinson 等人,2013 年)。
Utilitarian or Symbolic? 功利还是象征?
Archaeologists have long recognised the difficulty of distinguishing style from function and by implication symbolic intent from functional design (Rouse 1960; Sackett 1982, 1986; Dibble 1987; Dibble et al. 2016; Davidson and Noble 1993; McPherron 2000). Standardisation of tool forms may indicate symbolic content, but only if not imposed by functional constraints (Gowlett 1996) or by selective bias imposed by archaeological typologies (Davidson 2002; Shea 2017). More problematical for a semiotic approach is the argument that artefacts can have “a practical function without having any symbolic significance whatever” (Chase and Dibble 1992:48).
考古学家早就认识到区分风格与功能以及隐含的象征意图与功能设计的难度(Rouse 1960;Sackett 1982, 1986;Dibble 1987 年;Dibble 等人,2016 年;Davidson 和 Noble 1993;McPherron 2000 年)。工具形式的标准化可能表明符号内容,但前提是不是由功能限制 (Gowlett 1996) 或考古类型学强加的选择性偏见 (Davidson 2002;Shea 2017 年)。对于符号学方法来说,更成问题的是人工制品可以具有“实用功能,而没有任何象征意义”(Chase 和 Dibble 1992:48)。
From a social constructionist point of view, the distinction between symbol and function is a false dichotomy. The underlying source of this distinction is a dominant ideology in Western industrial society that leads us to expect that all behaviour should be goal-oriented, with a function that is a means to an end (Hodder 1982:164). Utilitarianism permeates our dark matter, (our unconscious, culturally articulated personal knowledge; Everett 2016) and archaeologists tend to be more comfortable equating symbol use with behaviours that do not have immediate functional value, such as ritual (Hawkes 1954). Utility and symbolic value, however, are inseparable from social conventions (Hodder 1982, 2012). A utilitarian purpose is a social construct (Skibo and Schiffer 2008), and “…even the most technical and mundane of acts implicates social aspects of life” (Hodder 1994:385). From the perspective of Peirce’s semiotics, every article produced by a human society has the potential to carry conventional meaning, such as the humble butter knife which carries meaning as an index, icon and symbol depending on the context in which it is seen. The challenge for archaeologists is to generate sufficient contextual information to identify levels of intention that reflect the use of symbols (Davidson 2002).
从社会建构主义的角度来看,符号和功能之间的区别是一个错误的二分法。这种区别的根本原因是西方工业社会的主流意识形态,它导致我们期望所有行为都应该以目标为导向,其功能是达到目的的手段(Hodder 1982:164)。功利主义渗透到我们的暗物质中(我们无意识的、文化表达的个人知识;Everett 2016),考古学家往往更愿意将符号的使用等同于没有直接功能价值的行为,例如仪式(Hawkes 1954)。然而,效用和象征价值与社会习俗密不可分(Hodder 1982,2012)。功利主义目的是一种社会建构(Skibo 和 Schiffer 2008),并且“…即使是最技术化和最平凡的行为也涉及生活的社会方面“(Hodder 1994:385)。从皮尔斯的符号学的角度来看,人类社会产生的每篇文章都有可能带有约定俗成的意义,例如不起眼的黄油刀,它根据所处的语境,将意义作为索引、图标和符号。考古学家面临的挑战是生成足够的上下文信息来识别反映符号使用的意图层次(戴维森 2002 年)。
The extraordinary longevity of Lower Palaeolithic tool technologies poses a potential problem to the constructionist and semiotic perspectives as we have no modern frame of reference for such enduring conventions (Ingold 1993). Hodder (1994):385), however, suggests that the “continuity and stability of form indicates Lower and Middle Palaeolithic handaxes clearly were made using rules” and the rules were social constructs even if they were implicit from social conditioning. As discussed below, there is an enduring set of ergonomic principles embedded in the making of hand-axes and cleavers (Gowlett 2006). They may become implicit through experience or perhaps explicit as categorical concepts with semantic labels (Herzlinger et al. 2017).
旧石器时代晚期工具技术的非凡寿命对建构主义和符号学的观点构成了潜在问题,因为我们没有这种持久惯例的现代参考框架(Ingold 1993)。然而,Hodder (1994):385) 认为,“形式的连续性和稳定性表明旧石器时代中下部的手斧显然是用规则制成的”,这些规则是社会建构,即使它们隐含在社会制约中。如下所述,在制作手斧和切肉刀时嵌入了一套经久不衰的人体工程学原则(Gowlett 2006)。它们可能通过经验变得隐含,或者可能作为带有语义标签的分类概念而显现(Herzlinger 等人,2017 年)。
Rules apply also to short-term “end-goal” technologies such as scrapers. The life history of scrapers from manufacture to discard reflects social conventions related to function, but also to ontologies of technology (e.g. Arthur 2018). At a practical level, lithic analysts can measure the variables that affect the effectiveness of a tool for a particular task (e.g. morphology, edge angle, use traces), and draw inferences on decisions made during the life history of the object (Preysler et al. 2018). Decision points identified by lithic analysts are etic observations, and though they can be independently verified, they do not reflect the meanings once held by their makers. Those meanings are context specific and lost to us, but the existence of some level of meaning or signification (icon, index or symbol) can be inferred from (1) conventions in tool forms, (2) selection among equally effective tool-making strategies and (3) in the choice to store (cache) tools for future use (below). Symbolic content resides in each of these contexts given they are arbitrary social constructs.
规则也适用于短期 “最终目标” 技术,例如抓取程序。刮刀从制造到丢弃的生活史反映了与功能相关的社会习俗,但也反映了技术本体论(例如 Arthur 2018)。在实践层面上,岩石分析师可以测量影响工具对特定任务的有效性的变量(例如形态、边缘角度、使用痕迹),并对物体生命周期历史中做出的决策进行推断(Preysler 等人,2018 年)。石器分析师确定的决策点是 etic observation,尽管它们可以独立验证,但它们并不能反映其制造者曾经持有的含义。这些含义是特定于上下文的,对我们来说是丢失的,但某种程度的意义或意义(图标、索引或符号)的存在可以从 (1) 工具形式的约定,(2) 在同样有效的工具制作策略中进行选择,以及 (3) 选择存储(缓存)工具以备将来使用(见下文)。符号内容存在于这些上下文中,因为它们是任意的社会结构。
Conventions and Categories Among Non-human Primates 非人灵长类动物的约定和类别
Conventions for tool-use also exist among non-human primates, and most relevant here are longitudinal studies of chimpanzees which form the basis of recognising local socially learned traditions or “cultures” (Whiten 2005). Byrne (2007):582) identifies signals of “culturally guided acquisition” in behaviours that are both intricate in complexity (multiple steps involved) and near uniform in a population. Among chimpanzees, the basic contexts in which tool use takes place include feeding, hygiene maintenance, threat displays, weapon use and amusement (Goodall 1986). The widest range of tool forms is associated with feeding. Local traditions are recognised in central and west Africa including in similar habitats, which minimises the role of adaptation as an explanation for variability (Whiten et al. 1999). Learning of tool use takes place in social contexts by imitation and emulation of others, by individual trial and error (Whiten et al. 2009; van Schaik and Burkart 2011; Sanz and Morgan 2013) and teaching using active intervention and provisioning of tools, typically from mother to offspring (Musgrave et al. 2020). Teaching appears to be more common where the technology is relatively complex with multiple steps in its making (Musgrave et al. 2020), an observation of relevance when considering the complexities of making hand-axes and cleavers (see below).
非人类灵长类动物也存在使用工具的惯例,这里最相关的是对黑猩猩的纵向研究,这些研究构成了识别当地社会习得传统或“文化”的基础(Whiten 2005)。Byrne (2007):582) 在行为中确定了“文化引导的习得”信号,这些行为既复杂又复杂(涉及多个步骤)并且在人群中几乎一致。在黑猩猩中,使用工具的基本环境包括喂食、卫生维护、威胁展示、武器使用和娱乐(Goodall 1986)。最广泛的刀具形式与进给有关。当地传统在中非和西非得到认可,包括在类似的栖息地,这最大限度地减少了适应作为可变性解释的作用(Whiten 等人,1999 年)。在社会环境中,通过模仿和模仿他人,通过个人试错,学习工具使用(Whiten 等人,2009 年;van Schaik 和 Burkart 2011 年;Sanz 和 Morgan 2013 年)和使用积极干预和提供工具进行教学,通常从母亲到后代(Musgrave 等人,2020 年)。在技术相对复杂且制作过程中有多个步骤的地方,教学似乎更为普遍(Musgrave 等人,2020 年),在考虑制作手斧和切肉刀的复杂性时,这是一种相关性观察(见下文)。
Chimpanzees and other non-human primates, however, do not meet Davidson’s (2002) criteria for symbol-based tool use. Although there are local traditions, tool forms are made with minimal elaboration when compared with human tools (Goodall 1986), and are task oriented, context specific and intended for immediate use (Gowlett 2015; Wynn and Gowlett 2018:25). Despite these limitations, there is evidence for the capacity to conceptualise objects not just in terms of their physical properties, but also as more general categories such as “tool” and types of tools (Goodall 1986). This level of conceptualisation is involved in human communication when establishing shared meaning for names, nouns and adverbs (Gärdenfors 2003; Medin and Rips 2005). Shared concepts are also essential for reaching understanding about objects or events not in the immediate environment, or of immediate experience. Symbols, whether vocal or visual, externalize these shared understandings. Bonobos and chimpanzees, trained to use symbols under controlled conditions, do use their training to communicate future intention, with one possible observation of symbol use in a natural context (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 2004; Lyn et al. 2011). Non-human primates in the wild and in captivity can recognize perceptual categories of objects, and may form more abstract conceptual categories (based on kind, such as food, predators) (e.g. Queiroz and Ribeiro 2002; Seyfarth and Cheney 2003; Pedersen 2012; Vonk et al. 2013; Slocombe and Zuberbühler 2005). Chimpanzees, in their natural habitats do seem to recognize the differing properties of objects used as tools and can apply that understanding to other settings (Grüber et al. 2015:7).
但是,黑猩猩和其他非人类灵长类动物不符合 Davidson (2002) 的基于符号的工具使用标准。尽管有当地传统,但与人类工具相比,工具形式的制作过程最少(Goodall 1986),并且以任务为导向,特定于环境并旨在立即使用(Gowlett 2015;Wynn 和 Gowlett 2018:25)。尽管存在这些限制,但有证据表明,不仅能够根据物理特性,而且根据更一般的类别(如 “工具”和工具类型)来概念化物体(Goodall 1986)。在为名称、名词和副词建立共同含义时,这种层次的概念化涉及人类交流(Gärdenfors 2003;Medin 和 Rips 2005)。共享概念对于理解不在直接环境中的物体或事件或直接体验也是必不可少的。符号,无论是声音的还是视觉的,都将这些共同的理解外化。倭黑猩猩和黑猩猩受过训练,可以在受控条件下使用符号,它们确实利用他们的训练来传达未来的意图,在自然环境中可能观察到符号的使用(Savage-Rumbaugh 等人,2004 年;Lyn 等人,2011 年)。野外和圈养中的非人类灵长类动物可以识别物体的感知类别,并可能形成更抽象的概念类别(基于种类,例如食物、捕食者)(例如 Queiroz 和 Ribeiro 2002;Seyfarth 和 Cheney 2003;Pedersen 2012 年;Vonk 等人,2013 年;Slocombe 和 Zuberbühler 2005 年)。黑猩猩在他们的自然栖息地似乎确实认识到用作工具的物体的不同特性,并且可以将这种理解应用于其他环境(Grüber 等人,2015:7)。
As well as socially learned traditions of tool use, chimpanzees (and bonobos) have evolved multimodal forms of communication that integrate gestures, vocalisations and facial signals (Gillespie-Lynch et al. 2014). Gestural traditions of communication appear to be more variable in form than their range of vocalisations (Pollick and de Waal 2007). From the perspective of quantitative linguistics, the structure of chimpanzee gestures follows mathematical laws seen in the transmission of information in human language linked to frequency of word/gesture use (Heesen et al. 2019). The similarities in structure point to commonalities in primate communication that have great evolutionary depth (Boë et al. 2019).
除了社会习得的工具使用传统外,黑猩猩(和倭黑猩猩)还进化出了整合手势、发声和面部信号的多模式交流形式(Gillespie-Lynch 等人,2014 年)。手势交流传统在形式上似乎比它们的发声范围更可变(Pollick 和 de Waal 2007)。从定量语言学的角度来看,黑猩猩手势的结构遵循人类语言中与单词/手势使用频率相关的信息传递中看到的数学定律(Heesen 等人,2019 年)。结构上的相似性表明灵长类动物交流的共同点具有很大的进化深度(Boë 等人,2019 年)。
Chimpanzee vocal repertoires are often characterised as context-specific impulsive (emotional) responses with a limited range or intention, but there is increasing evidence of variation in response to social context (Hopkins et al. 2007), to food types (Slocombe and Zuberbühler 2005; Kalan et al. 2015) and awareness of the perspectives of others (intentionality) (Crockford et al. 2017). The learning of new grunts for a particular food (apples) was recorded among chimpanzees transferred to a new zoo where the resident chimpanzee group had a different grunt for the same food (Watson et al. 2015). The incomers gradually learned the existing referential grunt, but only after social bonds were developed between the groups. This is evidence of the capacity for vocalisations linked to objects and learned collectively which lies at the root of symbol generation through constructing words.
黑猩猩的声乐曲目通常被描述为特定于环境的冲动(情绪)反应,范围或意图有限,但越来越多的证据表明,对社会环境(Hopkins 等人,2007 年)、食物类型(Slocombe 和 Zuberbühler 2005 年;Kalan 等人,2015 年)和对他人观点的意识(意向性)(Crockford 等人,2017 年)。在转移到新动物园的黑猩猩中记录了对特定食物(苹果)的新咕噜声的学习,那里的常驻黑猩猩群体对相同的食物有不同的咕噜声(Watson 等人,2015 年)。收入者逐渐学会了现有的指涉咕噜声,但只有在群体之间建立了社会纽带之后。这证明了与物体相关联并集体学习的发声能力,这是通过构建单词产生符号的根源。
Words in Peirce’s semiotics are symbols, and the labelling of objects is so entrenched in our learning of language that we take for granted this facility to categorise and focus attention on a class of objects (Clark 2011). Labels—not syntax—are at the core of language (even for some minimalist linguists, e.g. Murphy 2015), and at some stage in the gradual evolution of language, the transition from visual to verbal labelling took place (Corballis 2002; Gentilucci and Corballis 2006). If categorisation is emergent in non-human primates and ubiquitous among modern humans, then parsimony points to the evolution of symbol use—and language—long before Homo sapiens. Pedersen (2012) concludes, following a study of the ability of captive bonobos to acquire visual and auditory symbols, that language evolved from deep-rooted semantic and conceptual abilities in the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and hominins, some six million years ago, and in recent work, it is argued that the neural, auditory pathway for language evolved at least 25 million years ago among monkeys (Balezeau et al. 2020). The shared inheritance is based on biological and cognitive similarities in how humans and apes experience the world through their bodies and senses (Lakoff and Johnson 1999).
皮尔斯符号学中的词语是符号,物体的标签在我们的语言学习中是如此根深蒂固,以至于我们理所当然地认为这种将注意力分类和集中注意力到一类物体上的便利是理所当然的(Clark 2011)。标签——而不是句法——是语言的核心(即使对于一些极简主义语言学家来说,例如 Murphy 2015),并且在语言逐渐演变的某个阶段,发生了从视觉到语言标签的转变(Corballis 2002;Gentilucci 和 Corballis 2006 年)。如果分类在非人类灵长类动物中出现,在现代人类中无处不在,那么简洁则表明符号使用和语言的演变早在智人之前就已经存在。Pedersen (2012) 得出结论,在研究了圈养倭黑猩猩获得视觉和听觉符号的能力之后,语言是从大约 600 万年前黑猩猩和古人类的最后一个共同祖先中根深蒂固的语义和概念能力进化而来的,在最近的工作中,有人认为语言的神经、听觉通路至少在 2500 万年前在猴子中进化出来(Balezeau 等人,2020 年)。共享遗传基于人类和猿类如何通过他们的身体和感官体验世界的生物学和认知相似性(Lakoff 和 Johnson 1999)。
Lower Palaeolithic Tools as Symbols 作为符号的旧石器时代下部工具
Stone tool working constitutes the longest record of hominin technology, with the earliest evidence from 3.3 million years ago (Ma) in East Africa, pre-dating the emergence of the genus Homo (Harmand et al. 2015). Preservation biases favour stone over organic materials in the archaeological record with bone and horn core use found in South African cave deposits after 1.8 Ma in association with more than one hominin (Barham and Mitchell 2008). In East Africa, the earliest evidence of bone use comes from Olduvai Gorge between 1.8 and 1.6 Ma, probably associated with Homo erectus, and in the form of bone hammers and a bone hand-axe (Backwell and d’Errico 2005). The earliest evidence of woodworking takes the form of plant residues on 2.0 Ma tools from Kanjera South (Tanzania) (Lemorini et al. 2014), but the oldest probable wooden artefact is substantially later (~ 780 ka) in association with the Acheulean site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (Israel) (Belitzky et al. 1991), which also has early evidence for the control of fire (Alperson-Afil et al. 2017).
石器加工构成了古人类技术最长的记录,最早的证据来自 330 万年前 (马) 在东非,早于人属的出现(Harmand 等人,2015 年)。在考古记录中,保存偏向于石头而不是有机材料,在 1.8 马 之后的南非洞穴沉积物中发现了骨头和角芯的使用,与不止一种古人类有关(Barham 和 Mitchell 2008)。在东非,骨头使用的最早证据来自1.8至1.6 马之间的奥杜瓦伊峡谷,可能与直立人有关,并以骨锤和骨手斧的形式出现(Backwell 和 d’Errico 2005)。木工的最早证据是来自Kanjera South(坦桑尼亚)的2.0 马工具上的植物残留物(Lemorini et al. 2014),但最古老的可能的木制文物要晚得多(~ 780 ka),与Gesher Benot Ya’aqov(以色列)的Acheulean遗址有关(Belitzky et al. 1991),该遗址也有控制火的早期证据(Alperson-Afil et al. 2017)。
These non-stone technologies are relevant in the context of language evolution and semiotics because they provide evidence for the extension of the range of cultural choices for tool use to other materials. Our focus, however, is early lithic technology as it is the most widespread evidence base. The evidence includes conventions of tool forms, choice of manufacturing strategy and stages in the life history of a tool that indicate the concept of displacement or detached thought (Hockett 1960). Complementary sources of data drawn from evolutionary cognitive archaeology are incorporated into this section where relevant.
这些非石头技术在语言进化和符号学的背景下是相关的,因为它们为将工具使用的文化选择范围扩展到其他材料提供了证据。然而,我们的重点是早期石器技术,因为它是最广泛的证据基础。证据包括工具形式的惯例、制造策略的选择和工具生命周期中表明位移或超脱思想概念的阶段(Hockett 1960)。从进化认知考古学中提取的补充数据来源在相关的情况下被纳入本节。
Icons to Symbols in the Archaeological Record 考古记录中符号的图标
The archaeological record before 1 Ma is reviewed briefly here in setting the context for the evolution of symbol use and language. Using Peirce’s triad of signs, a tentative claim can be made for the early use of icons in the Pliocene which overlaps with the oldest evidence for stone-tool-making. The Oldowan Industry of the Early Pleistocene provides the backdrop of behaviours elaborated later in the Acheulean. These include strategies of raw material selection, learned techniques of core reduction and tool-making. Our focus then diverges with a focus on evidence for regionally variable strategies for biface making after 1 Ma, and another on the growing evidence for sea travel in Southeast Asia. Both behavioural complexes reflect, at a minimum, the use of G1 languages.
这里简要回顾了 1 马之前的考古记录,为符号使用和语言的演变设定了背景。使用皮尔斯的三重标志,可以初步声称上新世早期使用圣像,这与最古老的石器制造证据重叠。早更新世的 Oldowan 工业为后来在 Achewian 中阐述的行为提供了背景。这些包括原材料选择策略、学习的缩芯技术和工具制造。然后,我们的重点转向了 1 马后双面制作的区域可变策略的证据,另一个关注东南亚海上旅行的日益增长的证据。这两种行为情结至少反映了 G1 语言的使用。
The earliest possible evidence of an intentionally interpreted and contemplated icon is associated with Australopithecus africanus at the site of Makapansgat Cave, South Africa. The deposits are dated to between 4.12 and 2.16 million years old (Herries 2003). A red cobble was found in the deposits and was probably brought to the site by an australopithecine rather than by natural processes (Bednarik 1998; Berlant and Wynn 2018). The cobble has erosional marks on both surfaces that resemble a primate face with eyes and mouth (Bednarik 1998). The physical resemblance to a face qualifies this object as an icon in our eyes, and presumably in the eyes of the hominin beholders. Other icons resembling human forms or elements of anatomy occur considerably later, after 800 ka in the North African and Southwest Asian records (Bednarik 1997, 2003; Marshack 1997).
有意解释和思考的圣像的最早可能证据与南非 Makapansgat 洞穴遗址的 Australopithecus africanus 有关。这些矿床的年龄在 4.12 到 216 万年之间(Herries 2003)。在矿床中发现了一颗红色鹅卵石,可能是由南方古猿带到现场的,而不是通过自然过程(Bednarik 1998;Berlant 和 Wynn 2018)。鹅卵石的两个表面都有侵蚀痕迹,类似于有眼睛和嘴巴的灵长类动物的脸(Bednarik 1998)。与面孔的物理相似性使这个物体在我们眼中有资格成为图标,而且可能在人族旁观者眼中也是如此。其他类似于人类形态或解剖学元素的图标出现的时间要晚得多,在 800 ka 之后,在北非和西南亚的记录中(Bednarik 1997,2003;Marshack 1997 年)。
The Makapansgat pebble is roughly coeval with the earliest stone working technology currently known. The site of Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya (Harmand et al. 2015) preserves evidence of the deliberate detachment of large basalt flakes using a block-on-block technique. Using the reasoning of Chase (1991), these flakes are iconic objects created as a result of an understanding of the cause-and-effect relationship of striking a block of basalt against a stone anvil. In Cousin’s (2014) semiotic coevolution, the process of making these flakes, which involves selecting the raw materials and applying force, is an act of interpretation (of physical properties) to create something new, and to do so more than once. In his Baldwinian model of the coevolution of language and technology, Lomekwi 3 marks an early emergence of a social learning niche among hominins.
Makapansgat 鹅卵石与目前已知的最早的石材加工技术大致相同。肯尼亚西图尔卡纳的 Lomekwi 3 遗址(Harmand 等人,2015 年)保留了使用块对块技术故意分离大型玄武岩薄片的证据。根据 Chase (1991) 的推理,这些薄片是标志性的物体,是由于理解了将一块玄武岩撞在石砧上的因果关系而创造的。在 Cousin (2014) 的符号学协同进化中,制作这些薄片的过程,包括选择原材料和施加力,是一种解释(物理特性)以创造新事物的行为,并且不止一次地这样做。在他关于语言和技术共同进化的鲍德温模型中,Lomekwi 3 标志着人间社会学习利基市场的早期出现。
For the time being, there is a gap of 700,000 years between the flakes and cores at Lomekwi 3 and the earliest Oldowan at 2.6 Ma (Stout 2011). The early Oldowan arguably marks the beginning of cumulative, learned culture with this contention supported by experimental replication of core reduction strategies that indicate learning by copying (Morgan et al. 2015; Stout et al. 2019). By 2.0 Ma, Oldowan-like assemblages of flakes, cores and a limited range of small retouched tools (scrapers, notches, denticulates) are found in Southwest and Central Asia, India and China (Barsky et al. 2018). Standardised tool forms are rare, but other behaviours relevant to the development of symbol are evident. The site of Kanjera South, Kenya (2.0 Ma) provides the first evidence for the selection and transport of raw materials up to 13 km to a central locality where a range of activities took place including stone tool-making, butchery of small antelopes (possibly hunted), working of wood and processing soft plant matter including underground storage organs (Braun et al. 2009; Ferraro et al. 2013; Lemorini et al. 2014).
目前,Lomekwi 3的薄片和核心与最早的Oldowan在2.6 马之间有700,000年的差距(Stout 2011)。早期的 Oldowan 可以说标志着累积的、学习文化的开始,这一论点得到了核心简化策略的实验复制的支持,这些策略表明通过复制来学习(Morgan 等人,2015 年;Stout 等人,2019 年)。到 2.0 马,在西南亚和中亚、印度和中国发现了类似 Oldowan 的薄片、岩芯和有限范围的小型修饰工具(刮刀、缺口、齿状物)的组合(Barsky 等人,2018 年)。标准化的工具形式很少见,但与符号开发相关的其他行为是显而易见的。肯尼亚坎杰拉南部遗址(2.0 马)为原材料的选择和运输提供了第一个证据,最远可达 13 公里到中心地区,在那里进行了一系列活动,包括石器制造、小羚羊的屠宰(可能被猎杀)、木材加工和加工软植物物质,包括地下储存器官(Braun 等人,2009 年;Ferraro 等人,2013 年;Lemorini 等人,2014 年)。
The selection and transport of raw materials some distance from the intended place of use have cognitive implications in terms of foresight (planning, long-term memory). It may also indicate a social value (meaning) was placed on these materials. There is evidence from earlier in the Oldowan of the selection of raw materials and the carrying of artefacts across landscapes to favoured localities (Potts 1991; Kroll 1997; Stout et al. 2005). The broader social interpretation of the Kanjera locality is that it was repeatedly used by tool-dependent cooperative groups (Plummer and Bishop 2016). The pragmatics of symbol development and learning involve individuals interacting face to face in contexts associated with tools and their use (Gärdenfors 2004; Tomasello 2005; Rodriguez and Moro 2008). Kanjera South offers an early example of the kind of setting conducive to social learning that predates the evolution of Homo erectus.
在距离预期使用地点一定距离的地方选择和运输原材料在远见(计划、长期记忆)方面具有认知意义。这也可能表明这些材料被赋予了社会价值(意义)。早期在 Oldowan 有证据表明原材料的选择和手工艺品的跨越景观运送到受青睐的地方(Potts 1991;Kroll 1997 年;Stout 等人,2005 年)。对 Kanjera 地区的更广泛的社会解释是,它被依赖工具的合作团体反复使用(Plummer 和 Bishop 2016)。符号开发和学习的语用学涉及个人在与工具及其使用相关的环境中进行面对面的互动(Gärdenfors 2004;Tomasello 2005 年;Rodriguez 和 Moro 2008 年)。Kanjera South 提供了一个早期的例子,说明在直立人进化之前就存在有利于社会学习的环境。
The earliest evidence of large retouched tool forms marks the beginning of the Acheulean Technocomplex 1.75 million years ago in Africa, and the subsequent spread of its distinctive tools made on large flakes (> 10 cm) and blocks of stone into Southwest Asia, Europe, South Asia and parts of East Asia (de la Torre 2016; Barsky et al. 2018). The characteristic retouched tool forms include hand-axes, cleavers, picks and knives (Fig. 4a–c). Their making requires additional steps in planning compared with Oldowan cores and flakes, with greater spatial and temporal separation of stages of making and use (Muller et al. 2017). The hand-axe and cleaver are distinguished from Oldowan tools by their large size (> 10 cm), but particularly by their bilateral and plan form symmetry (Roe 1968; Crompton and Gowlett 1993; Shipton et al. 2018). Symmetrical hand-axes occur early in the Acheulean 1.7 Ma marking an elaborated attention to form over function which distinguishes these tools from Oldowan retouched tools (Diez-Martína et al. 2019). This focus on form becomes more widespread from ~ 1.2 Ma with some regional trends towards greater refinement (Shipton et al. 2018), but not in all parts of the Acheulean range (e.g. McNabb and Cole 2015). A broader range of small tools also occurs in the Acheulean some of which appear to be conventional forms such as awls, denticulates and scrapers (Isaac 1997; de la Torre and Mora 2005; Dominguez-Rodrigo et al. 2009), but our interest lies in the large retouched forms and their extended production sequences as evidence of early symbol use.
大型修饰工具形式的最早证据标志着 175 万年前非洲 Acheulean 技术综合体的开始,随后其在大片状(> 10 厘米)和石块上制成的独特工具传播到西南亚、欧洲、南亚和东亚部分地区(de la Torre 2016;Barsky 等人,2018 年)。特色修饰工具形式包括手斧、切肉刀、镐和刀(图 4a-c)。与 Oldowan 岩芯和薄片相比,它们的制作需要额外的规划步骤,并且在制造和使用阶段的空间和时间上具有更大的分离(Muller 等人,2017 年)。手斧和切肉刀与奥尔多万工具的区别在于它们的大尺寸(> 10 厘米),但特别是它们的双边和平面形式的对称性(Roe 1968;Crompton 和 Gowlett 1993;Shipton 等人,2018 年)。对称的手斧出现在 Acheulean 1.7 马 的早期,标志着对形式而不是功能的精心关注,这将这些工具与 Oldowan 修饰工具区分开来(Diez-Martína 等人,2019 年)。这种对形式的关注从 ~ 1.2 马 开始变得更加普遍,一些区域趋势更加精细(Shipton 等人,2018 年),但并非在 Acheulean 范围的所有部分(例如 McNabb 和 Cole 2015)。Acheulean 中也出现了更广泛的小工具,其中一些似乎是常规形式,例如锥子、齿状物和刮刀(Isaac 1997;de la Torre 和 Mora 2005;Dominguez-Rodrigo et al. 2009),但我们的兴趣在于大型修饰形式及其扩展的生产序列,作为早期符号使用的证据。
Fig. 4
Late Acheulean large tools: a hand-axe (silcrete), Victoria Falls, Zambia; b cleaver (quartzite), Kalambo Falls, Zambia; c pick (quartzite), Kalambo Falls, Zambia (images copyright Chris Scott)
晚期 Acheulean 大型工具:手斧(硅质混凝土),赞比亚维多利亚瀑布;b cleaver(石英岩),赞比亚 Kalambo Falls;c 镐(石英岩),赞比亚卡兰博瀑布(图片版权归 Chris Scott 所有)
Homo erectus (sensu lato) is the hominin generally associated with the Acheulean up to 1.0 Ma (Antón et al. 2014), after which other taxa continued the tradition in Africa, Eurasia and South Asia (Moncel and Schreve 2016; Moncel et al. 2018). In Africa, hand-axes and cleavers were made as recently as 212 ka and possibly by Homo sapiens (Benito-Calvo et al. 2014; de la Torre et al. 2014). In Europe, hand-axes appear sporadically in contexts associated with late Middle Pleistocene Neanderthals (de Lumley et al. 2004; Preysler et al. 2018). In north central India, bifaces were still being made as recently as 100 ka (Shipton et al. 2013), and presumably by H. sapiens.
直立人 (sensu lato) 是通常与 Acheulean 相关的人,最高可达 1.0 马(Antón 等人,2014 年),之后其他分类群延续了非洲、欧亚大陆和南亚的传统(Moncel 和 Schreve 2016 年;Moncel 等人,2018 年)。在非洲,手斧和切肉刀最近在 212 ka 制造,可能由智人制造(Benito-Calvo 等人,2014 年;de la Torre 等人,2014 年)。在欧洲,手斧零星出现在与中更新世晚期尼安德特人相关的环境中(de Lumley 等人,2004 年;Preysler 等人,2018 年)。在印度中北部,直到 100 ka 仍在制作双面(Shipton 等人,2013 年),并且可能是由 H. sapiens 制造的。
The stability of hand-axes and cleavers as symmetrical tool forms across the long span and wide geographical distribution of the Acheulean has sparked decades of speculation about their social and cognitive implications (see summary in Lycett and Gowlett 2008). At one end of the interpretative spectrum are theories of minimal behavioural intention involved in the making of these tools, and minimal social learning (Tennie et al. 2016). The shapes may have resulted from use as cores, from re-sharpening, from differences in raw materials or from an inherent perceptual bias for symmetry in hominins, or they were under some genetic control (Davidson and Noble 1993; McPherron 2000; White 1998; Hodgson 2015; Corbey et al. 2016). At the other end of the interpretative spectrum are claims for symmetry signalling genetic fitness or trustworthiness of the maker to conspecifics (Kohn and Mithen 1999; Spikins 2012), and more generally as deliberately imposed and socially transmitted forms (Shipton et al. 2018).
手斧和切肉刀作为对称工具形式在 Acheulean 的长跨度和广泛的地理分布中保持的稳定性引发了几十年来对其社会和认知影响的猜测(参见 Lycett 和 Gowlett 2008 年的总结)。在解释光谱的一端是这些工具的制作所涉及的最小行为意图和最小社会学习的理论(Tennie 等人,2016 年)。这些形状可能是由于用作核心、重新磨锐、原材料的差异或古人类对对称性的固有感知偏差造成的,或者它们受到某种遗传控制(Davidson 和 Noble 1993;McPherron 2000;White 1998 年;霍奇森 2015 年;Corbey 等人,2016 年)。在解释光谱的另一端是对对称性的声明,表明制造者对同种动物的遗传适应性或可信度(Kohn 和 Mithen 1999;Spikins 2012),更普遍地说是故意强加和社会传播的形式(Shipton 等人,2018 年)。
Experimental work has demonstrated the difficulty in producing symmetrical forms, and the importance of learned skill in managing the thinness of the tool and the straightness of the edges (Lycett et al. 2016; Shipton and Nielsen 2018). This research undermines the argument that learning to make bifaces is easy and could be independently invented by trial and error during the process of alternate edge flaking (Davidson 2002; Tennie et al. 2016). The argument that hand-axe symmetry reflects increased reduction intensity has been tested quantitatively with flake scar density and symmetry found to be largely independent variables (Shipton et al. 2018). Experimental work has also shown that raw material differences are not a primary limiting factor in hand-axe form (Lycett et al. 2016; García-Medrano et al. 2019; Key 2019). An innate human perceptual bias towards symmetry (Hodgson 2015) has also been challenged through experimental work (Shipton et al. 2018). The suggestion of some genetic control of symmetry is undermined by the temporal and regional variability in the Acheulean (Hosfield et al. 2018), and the absence of hand-axes in regions populated by Homo erectus despite having suitable raw materials (Wynn and Gowlett 2018). Hand-axe dimensions and shape can change with persistent re-sharpening or thinning (McPherron 2000), but intended shape (final form) is evident on bifaces made on flakes with little subsequent shaping (Sharon 2008; Li et al. 2017; Malinsky-Buller 2016; Preysler et al. 2018), and on cobbles (façonnage) indicating knapping to a plan (García-Medrano et al. 2019).
实验工作表明了产生对称形状的难度,以及学习技能在管理工具的薄度和边缘的直线度方面的重要性(Lycett 等人,2016 年;Shipton 和 Nielsen 2018)。这项研究削弱了这样一种论点,即学习制作双面很容易,并且可以在交替边缘剥落过程中通过反复试验独立发明(戴维森 2002 年;Tennie 等人,2016 年)。手斧对称性反映减少强度增加的论点已经通过片状疤痕密度和对称性进行定量测试,发现这些密度和对称性在很大程度上是自变量(Shipton 等人,2018 年)。实验工作还表明,原材料差异并不是手斧形式的主要限制因素(Lycett 等人,2016 年;García-Medrano 等人,2019 年;Key 2019)。人类天生对对称性的感知偏见 (Hodgson 2015) 也通过实验工作受到了挑战 (Shipton et al. 2018)。Acheulean 的时间和区域变异性(Hosfield 等人,2018 年)以及尽管有合适的原材料,但在直立人居住的地区没有手斧,这削弱了对称性的一些遗传控制的建议(Wynn 和 Gowlett 2018)。手斧的尺寸和形状会随着持续的重新磨锐或变薄而改变(McPherron 2000),但预期的形状(最终形式)在薄片上制作的双面上很明显,几乎没有后续成型(Sharon 2008;Li 等人,2017 年;Malinsky-Buller 2016 年;Preysler 等人,2018 年),以及鹅卵石 (façonnage),表明对计划进行打砸(García-Medrano 等人,2019 年)。
Hand-Axes as Standardised Forms 标准化形式的手斧
The debate on the intentionality of biface symmetry has shifted towards a consensus that although there is regional and chronological variability in these forms, the hand-axe and cleaver were socially transmitted, learned constellations of knowledge (Shipton et al. 2018). They meet Davidson’s (2002) criterion of standardisation and are not the products of expediency or figments of archaeological typology (cf. Shea 2017). Within the constellations that separate the hand-axe form (pointed, symmetrical) from cleavers (divergent, symmetrical) are potential interpretants (signs) that linked form with meaning (see “Discussion and Conclusion”, point 5). Of particular relevance is the case made for a set of six “design imperatives” or ergonomics-based variables linked to the use of these objects as hand-held tools (Gowlett 2006) (Fig. 5): (1) a rounded base to fit the hand; (2) extension of the working edge and thinned tip to maintain balance; (3) bifacial trimming to support the working edge; (4) extension of the sides to minimize twisting during use; (5) adjustment of overall thickness to control the weight and (6) a slight adjustment of the symmetry to work with the handedness of the user. This constellation of options provides the tool-maker with scope for variation around a basic size-shape framework, with decisions about the weighting of the variables made during knapping. These geometrical concepts carry meaning that may reduce the cognitive load in what is a demanding hierarchical, multivariate process of construction (Gowlett 2006:218).
关于双面对称性意向性的争论已经转向共识,即尽管这些形式存在区域和时间上的差异,但手斧和砍刀是社会传播的、习得的知识星座(Shipton 等人,2018 年)。它们符合 Davidson(2002 年)的标准化标准,不是权宜之计的产物或考古类型学的虚构(参见 Shea 2017)。在将手斧形式(尖的、对称的)与切肉刀(发散的、对称的)分开的星座中,是将形式与意义联系起来的潜在解释者(符号)(见“讨论与结论”,第 5 点)。特别相关的是一组六个“设计要求”或基于人体工程学的变量,这些变量与使用这些对象作为手持工具相关(Gowlett 2006)(图 5):(1) 适合手的圆形底座;(2) 延长工作边缘和变薄的尖端以保持平衡;(3) 双面修整以支撑工作边缘;(4) 延长侧面,以减少使用过程中的扭曲;(5) 调整整体厚度以控制重量和 (6) 略微调整对称性以配合用户的惯用手。这一系列选项为工具制造商提供了围绕基本大小-形状框架的变化空间,并在 knapping 期间决定变量的权重。这些几何概念所具有的意义可能会减少苛刻的分层、多变量构建过程中的认知负荷 (Gowlett 2006:218)。
Fig. 5
Hand-axe and cleaver “design imperatives” (modified and redrawn after J.A.J. Gowlett 2006, Fig. 2, with the author’s permission). The “glob-butt” is the centre of the mass, typically at the butt end; “forward extension” provides leverage and is balanced by the weight of the butt-mass; “support for the working edge” in the extension provides a buttress for working edges in relation to the butt, and this applies to cleavers as well as hand-axes; “lateral extension” offers resistance to twisting during use, especially for long working edges; “thickness adjustment” addresses the need for adjusting the thickness of the mass and controlling edge angle
手斧和切肉刀“设计要求”(根据 J.A.J. Gowlett 2006 年,图 2,经作者许可修改和重绘)。“球形屁股”是质量的中心,通常在屁股末端;“向前伸展”提供杠杆作用,并通过枪托质量的重量进行平衡;延长线中的“支撑工作边缘”为相对于对接的工作边缘提供了一个扶壁,这适用于切肉刀和手斧;“横向延伸”在使用过程中提供抗扭曲性,特别是对于长工作边缘;“厚度调整”解决了调整质量厚度和控制边缘角度的需要
We cannot know which of the design rules signalled meaning, or if the overall symmetrical shape of the object was a bridging sign. In Peirce’s semiotic framework, a sign can be simultaneously an index, icon and symbol. Hand-axes and cleavers could be indexes of tasks to be performed (e.g. cutting, chopping); icons of one another (they represent a pattern of tool design); and symbols of the cultural values they were designed to support, such as the identity of the maker (Cole 2012), and appropriate contexts of use and discard. In Donald’s (1991) model of a gradual evolution of language, language becomes evident with the development of external forms for storing and transmitting conventional cultural knowledge. Externalised symbols require socially understood routes of access to their meaning which can be communicated through sight, touch, sound, gesture and speech (Donald 1991:131). Hand-axes and cleavers as enduring conventions of tool-making could serve as externalised storage of cultural knowledge, with the specifics of that knowledge inaccessible to the modern viewer, and not needed to interpret these forms as potential symbols.
我们无法知道哪些设计规则表示意义,或者物体的整体对称形状是否是一个桥接标志。在皮尔斯的符号学框架中,一个符号可以同时是一个索引、图标和符号。手斧和切肉刀可以是要执行的任务的索引(例如切割、劈砍);彼此的图标(它们代表工具设计的模式);以及它们旨在支持的文化价值观的符号,例如制造者的身份(Cole 2012),以及使用和丢弃的适当环境。在 Donald (1991) 的语言逐渐演变模型中,随着存储和传播传统文化知识的外部形式的发展,语言变得明显。外化符号需要社会理解的途径来获取其含义,这些途径可以通过视觉、触觉、声音、手势和语言进行传达(Donald 1991:131)。手斧和菜刀作为工具制造的持久惯例,可以作为文化知识的外化存储,而这些知识的细节是现代观众无法获得的,也不需要将这些形式解释为潜在的符号。
Choice Among Ways of Making—Equifinality 在制作方式中选择——等价性
The social constructionist approach to identifying social conventions seeks evidence of choices made where multiple options exist, each equally effective in satisfying an aim (Killick 2004). In the context of the Acheulean, options exist in the making of hand-axes and cleavers starting with the basic choice of reduction method. The tool can be made on a flake struck from a core (debitage) or by reducing a block or core (façonnage) (Gamble and Marshall 2001). The use of large flakes (> 10 cm) as blanks for these two tool forms appears from the very start of the Acheulean in East Africa (de la Torre and Mora 2005) and occurs widely, after ~ 1 million years ago, in Southwest Asia, India and Iberia (Sharon 2008, 2009, 2010; Shipton 2013; Preysler et al. 2018). Over this broad geographical range, Acheulean tool-makers devised as many as nine different strategies, each with multiple steps, for managing large cores to produce flake blanks (Sharon 2009; Shipton et al. 2013; Akhilesh and Pappu 2015; Li et al. 2017). These methods involve different approaches to handling three-dimensional volumes and working them hierarchically to produce blanks. The methods differ substantially enough that the decision to pursue one option precludes others, and needs to be taken early in the reduction process. There are regional variants as well with the Victoria West technique distinct to South Africa (Li et al. 2017) and the Tabelbala-Tachengit technique and the Kerzaz core method found only in small areas of North Africa (Sharon 2009). These three strategies are technically complex, with the Victoria West method, dated to approximately 1 Ma comparable in complexity of volumetric control to the Levallois technique associated with Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age technologies after 300 ka (Li et al. 2017).
社会建构主义方法识别社会习俗,寻求在存在多种选择的情况下做出选择的证据,每个选项在满足目标方面同样有效(Killick 2004)。在 Achewan 的背景下,从减少方法的基本选择开始,手斧和切肉刀的制作存在选择。该工具可以在从芯上铸造的薄片上制作(debitage)或通过减少块或芯(façonnage)(Gamble 和 Marshall 2001)。使用大薄片(> 10 厘米)作为这两种工具形式的坯料出现在东非 Acheulean 的一开始(de la Torre 和 Mora 2005),并且在 ~ 100 万年前之后,广泛出现在西南亚、印度和伊比利亚(Sharon 2008、2009、2010;希普顿 2013 年;Preysler 等人,2018 年)。在这个广泛的地理范围内,Acheulean 工具制造商设计了多达 9 种不同的策略,每种策略都有多个步骤,用于管理大芯以生产片状坯料(Sharon 2009;Shipton 等人,2013 年;Akhilesh 和 Pappu 2015;Li 等人,2017 年)。这些方法涉及处理三维体积并按层次处理它们以生成坯料的不同方法。方法差异很大,以至于选择一种选择的决定会排除其他选择,因此需要在减少过程的早期采取。南非特有的 Victoria West 技术(Li 等人,2017 年)和 Tabelbala-Tachengit 技术和 Kerzaz 核心方法也存在区域变体,仅在北非的小地区发现(Sharon 2009)。这三种策略在技术上很复杂,维多利亚韦斯特方法的体积控制复杂性约为 1 马,与 300 ka 后旧石器时代中期/石器时代中期技术相关的 Levallois 技术相当(Li 等人,2017 年)。
The variety of strategies for meeting similar functional needs (equifinality) and their regional as well as chronological differences reflect capacities for innovation and social transmission across the Acheulean range (Sharon 2009). The complexity and standardisation of the prepared core approaches, such as Victoria West, have been interpreted as indirect evidence of technical knowledge learned through language (Sharon and Beaumont 2006). Experimental evidence from neuroimaging research supports the coevolution of neural networks that underpin language and tool-making (Uomini and Meyer 2013; Stout et al. 2015 and references within). The teaching of tool-making is hypothesised as the recurring behavioural context which coupled cognitive structures supporting communication and motor systems, leading to the evolution of language (Kolodny and Edelman 2018). We would add that the teaching of tool-making also involves the basic parent-offspring relationship of learning through physical proximity (intersubjectivity) and joint attention on a shared task (Studdert-Kennedy and Terrace 2017). Controlled experiments on learning to make stone tools provide more specific evidence that learning the nested hierarchical processes needed to make a hand-axe, such as alternate bifacial flaking, and edge and platform preparation (involving the non-dominant hand), requires teaching using language (speech and gesture) to minimise errors in transmission between expert and novice (Uomini and Meyer 2013; Putt et al. 2014; Ruck 2014; Morgan et al. 2015; Lombao et al. 2017; Ruck and Uomini in press). Gärdenfors and Högberg (2017):196, table 1) outline a hierarchy of forms of intentional teaching and levels of joint attention and theory of mind between teacher and pupil. They link these levels to increasing difficulty of transmitting an understanding of patterning or concepts to the extent that language is required, as in the case of learning to make an Acheulean hand-axe using soft hammer techniques. The multiplicity of production phases (sub-goals) that need to be completed to move to the next stage of production adds to the levels of knowledge (planning depth) to be transmitted and understood. In the case of bifacially thinned hand-axes, a cause-and-effect understanding of sub-goals associated with bevelling (flaking) and abrading platform edges cannot be understood from copying the actions alone; teaching with language is required (Gärdenfors and Högberg 2017:198–9).Footnote 3 Mahaney (2014) in a detailed study of single expert knapper draws parallels between the complexities of soft hammer thinning of hand-axes with the production of sentences in the English language. The parallels illustrate the skill levels involved and not the kind of language or grammar required to make a hand-axe. A G1 language in our typology lacks recursion in its structure, but places no restriction on the capacity for recursive thought. As Everett (2005, 2012, 2017) and Pullum (2020) have argued, recursive thinking does not require a recursive grammar and there is no evidence for a one-to-one mapping of thought onto language (Everett 2017).
满足相似功能需求(等定性)的各种策略及其区域和时间差异反映了整个 Acheulean 范围内的创新和社会传播能力(Sharon 2009)。准备好的核心方法的复杂性和标准化,例如 Victoria West,已被解释为通过语言学习技术知识的间接证据(Sharon 和 Beaumont 2006)。来自神经影像学研究的实验证据支持支撑语言和工具制造的神经网络的协同进化(Uomini 和 Meyer 2013;Stout 等人,2015 年及其中的参考文献)。工具制作的教学被假设为反复出现的行为环境,它结合了支持沟通和运动系统的认知结构,导致了语言的进化(Kolodny 和 Edelman 2018)。我们要补充的是,工具制造的教学还涉及通过物理接近(主体间性)和共同关注共同任务进行学习的基本父子关系(Studdert-Kennedy 和 Terrace 2017)。关于学习制作石器的对照实验提供了更具体的证据,证明学习制作手斧所需的嵌套分层过程,例如交替双面剥落以及边缘和平台准备(涉及非惯用手),需要使用语言(语音和手势)进行教学,以尽量减少专家和新手之间传递的错误(Uomini 和 Meyer,2013 年;Putt 等人,2014 年;Ruck 2014 年;Morgan 等人,2015 年;Lombao 等人,2017 年;Ruck 和 Uomini 出版)。Gärdenfors 和 Högberg (2017):196,表 1)概述了意向性教学形式的层次结构以及教师和学生之间共同关注和心理理论的层次。他们将这些水平与传播对图案或概念的理解的难度越来越大联系起来,以至于需要语言,例如学习使用软锤技术制作 Acheulean 手斧的情况。为了进入下一个生产阶段,需要完成的生产阶段(子目标)的多样性增加了需要传递和理解的知识水平(规划深度)。在双面变薄的手斧的情况下,不能仅通过复制动作来理解与倒角(剥落)和磨损平台边缘相关的子目标的因果关系;需要用语言进行教学 (Gärdenfors 和 Högberg 2017:198-9)。 脚注 3 Mahaney (2014) 在对单一专家 knapper 的详细研究中,将手斧软锤变薄的复杂性与英语句子的产生进行了类比。这些相似之处说明了所涉及的技能水平,而不是制作手斧所需的语言或语法类型。在我们的类型学中,G1 语言在其结构中缺乏递归,但对递归思维的能力没有限制。正如 Everett (2005, 2012, 2017) 和 Pullum (2020) 所论证的那样,递归思维不需要递归语法,也没有证据表明思想与语言的一一对应(Everett 2017)。
A cognitive analysis of cleaver production provides additional insights on the linkage between planning depth, expertise and the role of language in managing the cognitive demands of this craft (Herzlinger et al. 2017). Cleavers made from large flakes struck from large cores differ from that of hand-axes in not being produced by retouch, but instead by the planned management of the core before the cleaver blank is struck (Sharon 2008). The planning begins with the selection of raw material, and cleavers tend to be made more consistently on coarser-grained rocks than hand-axes. This preference occurs across the geographical and time range of the large flake tradition of blank production and arguably reflects the socially agreed functions of this tool form (Sharon 2008:1332–3). At the 780,000-year-old site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) (Israel), three different core and flake management strategies were used to produce wedge-shaped working edges (Levallois-like, Kombewa, and blank delineation by retouch) (Herzlinger et al. 2017). Each strategy involved a different set of hierarchical steps with sub-goals, with the choice of strategy made early in the chaîne opératoire. A technical and cognitive analysis of the production sequences of GBY cleavers draws on the concept of expert cognition (Wynn et al. 2017). Modern experts in craft tool-making share a set of characteristics that provide a template for considering the level of skilled technical cognition to make cleavers (and hand-axes). Craft knowledge took years to learn, and with mastery of the craft came great accuracy and reliability in production, a capacity for rapid in-depth assessments of problems and making adjustments, and a capacity to focus and retain that focus after an interruption without a loss of intention (Wynn et al. 2017:23). In the context of the GBY cleaver strategies, Herzlinger et al. (2017):11) conclude:
对切肉刀生产的认知分析为规划深度、专业知识和语言在管理这种工艺的认知需求中的作用之间的联系提供了额外的见解(Herzlinger 等人,2017 年)。由大芯敲击的大片制成的切肉刀与手斧的不同之处在于,它不是通过修饰产生的,而是由在切肉刀坯料被敲击之前对芯进行计划管理(Sharon 2008)。规划从原材料的选择开始,与手斧相比,在较粗的岩石上制造的菜刀往往更一致。这种偏好发生在空白生产的大型薄片传统的地理和时间范围内,可以说反映了这种工具形式的社会公认的功能 (Sharon 2008:1332-3)。在拥有 780,000 年历史的 Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY)(以色列)遗址,使用了三种不同的核心和薄片管理策略来生产楔形工作边缘(Levallois 状、Kombewa 和修饰的空白轮廓)(Herzlinger 等人,2017 年)。每个策略都涉及一组不同的分层步骤和子目标,策略的选择是在 chaîne opératoire 的早期做出的。对 GBY 切肉刀生产序列的技术和认知分析借鉴了专家认知的概念(Wynn 等人,2017 年)。现代工艺工具制造专家具有一系列共同特征,这些特征为考虑制作切肉刀(和手斧)的熟练技术认知水平提供了一个模板。工艺知识需要数年时间来学习,而对工艺的掌握带来了极高的准确性和可靠性,能够快速深入评估问题并进行调整,以及在中断后集中注意力并保持该重点而不失去意图的能力(Wynn 等人,2017:23)。在 GBY 切肉刀策略的背景下,Herzlinger 等人 (2017):11) 得出结论:
The number of categories may have been fewer than one would find with a modern expert, but categories were definitely present in the minds of the GBY knappers. Further, it would seem likely, though this is impossible to know, that the GBY knappers had declarative/semantic labels for these concepts, either in the form of vocal words or perhaps gestures (we favor the former)”.
类别的数量可能比现代专家所能找到的要少,但类别肯定存在于 GBY 专家的脑海中。此外,尽管这不可能知道,但 GBY knappers 似乎很可能为这些概念添加了声明性/语义标签,要么是语音语言,要么是手势(我们支持前者)”。
This proposed linkage between the complex nested routines of cleaver-making and the use of symbols (words) as scaffolds for managing the sequencing of tasks, complements neuroimaging research on shared networks for tool-making and language (Uomini and Meyer 2013; Meyer et al. 2014; Stout et al. 2015; Putt et al. 2019), and the experimental studies showing the effectiveness of teaching with language in learning complex tool-making routines (Morgan et al. 2015; Lombao et al. 2017).
这种提出的切肉刀制作的复杂嵌套例程与使用符号(单词)作为管理任务排序的支架之间的联系,补充了对工具制作和语言共享网络的神经影像学研究(Uomini 和 Meyer,2013 年;Meyer 等人,2014 年;Stout 等人,2015 年;Putt 等人,2019 年),以及显示语言教学在学习复杂工具制作程序中的有效性的实验研究(Morgan 等人,2015 年;Lombao 等人,2017 年)。
In summary, the arbitrary (conventional) forms of hand-axes and cleavers are symbols in Peirce’s triad (1998) because they bear no inherent relationship to their functions (Shipton et al. 2018). These forms are social constructs that can serve as icons, indexes and symbols depending on contexts in which they are perceived and the knowledge of the viewer. Attention to form appeared early in the Acheulean and became more common after one million years ago (below) with the development of soft hammer thinning. The complexity of biface production, in particular the process of thinning, exceeds the capacity for a novice to understand cause and effect from observation alone. Teaching with words arguably becomes a necessity to gain technical mastery (Morgan et al. 2015; Gärdenfors and Högberg 2017). Language may have evolved in the context of the needs of teaching increasingly complex coordinated actions. In such contexts, whether tool-making, foraging or hunting, simple sentences would give teachers a low-cost means of transmitting information with greater precision than possible with gestures alone (Laland 2017: 227–8). A G1 language with its linear sequencing of words would fulfil this need.
总之,手斧和切肉刀的任意(传统)形式是皮尔斯三元组(1998 年)中的符号,因为它们与它们的功能没有内在的关系(Shipton 等人,2018 年)。这些形式是社会建构,可以根据它们被感知的背景和观众的知识来充当图标、索引和符号。对形式的关注出现在 Acheulean 的早期,并在 100 万年前(下图)随着软锤变薄的发展而变得更加普遍。双面生产的复杂性,尤其是减薄过程,超出了新手仅通过观察来理解因果关系的能力。用文字教学可以说是获得技术掌握的必要条件(Morgan 等人,2015 年;Gärdenfors 和 Högberg 2017)。语言可能是在教学需求日益复杂的协调行动的背景下发展起来的。在这种情况下,无论是制作工具、觅食还是狩猎,简单的句子都会为教师提供一种低成本的方式,比单独使用手势更精确地传递信息(Laland 2017:227-8)。具有单词线性排序的 G1 语言将满足这一需求。
After One Million Years Ago 100 万年前之后
The Middle Pleistocene archaeological record between 1 Ma and 300 ka shows increasing behavioural variability across continents, which we argue reflects the impact of symbol-based language on cognitive evolution (encephalisation) and the evolution of an extended childhood as a period of social learning (Antón et al. 2015). Culturally transmitted conventions of tool-making and tool-use change in the Acheulean as seen in the shift in Southwest Asia by 500 ka away from the large flake tradition with its giant cores, use of coarse raw materials, and abundant cleavers towards smaller cores and finer-grained materials for making hand-axes and the discontinuation of cleavers as a tool form (Sharon 2008; Malinsky-Buller 2016). In Western Europe, subtle regional variations emerge in biface conventions among contemporary groups between 500 and 400 ka (White 1998; Ashton 2016; White and Foulds 2018; García-Medrano et al. 2019). In Britain, a distinctive range of hand-axe forms exists with some forms difficult to make and these two features are interpreted as evidence of socially transmitted norms (Shipton and White 2020).
1 马到 300 ka 之间的中更新世考古记录显示各大洲的行为变异性越来越大,我们认为这反映了基于符号的语言对认知进化(脑化)的影响以及作为社会学习时期的延长童年的演变(Antón et al. 2015)。Acheulean 工具制造和工具使用变化的文化传播惯例,从西南亚从具有巨大核心的大片传统转变了 500 ka,使用粗糙的原材料和丰富的切肉刀转向更小的芯和更细粒度的材料来制作手斧,并停止使用切肉刀作为工具形式(Sharon 2008;Malinsky-Buller 2016 年)。在西欧,当代群体的双面惯例在 500 到 400 ka 之间出现了细微的地区差异(White 1998;阿什顿 2016 年;White 和 Foulds 2018;García-Medrano 等人,2019 年)。在英国,存在一系列独特的手斧形式,其中一些形式难以制作,这两个特征被解释为社会传播规范的证据(Shipton 和 White 2020)。
Innovations in knapping methods also emerge after one million years ago in Africa, India, Southwest Asia and Europe including the use of “soft” organic hammers or softer stone hammers to thin hand-axes (Clark 2001; Gallotti et al. 2010; Galloti and Mussi 2017; Shipton 2016, 2018, Malinsky-Buller 2016; Stout et al. 2015). As discussed, soft hammer thinning requires not only an understanding of the properties of the hammer and its use, but also the need for embedded routines linked to edge management and thinning (Mahaney 2014). Teaching with language is argued to be necessary to transmit this conceptually opaque knowledge (Csibra and Gergely 2011; Gärdenfors and Högberg 2017). From a neural perspective, the hierarchical organisation of these additional sub-routines of biface making is linked to cognitive control functions involved in processing linguistic syntax (Stout et al. 2017:586).
一百万年前后,非洲、印度、西南亚和欧洲也出现了打斧方法的创新,包括使用“软”有机锤或较软的石锤来细化手斧(克拉克 2001 年;Gallotti 等人,2010 年;Galloti 和 Mussi 2017;Shipton 2016, 2018, Malinsky-Buller 2016;Stout 等人,2015 年)。如前所述,软锤细化不仅需要了解锤子的特性及其用途,还需要与边缘管理和细化相关的嵌入式程序(Mahaney 2014)。用语言教学被认为是传递这种概念上不透明的知识所必需的(Csibra 和 Gergely 2011;Gärdenfors 和 Högberg 2017)。从神经的角度来看,双面制作的这些附加子程序的分层组织与处理语言句法所涉及的认知控制功能有关(Stout 等人,2017:586)。
This understanding of the properties of other materials combined with increasingly extended production sequences would be the foundation for the invention of hafting later in the Middle Pleistocene with its added complexities of composite hierarchical constructions (Ambrose 2010; Barham 2013). Other innovations in the Acheulean include a new tool form, the “handpoint” in East Africa and Spain (Gowlett 2013; Preysler et al. 2018), the making of blades in East Africa from ~ 550 ka (Johnson and McBrearty 2010) and the use of Levallois prepared cores for making cleaver blanks in the late Acheulean of East Africa (Tyron et al. 2006). The use of ochre also enters the archaeological record in southern Africa between 500 and 400 ka (Watts et al. 2016), adding to the diversity of recurrent, conventionalised behaviours linked to working stone.
这种对其他材料特性的理解,再加上日益扩展的生产序列,将成为中更新世后期发明 hafting 的基础,其复合分层结构的复杂性增加了(Ambrose 2010;Barham 2013 年)。Acheulean 的其他创新包括一种新的工具形式,即东非和西班牙的“handpoint”(Gowlett 2013;Preysler 等人,2018 年),在东非制造 ~ 550 ka 的刀片(Johnson 和 McBrearty 2010 年),以及在东非晚期 Acheulean 使用 Levallois 制备的芯来制造切肉刀坯料(Tyron 等人,2006 年)。赭石的使用也进入了南部非洲 500 至 400 ka 之间的考古记录(Watts 等人,2016 年),增加了与加工石材相关的反复出现的、传统化行为的多样性。
The Life History of Bifaces 双面人的生活史
The final criterion in Davidson’s (2002) framework for recognising the use of symbol-based language is the separation of the making of tools from their use. Preysler et al. (2018) reconstruct the life history of hand-axes and cleavers at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (Israel) and at later sites in central Spain. Common to both localities is a production sequence starting with the selection of suitable rocks or active quarrying to obtain the raw material with cores shaped at the raw material source then large flakes were struck from the cores and initially shaped by retouch with final shaping usually away from the raw material source. The tools were then transported to places of use, where some were re-sharpened, used and then discarded.
Davidson(2002 年)框架中识别基于符号的语言使用的最后一个标准是将工具的制作与它们的使用分开。Preysler 等人(2018 年)在 Gesher Benot Ya’aqov(以色列)和后来在西班牙中部的地点重建了手斧和菜刀的生活史。这两个地方的共同点是生产顺序,从选择合适的岩石开始或积极采石以获得原材料,在原材料源头形成芯,然后从芯上敲出大片片,最初通过修饰成型,最终成型通常远离原材料源。然后,这些工具被运送到使用地点,其中一些被重新磨磨、使用,然后丢弃。
The life history sequence also includes an important option in the context of symbol use which is to store or cache unused tools in anticipation of predicted needs. Caches of raw materials and tools represent future planning (Kuhn 1992), and this behaviour has been observed among individual captive great apes (Osvath 2009; Osvath and Karvonen 2012) and in the wild (e.g. Boesch and Boesch 1984). In the case of collective caching “cooperation about detached goals requires that the inner worlds of the individuals be coordinated. It seems hard to explain how this can be done without evoking symbolic communication” (Gärdenfors 2004:6). There is tentative evidence for caching in the late Acheulean of Spain (Méndez-Quintas 2018:3) and more persuasive evidence at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (Preysler et al. 2018:131). The latter site also provides evidence of contexts for extended social interaction necessary for transmitting knowledge, including symbols, across generations. The lake shore locality was used over a period of 100,000 years for activities including animal and plant food processing, the working of stone and wood, making fire and caching hand-axes (Goren-Inbar 2011). The caching of these large, unused tools in the landscape indicates provisioning of places rather than provisioning of individuals (Kuhn 1992:192).
生命周期历史序列还包括符号使用上下文中的一个重要选项,即存储或缓存未使用的工具,以预测预测需求。原材料和工具的藏匿点代表未来的规划(Kuhn 1992),这种行为已经在个体圈养类人猿中观察到(Osvath 2009;Osvath 和 Karvonen 2012 年)和野外(例如 Boesch 和 Boesch 1984 年)。在集体缓存的情况下,“关于分离目标的合作需要协调个人的内心世界。似乎很难解释如何在不唤起象征流的情况下做到这一点“(Gärdenfors 2004:6)。西班牙晚期的 Acheulean (Méndez-Quintas 2018:3) 有缓存的初步证据,Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (Preysler et al. 2018:131) 有更有说服力的证据。后一个网站还提供了扩展社会互动环境的证据,这些环境是跨代传播知识(包括符号)所必需的。湖岸地区在 100,000 年的时间里被用于各种活动,包括动植物食品加工、石头和木材加工、生火和缓存手斧(Goren-Inbar 2011)。这些大型的、未使用的工具在 landscape 中的缓存表明提供了位置,而不是提供了个人 (Kuhn 1992:192)。
Evidence for future planning, and by implication symbol-based language, also occurs early in the Acheulean of East Africa 1.4 Ma at Koobi Fora (Kenya) with the allocation of different areas of a contemporaneous landscape to separate stages in the making and use of hand-axes (Presnyakova et al. 2018). This spatial fragmentation of the life history of hand-axes extends the time depth and evidence base for H. erectus communicating shared abstractions using language. In the context of a gradualist model of language evolution, the roots of symbol use and G1 grammars may lie in shared activities such as the persistent provisioning of raw materials at Kanjera two million years ago which involved planning actions distant in time and space (Hockett 1960; Osvath and Gärdenfors 2005; Plummer and Bishop 2016).
未来规划的证据,以及暗示基于符号的语言,也出现在东非的 Acheulean 1.4 马 在 Koobi Fora(肯尼亚),将同时代景观的不同区域分配到制作和使用手斧的不同阶段(Presnyakova 等人,2018 年)。手斧生活史的这种空间碎片化扩展了直立猿人使用语言交流共享抽象的时间深度和证据基础。在语言进化的渐进主义模型的背景下,符号使用和 G1 语法的根源可能在于共享活动,例如 200 万年前在 Kanjera 持续提供原材料,这涉及到在时间和空间上遥远的计划行动(Hockett 1960;Osvath 和 Gärdenfors 2005 年;Plummer 和 Bishop 2016 年)。
Middle Pleistocene Seafaring 中更新世航海
The onset of the Middle Pleistocene, roughly 900,000–780,000 years ago, marks a transition to increasingly variable and harsh climatic conditions (Head and Gibbard 2005). H. erectus is widespread by this time, having settled China and Southeast Asia, including Java. The earliest Acheulean in Java is dated to about one million years old (Simanjuntak et al. 2010). Sea level fluctuations linked to the waxing and waning of glacial stages meant periodic isolation of some island populations. Parts of Indonesia were never linked to the Asian mainland, and the Acheulean did not spread beyond Java. East of Java on the island of Flores, however, there is an archaeological record of stone tool-making from one million years ago, primarily flakes, without hand-axes, cleavers or picks (Brumm et al. 2010).
大约在 900,000-780,000 年前,中更新世的开始标志着向日益多变和恶劣的气候条件的过渡(Head 和 Gibbard 2005)。此时直立猿人分布广泛,已经定居在中国和东南亚,包括爪哇。爪哇最早的 Acheulean 可以追溯到大约 100 万年前(Simanjuntak 等人,2010 年)。与冰川阶段的起伏有关的海平面波动意味着一些岛屿人口的周期性孤立。印度尼西亚的部分地区从未与亚洲大陆联系在一起,Acheulean 也没有传播到爪哇以外。然而,在爪哇岛以东的弗洛雷斯岛,有 100 万年前石器制造的考古记录,主要是薄片,没有手斧、切肉刀或镐(Brumm 等人,2010 年)。
As argued above, tools are symbols and the hand-axe and cleaver as standardised forms provide indirect evidence of cultural traditions and at least a G1 level of language. The absence or rarity of these tools in the Southeast Asian record poses a challenge in this respect for the early language hypothesis. That challenge is met by considering another aspect of the regional behavioural record that reflects extended future planning based on language. The settlement of Flores and other islands of Wallacea by H. erectus or related taxa is arguably a process that required language to collectively plan and execute the crossing of open bodies of water (Davidson and Noble 1993). Wallacea is a transitional biogeographic zone unique in having islands that were never connected to the mainland of Southeast Asia (Sunda), or to Australia/New Guinea (Sahul) (Kealy et al. 2016). Sea crossings would have been necessary for hominins to settle these islands (Bednarik 1997), and the arrival of Homo sapiens in Australia some 50–60,000 years ago is often cited as a reliable indicator of the necessity of language for planning a sea crossing of 90 km (Davidson and Noble 1992). Building a boat requires the kind of conceptualisation of an arbitrary form intended for an imagined purpose that is only possible by the use of symbols to convey such abstractions. Constructing a boat or raft involves joining multiple parts to function as a whole, a form of extended hafting. Provisioning of water and food and having the capacity to fish would be part of the planning process. By this logic, evidence for the earlier settlement of Wallacea would imply an earlier use of language.
如上所述,工具是符号,而手斧和菜刀作为标准化形式提供了文化传统的间接证据,并且至少提供了 G1 级别的语言。这些工具在东南亚记录中的缺失或稀有性在这方面对早期语言假说构成了挑战。通过考虑区域行为记录的另一个方面来应对这一挑战,该方面反映了基于语言的扩展未来规划。直立猿或相关分类群在弗洛雷斯和华莱士的其他岛屿上的定居可以说是一个过程,需要语言来共同计划和执行开阔水域的穿越(Davidson 和 Noble 1993)。华莱士是一个过渡性生物地理区,其独特之处在于其岛屿从未与东南亚大陆 (Sunda) 或澳大利亚/新几内亚 (Sahul) 相连(Kealy 等人,2016 年)。人类在这些岛屿上定居是必要的海上穿越(Bednarik 1997),大约 50-60,000 年前智人到达澳大利亚经常被认为是规划 90 公里跨海语言必要性的可靠指标(Davidson 和 Noble 1992)。建造一艘船需要一种任意形式的概念化,旨在实现想象的目的,而这种概念化只有通过使用符号来传达这种抽象才有可能。建造一艘船或木筏涉及将多个部分连接成一个整体,这是一种扩展的吊索形式。提供水和食物以及拥有捕鱼能力将是规划过程的一部分。按照这种逻辑,华莱士早期定居的证据意味着语言的早期使用。
Bednarik (1997, 1998) drew attention to the published archaeological evidence for stone tools on the island of Flores associated with fossil fauna in the Soa Basin, palaeomagnetically dated to ~ 700 ka. The tool-makers were attributed to Homo erectus based on well-known fossil evidence on Java, and Bednarik speculated on the kinds of watercraft needed for travelling between the islands. To reach Flores from Bali involved crossing two islands (Lombok, Sumbawa) and distances of 10 km of open water. Subsequent research in Wallacea has identified submerged islands that at a sea level 45 m lower than today could have been staging posts for a north-south connection between Sulawesi and Sumbawa/Flores, offering additional food resources for dispersing hominins (Kealy et al. 2016). Lower sea levels would have existed during glacial maxima in the Middle Pleistocene, and presumably other islands would have emerged as habitats for coast-adapted communities.
Bednarik (1997, 1998) 提请注意已发表的弗洛雷斯岛上石器的考古证据,这些证据与 Soa 盆地的动物化石有关,古地磁年代为 ~ 700 ka。根据爪哇岛著名的化石证据,这些工具的制造者被归类为直立人,贝德纳里克推测了在岛屿之间旅行所需的船只类型。从巴厘岛到达弗洛雷斯需要穿越两个岛屿(龙目岛、松巴哇岛)和 10 公里的开阔水域。随后在华莱士 (Wallacea) 进行的研究确定了比今天低 45 m 的水下岛屿可能是苏拉威西岛和松巴哇/弗洛雷斯之间南北连接的中转站,为分散古人类提供了额外的食物资源(Kealy 等人,2016 年)。在中更新世的冰川盛期,海平面较低,据推测,其他岛屿可能会成为适应海岸的社区的栖息地。
The radiometric dating of the archaeological record on Flores has extended a hominin presence to 1 Ma (Brumm et al. 2010), and there is fossil evidence for a hominin ancestor of Homo floresiensis on the island 800 ka (van den Bergh et al. 2016). The largest island of Wallacea—Sulawesi—is now known to have been occupied by hominins at least 200 ka (van den Bergh et al. 2016), and there is evidence for hominins in the Philippines, north of Wallacea, ~ 700 ka in the form of stone tools among the remains of a butchered rhinoceros (Ingicco et al. 2018).
弗洛雷斯考古记录的辐射测年已将古人类的存在扩展到 1 马(Brumm 等人,2010 年),并且有化石证据表明岛上 Homo floresiensis 的原始人祖先 800 ka(van den Bergh 等人,2016 年)。现在已知华莱士岛最大的岛屿——苏拉威西岛——至少有 200 ka 的人居住(van den Bergh 等人,2016 年),有证据表明,在华莱士岛以北的菲律宾,在被屠宰的犀牛遗骸中,以石器的形式存在 ~ 700 ka(Ingicco 等人,2018 年)。
Despite the uncertainty about which hominins settled these islands (Cooper and Stringer 2013), the evidence is accumulating for multiple sea crossings in the early Middle Pleistocene. The short crossings between the islands of Wallacea, though less demanding than the long crossing to Australia with no landmass apparent, also required shared awareness of a future goal, not unlike the caching of hand-axes. Language would be necessary in this context for constructing watercraft and storing provisions (food and water), and a G1 language would be sufficient to convey the information required to navigate between visible islands (Gil 2009). Ongoing experimental building and testing of rafts using local knowledge of plant resources (e.g. bamboo poles, vine bindings and rope making) has demonstrated the feasibility of crossing distances of 20 to 50 km by H. erectus using rafts with paddles (Bednarik 2014). The intentional settlement of these islands by genetically viable populations is a more parsimonious explanation than the accidental seeding of hominins on islands by tsunamis or other random natural processes (e.g. Ruxton and Wilkinson 2012).
尽管不确定哪些古人类在这些岛屿上定居(Cooper 和 Stringer 2013),但中更新世早期多次出海的证据正在积累。华莱士群岛之间的短途穿越,虽然比没有明显陆地的长途穿越到澳大利亚的要求要低,但也需要对未来目标的共同认识,就像手斧的缓存一样。在这种情况下,语言对于建造船只和储存食物(食物和水)是必要的,而 G1 语言足以传达在可见岛屿之间导航所需的信息(Gil 2009)。利用当地植物资源知识(例如竹竿、藤蔓绑扎和绳索制作)对筏子进行持续的实验建造和测试,已经证明了直立猿使用带桨的筏子穿越 20 至 50 公里距离的可行性(Bednarik 2014)。与海啸或其他随机自然过程在岛屿上意外播种古人类相比,基因上可行的种群有意在这些岛屿上定居是一种更简洁的解释(例如 Ruxton 和 Wilkinson 2012)。
Discussion and Conclusion 讨论和结论
“Finally, there is the fact that many quite reasonable hypotheses in the historical behavioral sciences cannot, as a practical matter, be refuted absolutely. It is possible to choose among alternative hypotheses in terms of their relative probability…” “最后,有一个事实,即历史行为科学中许多相当合理的假设,作为一个实际问题,不能被绝对地反驳。可以根据它们的相对概率在备选假设中进行选择......” (Chase and Dibble 1992:50). (Chase 和 Dibble 1992:50)。
Throughout this paper, we have drawn evidence from a range of sources in support of the contentious claim that language evolved earlier in hominin evolution than is normally accepted (Belfer-Cohen and Goren-Inbar 1994; Sharon 2009; Goren-Inbar 2011). Homo erectus rather than Homo sapiens was the first ancestor to generate symbols, and symbols are the essential component of language, not syntax (Hurford 2004; Piantadosi and Fedorenko 2017; Studdert-Kennedy and Terrace 2017). Our conclusion derives from our reading of Peirce’s semiotic progression and its application to the archaeological record against criteria set by Noble and Davidson (1996) for the recognition of language in tools. As the work by Steels (2005) suggests, even all the later additions to the basic symbolic system and grammar of language are the filling-in of the semiotics of language (see also Everett 2017, 197ff for a discussion of how language complexity can develop over time, from a simple G1 grammar).
在本文中,我们从一系列来源中提取了证据,以支持有争议的说法,即语言在古人类进化中进化得比通常接受的要早(Belfer-Cohen 和 Goren-Inbar 1994;Sharon 2009 年;Goren-Inbar 2011 年)。直立人而不是智人是产生符号的第一个祖先,而符号是语言的重要组成部分,而不是句法(Hurford 2004;Piantadosi 和 Fedorenko 2017;Studdert-Kennedy 和 Terrace 2017)。我们的结论来自我们对皮尔斯的符号学进展及其在考古记录中的应用,以及 Noble 和 Davidson (1996) 为工具中语言的识别设定的标准。正如 Steels (2005) 的工作所表明的那样,即使是所有后来对语言的基本符号系统和语法的补充也是语言符号学的填充(另见 Everett 2017, 197ff 关于语言复杂性如何随着时间的推移而发展的讨论,从简单的 G1 语法开始)。
We outlined at the outset five questions posed by Ingold (1993):337) for those who would interpret hand-axes as evidence for early language. We respond as follows:
我们首先概述了 Ingold (1993):337 为那些将手斧解释为早期语言证据的人提出的五个问题。我们的回复如下:
- (1)
There cannot be a modern analogue for the longevity of the Acheulean given the present is short. The longevity of the hand-axe (and cleaver) as recurrent forms is evidence of cultural norms (Hodder 1994) that reflect stabilised solutions to particular needs (Pinch and Bijker 1984; Deacon 1997) that were transmitted over generations in small-scale societies by natural pedagogy including teaching using language (Csibra and Gergely 2011; Lew-Levy et al. 2017). Small population sizes and limited rates of interaction inhibited rapid innovation (Hopkinson et al. 2013).
鉴于现在很短,不可能有现代类比来描述 Acheulean 的长寿。手斧(和切肉刀)作为反复出现的形式存在很长一段时间,这证明了文化规范(Hodder 1994),它反映了对特定需求的稳定解决方案(Pinch 和 Bijker 1984;Deacon 1997),这些理论通过自然教学法在小规模社会中代代相传,包括使用语言进行教学(Csibra 和 Gergely 2011;Lew-Levy 等人,2017 年)。小种群规模和有限的交互率抑制了快速创新(Hopkinson 等人,2013 年)。
- (2)
The persistence of these forms necessitated cultural transmission given the complex hierarchical processes of manufacture (Morgan et al. 2015; Gärdenfors and Högberg 2017; Herzlinger et al. 2017), and the range (temporal and geographical) of available alternative strategies to achieve similar ends (Sharon 2009)—these are cultural choices (e.g. Killick 2004; Byrne 2007).
鉴于制造的复杂等级过程,这些形式的持续存在需要文化传播(Morgan 等人,2015 年;Gärdenfors 和 Högberg 2017 年;Herzlinger 等人,2017 年),以及实现类似目标的可用替代策略的范围(时间和地理)(Sharon 2009)——这些都是文化选择(例如 Killick 2004 年;Byrne 2007 年)。
- (3)
Representational models of tool-making are being challenged (Fairlie and Barham 2016; Overmann and Wynn 2019) in recognition that the process is embodied and reflexive, with knappers responding to changing affordances rather than imposing invariant forms (Malafouris 2013), but the production of hand-axes—and especially cleavers—unfolds from decisions made early in the reduction process linked to raw material properties and to an intended end-form (Gowlett 2006; Herzlinger et al. 2017).
工具制造的代表性模型正在受到挑战(Fairlie 和 Barham 2016;Overmann 和 Wynn 2019),认识到这个过程是具身的和反身的,打砸机响应不断变化的可供性,而不是强加不变的形式(Malafouris 2013),但手斧的生产——尤其是砍刀——是从还原过程早期做出的与原材料特性和预期最终形式相关的决定展开的(Gowlett 2006;Herzlinger 等人,2017 年)。
- (4)
The extended life histories of large Acheulean tools are the product of cooperative societies in which technology is entangled with daily lives as conduits and creators of meaning (Pfaffenberger 2001; Goren-Inbar 2011; Hodder 2012). The evidence for caching of hand-axes (Preysler et al. 2018) indicates the shared abstraction of future use (Hockett 1960; Gärdenfors 2004).
大型 Acheulean 工具的延长寿命史是合作社会的产物,其中技术作为意义的渠道和创造者与日常生活纠缠在一起(Pfaffenberger 2001;Goren-Inbar 2011 年;Hodder 2012 年)。手斧缓存的证据(Preysler 等人,2018 年)表明了未来使用的共享抽象(Hockett 1960;Gärdenfors 2004).
- (5)
The standardised forms and cultural selection of production processes are recurrent conventional constructs indicative of symbol-based language (Holloway 1969; Peirce 1998). The forms may have held semiotic value to those who made, used and viewed them, but we cannot know the culturally specific meanings of the signs, including interpretants, generated by these objects. The identification of recurrent ergonomic design features in hand-axes and cleavers (Gowlett 2006), however, provides a way of disentangling Peirce’s triad as applied to these forms. For objects, his theory of signs specifies a logical-causal relation between material form and the signalling of meaning as indexes (proximity, causation) and icons (resemblance), whereas symbols are conventional constructions more dependent on cultural knowledge to interpret (Wallis 2013:210). The process of making a hand-axe involves responding to raw material constraints (e.g. internal flaws) and changing opportunities (e.g. edge angles) during the production process (Mahaney 2014; Shipton 2018). Adjustments are made in response to these indexes in relation to an implicit awareness of the design imperatives (Wynn and Gowlett 2018). The form of the tool signals immediate or future actions and as such is an icon, and this association can extend to components used in the knapping process, such as hammers and cores. An element of cultural knowledge exists in indexes and icons, but symbols are essentially arbitrary constructs of meaning though ultimately linked to the material object.
生产过程的标准化形式和文化选择是反复出现的常规结构,表明基于符号的语言(Holloway 1969;皮尔斯 1998 年)。这些形式可能对那些制作、使用和观看它们的人来说具有符号学价值,但我们无法知道这些物体产生的符号在文化上的具体含义,包括解释者。然而,在手斧和切肉刀中识别反复出现的人体工程学设计特征(Gowlett 2006)提供了一种解开适用于这些形式的皮尔斯三元组的方法。对于物体,他的符号理论指定了物质形式与意义信号之间的逻辑因果关系,作为索引(接近、因果关系)和图标(相似性),而符号是更依赖文化知识来解释的约定俗成的结构(Wallis 2013:210)。制作手斧的过程涉及在生产过程中应对原材料限制(例如内部缺陷)和不断变化的机会(例如边缘角度)(Mahaney 2014;Shipton 2018 年)。根据这些指数对设计必要性的隐含意识进行调整(Wynn 和 Gowlett 2018)。工具的形式表示当前或未来的操作,因此是一个图标,这种关联可以扩展到打磨过程中使用的组件,例如锤子和芯。文化知识的元素存在于索引和图标中,但符号本质上是武断的意义结构,尽管最终与物质对象相关联。
The superstructure of our argument, building on Peirce, is uniformitarian in design and content. Cross-cultural observations drawn from pre-industrial societies demonstrate the centrality of tools as media for generating and transmitting meaning and value. Tools have expressive symbolic value beyond fulfilling particular functions, and in the case of hand-axes and cleavers, they may have had multiple uses (McCall 2016: Chapter 3). The ability to agree value is distinctly cultural, and we make the wider point that symbols do not have to be reserved for ritual or other rarefied activities. Peirce makes no assumptions about the association of symbols with specific behaviours, and nor do we. Objects made to arbitrary repeated forms, such as a butter knife, are the products of symbolic thought. We assume that this was also the case in the past with hand-axes and cleavers. We also argue that the development of labels (words as symbols) for the repeated forms of the hand-axe, cleaver and perhaps the pick was the most efficient way of referring to these objects where proximity was not possible (pointing as an index), and gestural images (icons) were too ambiguous to convey intention clearly (Donald 1991). Clarity of intention is also relevant in making the case for the efficacy of words in teaching to make complex tools (Morgan et al. 2015; Gärdenfors and Högberg 2017; Herzlinger et al. 2017; Laland 2017; Lew-Levy et al. 2017).
我们论点的上层建筑建立在皮尔斯的基础上,在设计和内容上都是均变的。来自前工业化社会的跨文化观察表明,工具作为产生和传递意义和价值的媒介具有中心地位。工具除了实现特定功能之外,还具有富有表现力的象征价值,就手斧和切肉刀而言,它们可能有多种用途(McCall 2016:第 3 章)。达成共识的能力显然是文化的,我们提出了更广泛的观点,即符号不必为仪式或其他稀有活动保留。皮尔斯没有对符号与特定行为的关联做出任何假设,我们也是如此。被制成任意重复形式的物体,例如黄油刀,是象征性思维的产物。我们假设过去手斧和切肉刀也是如此。我们还认为,为手斧、切肉刀和镐的重复形式开发标签(作为符号的词语)是指代这些不可能接近的物体的最有效方式(指向作为索引),而手势图像(图标)太模糊而无法清楚地传达意图(Donald 1991)。意图的明确性也与证明单词在教学中制作复杂工具的有效性有关(Morgan 等人,2015 年;Gärdenfors 和 Högberg 2017 年;Herzlinger 等人,2017 年;Laland 2017 年;Lew-Levy 等人,2017 年)。
Our typology of grammars contributes to the growing gradualist approach to language evolution by highlighting the capacity of simple word order to convey meaning without the need for complex grammar (Hurford 2004; Piantadosi and Fedorenko 2017). Cross-cultural evidence for the correlation of group size with grammatical complexity (Lupyan and Dale 2010; Dale and Lupyan 2012) adds support to the contention that that Homo erectus, with a language based on words as symbols with minimal grammar (a G1 language) could have created complex tools, including boats, and planned for the future by provisioning landscapes and reaching distant islands in Southeast Asia. We are not the first to attribute the capacity for symbols and language to H. erectus (e.g. Deacon 1997; Tobias 2005; Gowlett 2009), but our claim is based on a semiotic framework linked explicitly to technology and a distinct typology of syntax (G1-G3 grammars) as sufficient to underwrite language.
我们的语法类型学通过强调简单词序在不需要复杂语法的情况下传达含义的能力,为语言进化的渐进主义方法做出了贡献(Hurford 2004;Piantadosi 和 Fedorenko 2017 年)。群体规模与语法复杂性相关性的跨文化证据(Lupyan 和 Dale 2010;Dale 和 Lupyan 2012 年)增加了对这一论点的支持,即直立人,一种基于单词作为符号的语言,语法最少(一种 G1 语言),可能创造了复杂的工具,包括船只,并通过提供景观和到达东南亚的遥远岛屿来规划未来。我们并不是第一个将符号和语言的能力归因于直立猿的人(例如 Deacon 1997;Tobias 2005 年;Gowlett 2009),但我们的说法是基于一个明确与技术和独特的语法类型学(G1-G3 语法)相关的符号学框架,足以支撑语言。
Human tool-making is an order of complexity greater than that of any other animal, and that is in part because language has integrated technology into all aspects of our social lives (Arthur 2009). Learned traditions of tool use and making exist in non-human primates, often focused on immediate needs with minimal attention to the form of tools (Goodall 1986), but chimpanzees show a nascent capacity to categorise tool function (Grüber et al. 2015) which suggests that the ability to partition causality existed in our last common ancestor. There are hints too of vocalisations that are referential and learned, which if supported by observations in the wild would add to the behavioural flexibility of that common ancestor, and to case for a gradual and early evolution of language.
人类工具制造是一个比任何其他动物都更复杂的顺序,这部分是因为语言已经将技术整合到我们社会生活的方方面面(Arthur 2009)。非人类灵长类动物存在工具使用和制作的习得传统,通常专注于直接需求,而很少关注工具的形式(Goodall 1986),但黑猩猩表现出对工具功能进行分类的新生能力(Grüber 等人,2015 年),这表明划分因果关系的能力存在于我们最后一个共同祖先中。也有关于发声的暗示是参考的和习得的,如果得到野外观察的支持,将增加该共同祖先的行为灵活性,并为语言的逐渐和早期进化提供理由。
The archaeological record suggests an early awareness of icons based on intentional use of resemblance, and by two million years ago, hominins had developed a reliance on technology and a range of cooperative behaviours that exceeded those seen in other primates today (Plummer and Bishop 2016). With the emergence of the Acheulean tradition 1.7 million years ago, the first evidence exists of attention given to the visual form of artefacts, in this case a large symmetrical hand-axe from Olduvai Gorge that prefigures the standardisation of the hand-axe form later in the Acheulean after 1.2 million years ago (Diez-Martína et al. 2019). The establishment of conventions of hand-axe and cleaver forms, and multiple ways of making these tools (Sharon 2009), marks the development of symbols and language.
考古记录表明,早期对图标的认识是基于有意使用相似性,到 200 万年前,古人类已经发展出对技术和一系列合作行为的依赖,这超过了今天其他灵长类动物所看到的(Plummer 和 Bishop 2016)。随着 170 万年前 Acheulean 传统的出现,第一个证据表明人们关注人工制品的视觉形式,在这种情况下,来自 Olduvai 峡谷的大型对称手斧预示着 120 万年前后 Acheulean 手斧形式的标准化(Diez-Martína 等人,2019 年)。手斧和切肉刀形式的惯例的建立,以及制作这些工具的多种方式(Sharon 2009),标志着符号和语言的发展。
The capacity to share abstract concepts using language was a key transition in the evolution of communication and in hominin evolution. By extending that capacity to H. erectus, we are not denying the achievements of Homo sapiens; we are simply placing them in a broader evolutionary time frame which accords with current evidence.
使用语言分享抽象概念的能力是交流进化和人族进化的关键转变。通过将这种能力扩展到直立人,我们并不是在否认智人的成就;我们只是将他们放在一个更广阔的进化时间框架中,这与目前的证据一致。
Notes 笔记
- A brief definition of Peircean signs, to be elaborated as our discussion progresses, is as follows: icon—physical similarity (in shape, image, size, colour, etc.); index—physical connection or relation in terms of time, space, or causality; and symbol—conventional link between the object, interpretant and form of the sign.
随着讨论的进行,将详细阐述皮尔斯符号的简要定义如下:图标——物理相似性(形状、图像、大小、颜色等);index—时间、空间或因果关系方面的物理联系或关系;和符号 - 对象、解释者和符号形式之间的常规联系。 - In Wallace (2009), Wallace argues that natural selection cannot account for the “mental faculties of man”.
在 Wallace (2009) 中,Wallace 认为自然选择无法解释“人类的心理能力”。 - Karl Lee, a primitive technologist with 25 years of experience making hand-axes, observes “Edge maintenance is invariably where students go wrong…. Angle of abrasion can have a dramatic effect on the intended removal in terms of width, depth and risk of problems such as overshooting. One particular problem is ‘triangles!’. Even a 1mm raised speck on an abraded edge/platform can be the difference between a clean removal or a damaged hard/soft hammer, or preform. Even a tiny triangular irregularity can be incredibly strong, requiring more than twice the force (and risk) to take a removal. One over or under abraded edge could ruin the entire piece. Instruction regarding abrasion and abrasion angles, technique and highlighted dangers, would be difficult without even a rudimentary form of language.” (2 July 2020: https://www.primitive-technology.co.uk/)
Karl Lee 是一位拥有 25 年手斧制造经验的原始技术专家,他观察到“边缘维护总是学生出错的地方…磨损角度会在宽度、深度和过冲等问题的风险方面对预期的去除产生巨大影响。一个特别的问题是“三角形!即使是磨损的边缘/平台上的 1 毫米凸起斑点也可能是干净去除或损坏的硬/软锤或预制件之间的区别。即使是微小的三角形不规则性也可能非常坚固,需要两倍以上的力(和风险)才能去除。一个过度或不足的磨损边缘可能会毁掉整件作品。关于磨损和磨损角度、技术和突出的危险的指导,甚至如果没有基本的语言形式,都会很困难。(2020 年 7 月 2 日:https://www.primitive-technology.co.uk/)
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Acknowledgements
The idea of the paper arose from work undertaken as part of the Arts & Humanities Research Council (UK) funded “Deep Roots of Human Behaviour” (AH/N008804/1) project (LB). Financial support for DE’s stay in Liverpool was kindly provided by the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, University of Liverpool.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
- University of Liverpool, Department of Archaeology, Classics & Egyptology, Liverpool, UK
Lawrence Barham & Daniel Everett
- Bentley University, Department of Sociology, Waltham, MA, USA
Lawrence Barham & Daniel Everett
Corresponding author
Correspondence to Lawrence Barham](mailto:[email protected]).
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Semiotics and the Origin of Language in the Lower Palaeolithic | Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
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