Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:28:26.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evidence of recursion in tool use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

Lluís Barceló-Coblijn  and
Antoni Gomila
Lluís Barceló-Coblijn
Affiliation:
Human Evolution and Cognition Group, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma. [email protected]@uib.cathttp://evocog.org/
Antoni Gomila
Affiliation:
Human Evolution and Cognition Group, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma. [email protected]@uib.cathttp://evocog.org/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We discuss the discovery of technologies involving knotted netting, such as textiles, basketry, and cordage, in the Upper Paleolithic. This evidence, in our view, suggests a new way of connecting toolmaking and syntactic structure in human evolution, because these technologies already exhibit an “infinite use of finite means,” which we take to constitute the key transition to human cognition.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , August 2012 , pp. 219 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adovasio, J. M., Sofer, O. & Klima, B. (1996) Upper Paleolithic fibre technology: Interlaced woven finds from Pavlov I, Czech Republic, c. 26,000 years ago. Antiquity 70:526–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbib, M. A. (2005) From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28:105–24.Google Scholar
Barceló-Coblijn, L. (in press) Evolutionary scenarios for the emergence of recursion. Theoria et Historia Scientiarum: International Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies.Google Scholar
Barceló-Coblijn, L. (2011) A biolinguistic approach to the vocalizations of H. neanderthalensis and the genus Homo. Biolinguistics 5(4):286–334.Google Scholar
Calvin, W. (1993) The unitary hypothesis: A common neural circuitry for novel manipulations, language, plan-ahead, and throwing? In: Tools, language, and cognition in human evolution, ed. Gibson, K. & Ingold, T., pp. 230–50. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Camps, M. & Uriagereka, J. (2006) The Gordian knot of linguistic fossils. In: The biolinguistic turn. Issues on language and biology, ed. Rosselló, J. & Martín, J., pp. 34–65. Publications of the University of Barcelona.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1959) On certain formal properties of grammars. Information and Control 2:137–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fujita, K. (2009) A prospect of evolutionary adequacy: Merge and the evolution and development of human language. Biolinguistics 3 (2–3):128–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenfield, P. (1991) Language, tools and brain: The ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically organized sequential behavior. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14:531–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W. T. (2002) The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298:1569–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henshilwood, C. S. & Marean, C. W. (2003) The origin of modern human behavior. Current Anthropology 44:627–51.Google Scholar
Rizzolatti, G. & Arbib, M. A. (1998) Language within our grasp. Trends in Neurosciences 21(5):188–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sofer, O., Adovasio, J. M., Illingworth, J. S., Amirkhanov, K. A., Praslov, N. D. & Street, M. (2000) Paleolithic perishables made permanent. Antiquity 74:812–21.Google Scholar
Wadley, L. (2005) Putting ochre to the test: Replication studies of adhesives that may have been used for hafting tools in the Middle Stone Age. Journal of Human Evolution 49:587–601.Google Scholar