Title: Reading the artifacts: gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa
Abstract:Abstract Finding archeological evidence that hints at when people first used language, in the ‘‘modern’’ sense, has long fascinated archeologists. Most archeologists are not linguistic specialists, bu...Abstract Finding archeological evidence that hints at when people first used language, in the ‘‘modern’’ sense, has long fascinated archeologists. Most archeologists are not linguistic specialists, but speculating on the origins of language, or at least commenting on the topic, seems an innate component of many archeological publications, especially those relating to the origins of the behavior of our own species, Homo sapiens (e.g. Noble and Davidson 1996; Deacon and Wurz 1996; Ambrose 2001; Deacon 2001; Barham 2001; Wadley 2001; Henshilwood et al. 2002; Mellars 2006). The terminology used by archeologists to describe ‘‘modern’’ language varies and includes ‘‘syntactic’’ language (Barham 2002a), ‘‘symbolic’’ language (Wurz 2000), ‘‘modern, complex’’ language (Mellars 2006), and ‘‘phonemic’’ language (Klein and Edgar 2002). Broadly speaking, these terms are understood to mean the ideas or emotions that were communicated by means of symbolic elements, for example vocally, by gesture, or by marks, and that these elements can be recombined according to systematic, conventionalized criteria to create meaning. Members of society interact with one another in terms of their total culture through language,Read More
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-04-30
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 35
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