Neanderthal language capabilities are back in the news. According to well-known prehistorian Steven Mithen (whose “Hmmmmm” theory of language evolution I cited in Chapter 3), “the evidence points to key differences in the brains of our species and those of Neanderthals that allowed modern humans (H. sapiens) to come up with abstract and complex ideas through metaphor – the ability to compare two unrelated things”– an ability that he believes the Neanderthals lacked and probably contributed both to their eventual extinction and to sapiens’ survival over time.
He explains that a 3D digital reconstruction of the Neanderthal brain, created by fitting a sapiens brain in the cast of a Neanderthal braincase, showed important differences in structure, including a relatively large occipital lobe and a relatively small and differently shaped cerebellum for the Neanderthal. These differences indicate that the Neanderthals had more brain matter devoted to visual processing and less that was devoted to vocal processing. Further, Mithen notes that a 2019 study of all known genetic mutations unique to the the sapiens brain found some mutations were associated with neuronal development and neuronal connections and concluded that “modifications of a complex network in cognition or learning took place in modern human evolution.”
Mithen points to three recent discoveries regarding language: first, that modern humans store the concepts we associate with words in clusters (semantic groups) of similar concepts, throughout both brain hemispheres; second, that computer simulation models of language transmission demonstrate that syntax (the rules for how words are ordered to generate meaning) can spontaneously emerge over the course of generations; third, that iconic sounds (sounds that provide a sensory impression of the thing they represent) may have provided the evolutionary bridge between the ape-like calls of our common ancestor of 6 million years ago and the first “iconic words”, which Mithen speculates may have been spoken by the ancient human species Homo erectus around 1.6 million years ago, eventually resulting in the use of arbitrary words and syntax by both Neanderthal and sapiens.
He argues that the further division between the two was driven by the sapiens brain developing a spherical form with neural networks connecting what had been isolated semantic clusters of words. “So, while H. sapiens and Neanderthals had equivalent capacity for iconic words and syntax, they appear to have differed with respect to storing ideas in semantic clusters in the brain.By linking up different clusters in the brain that are responsible for storing groups of concepts, our species gained the capacity to think and communicate using metaphor. This allowed modern humans to draw a line between widely different concepts and ideas. This was arguably the most important of our cognitive tools, enabling us to come up with complex and abstract concepts.”
Hmmmmm… If what Mithen means by “iconic words” is something similar to “onomonopeia” (that is, words that sound similar to the sounds they represent, such as “buzz” or “splash”) which have a fairly limited use, either alone or in “clusters,” and don’t necessarily provide a foundation for metaphor (or the early type of symbolic thinking that would presumably precede metaphor, such as drawing a squiggly line in the dirt to represent a river to be crossed), I’m not sure that he’s solved the fascinating puzzle of our Neanderthal ancestors.
Keywords In and Out of Context 