I would point out that not all experts would agree with your opinion that
there is no evidence for language prior to 40,000 years. I know, that some
would agree with you. There is evidence on both sides of this coin, but the
fact that Broca's area which is used for motor control of language is found
as far back as 2 million years, is a fact which is always ignored by the non
language advocates. The only use of this structure, I have come across, is
motor control of the vocal cords etc. (If someone knows of another function I
would like to know of it) The only being on earth with Broca's area is man.
So if you are correct, that language is an all or nothing event, then I vote
for all. Below is a Barnouw's view. Remember, that Homo Erectus had mastered
fire.
"The fireplace would be the symbolic center of the group, a beacon by
day and by night for the men who had left camp to hunt. At the stage of Homo
erectus, there must have been some division of labor, with men specializing
as hunters and women as collectors and perhaps preparers of food. No doubt
the women looked after the children, fetched wood and water, and kept the
fire going. Such groups would be apt to split up during the day but have
some
agreed-upon place to return to in the late afternoon or evening.
"Planning of this sort requires a language. Primitive though they may
have appeared, with their heavy brow ridges, low skiulls, and large chinless
jaws, these men had relatively large brains, which were often within the
range of modern humans. it seems likely that their brains had become
sufficiently developed for language to be possible.
"Instruction in toolmaking and the use of fire would certainly be
facilitated by the use of language, although perhaps conceivable without it.
The tools used by Homo erectus had become more elaborate than those of the
australopithecines, and Homo erectus hunted large mammals, which probably
demanded planning and collective action.
"Some articles by Philip LIeberman and his associates to be discussed
later in this chapter have suggested that Neanderthal communication was
deficient. Homo erectus was lower on the evolutionary ladder than
Neanderthals; so perhaps, if Lieberman et al. are right, use of language by
Homo erectus was even more rudimentary. The view taken here, however is that
some sort of
language was probably spoken by Homo erectus."~Victor Barnouw, An
Introduction to Anthropology: Physical Antrhopology and Archaeology, Vol. 1,
(Homewood, Illinois: The Dorsey Press, 1982) p. 147
See my response to Bill Hamilton for more information on language.
One final thing, the lack of complex art and decorated tools is not
indicative of language contrary to what I think you are suggesting.
Hewes writes:
"If we restrict 'depiction' to the kinds which survive from the Upper
Paleolithic, many ethnographic groups are without it to this day, although
they possess complex languages and oral traditions replete with 'depiction'
in the literary sense."~Gordon W. Hewes, Comments, Current Anthropology,
30:2, April, 1989, p. 145-146.
In another post Jim wrote:
>>But this view seems at odds with the following:
"This capacity for language seems to be, in the evolutionary scale, a
relatively recent, sudden, and explosive development. A few years ago, it was
thought to have begun to happen with Homo erectus perhaps a million years
ago.Now, as Julian Jaynes at Princeton, among others, believes, it appears to
have occurred in Neanderthal man as recently as the fourth glaciation, which
lasted from about 75,000 to 35,000 years ago." [Percy, "Is a Theory of Man
Possible?"]<<
As I mentioned above, There is no consensus of opinion on this issue among
the "experts" and there is no division along "naturalistic" and
"nonnaturalistic" lines. Some of the strongest advocates of reductionism say
that early man didn't speak because there is no evidence that he did and that
we can not apply human experience to another species. Without tape
recordings we will never KNOW one way or another.
glenn