Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

speech & language originS

73 views
Skip to first unread message

marc verhaegen

unread,
Oct 4, 2019, 3:32:21 PM10/4/19
to
Recursive language and modern imagination were acquired simultaneously 70,000 years ago
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-08/pp-rla080219.php
A genetic mutation that slowed down the development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in 2 or more children may have triggered a cascade of events leading to acquisition of recursive language & modern imagination 70 ka.
This "Romulus & Remus" hypothesis (Dr Vyshedskiy in Research Ideas & Outcomes RIO) might be able to solve the long-standing mystery of language evolution.
Numerous archeological & genetic evidence have already convinced most paleo-anthropologists that the speech apparatus has reached essentially modern configurations before humans split from neandertals 600 ka. The chimpanzee communication system already has 20 to 100 different vocalizations: the modern-like re-modeling of the vocal apparatus extended our ancestors' range of vocalizations by orders of magnitude, IOW, by 600 ka, the number of distinct verbalizations used for communication must have been on par with the number of words in modern languages.
OTOH, artifacts signifying modern imagination (composite figurative arts, elaborate burials, bone needles with an eye, construction of dwellings) arose not earlier than 70 ka. The 500-ka gap between the acquisition of the modern speech apparatus & modern imagination has baffled scientists for decades.
While studying acquisition of imagination in children, Vyshedskiy cs discovered a temporal limit for the development of a particular component of imagination: modern children, who have not been exposed to full language in early childhood, never acquire the type of active constructive imagination essential for juxtaposition of mental objects (Prefrontal Synthesis).




Unnecessary just-so thinking.

AFAICS, there is no "mystery of language evolution", google e.g.
"Speech originS 2018 Verhaegen PPT"

The slower development of the PFC is most parsimoniously explained by the lack of brain-specific nutrients (esp.DHA) when H.sapiens (c 70 ka?) quit regular diving for shallow-aquatic foods such as shellfish.

See e.g.
Vaneechoutte, Munro & Verhaegen 2011
"Seafood, diving, song and speech"
p.181-9 in Vaneechoutte cs eds 2011 ebook Bentham Sci.Publ.
"Was Man More Aquatic in the Past? Fifty Years after Alister Hardy"

Daud Deden

unread,
Oct 5, 2019, 2:37:15 AM10/5/19
to
from Sci.Bio.Paleo

Friday, October 4, 2019 at 5:04:21 PM UTC-4, littor...@gmail.com wrote:
> Op donderdag 3 oktober 2019 07:25:32 UTC+2 schreef Daud Deden:
>
>
>
> > > > > Selection of endurance capabilities and the trade-off between pressure and volume in the evolution of the human heart
> > > > > Robert Shave, Daniel Lieberman ... 2019 PNAS 116:19905-10
> > > > > https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906902116
> > > > > Unlike other great apes, humans evolved multi-system capabilities for moderate-intensity EPA, but it is unknown if selection acted similarly on the heart. We present data from a sample of humans, chimps & gorillas, showing that the human (LV) evolved numerous features that help to augment stroke volume (SV), enabling moderate-intensity EPA. We also show that phenotypic plasticity of the human LV trades off pressure adaptations for volume capabilities, becoming more similar to a chimp-like heart in response to physical inactivity or chronic pressure loading. Consequently, the derived human heart appears partly dependent upon moderate EPA, and its absence (+ a highly processed diet) likely contributes to the modern epidemic of hypertensive heart disease.


mv: > > > > > This is a beautiful example of traditional anthropocentric just-so thinking, that apes leaving the forests evolved into "hominins"
>
dd: > > Human ancestors left the forest CANOPY. Those that left the forest entirely always camped under trees eg. Khoisan.
>
mv: > > > > > running bipedally over open plains: the authors assume that human ancestors initially hunted & gathered,
>
dd: > > They did.
>
mv: > They did not: they collected waterside & shallow-aquatic foods.

dd: That was part of their diet.

>
>
mv: > > > > > and then try to collect data that fit this unscientific idea.
> > > > > In fact, their data (e.g. stroke volume, cardiac plasticity) are better explained by a littoral lifestyle (incl. wading bipedally & shallow-diving),
>
dd: > > They did, mostly along shallow crystalline streams.
>
mv: > Your "crystalline streams" might perhaps be late-Pleistocene in some populations,

dd: From Morotopith.


mv: but all data show that early-Pleistocene Homo dispersed along coasts, rivers & islands, from Java & Flores to E.Africa & the Red & Med.Sea.
>
> > which they didn't even consider: early-Pleistocene Homo dispersed intercontinentally along African & Eurasian coasts, rivers & islands, collecting different waterside & shallow-aquatic foods, rich in brain-specific nutrients (DHA etc., absent in savannas).
>
>
>
> > > > > Endurance Running Versus Underwater Foraging:
> > > > > An Anatomical and Palaeoecological Perspective
> > > > > Stephen Munro 2013 Hum.Evol.28:201-212
> > > > > The dominant theory of human evolution has long been that humans evolved as a result of leaving the forests and becoming better adapted to life in more open, arid habitats (terrestrial model). This idea pre-dates Darwin's ideas on natural selection, has never been subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny, and is far less credible than the alternative model proposed here: that human evolution occurred as a result of adaptations to a littoral environment
>
dd: > > Super-littoral
>
mv: > Meaning "very littoral"?

dd: Littoral and beyond.

>
mv: > > > > > in which ancestral populations for part of the time foraged under water for slow moving, immobile and sessile resources such as shellfish; dispersed around coasts; and moved up rivers to inland wetlands,
>
dd: > > Crocs & apes at swamps, Homo was at shallow streamside.
>
mv: > Early-Pleistocene Homo was littoral:


dd: Stream-side.

- show quoted text -

Franz Gnaedinger

unread,
Oct 5, 2019, 3:54:52 AM10/5/19
to
Language is the means of getting help, support and understanding from those
we depend upon in one way or another --- and every means of getting help,
support and understanding may be called language, on whatever level of life
it occurs ... (definition form 1974/75). Language in that very basic sense
can be considered the intelligence of life: working together, co-ordinated
by any form of language, we achieve more with the same amount of energy,
or the same with less energy than if we were all on our own. Language thus
provides the negentropy that makes life possible. The long way from cells
and bacteria to modern word language is a long series of genetic and cultural
inventions, it can't be seen as one single step, although it is very inter-
esting to find each single step in that long chain of evo-devo.

Mścisław Wojna-Bojewski

unread,
Oct 5, 2019, 12:01:32 PM10/5/19
to
- Cave art gives us no clue to how the people of Lascaux or Altamira spoke.

- The pictographic symbols in Göbekli Tepe give us no clue to how the people of Göbekli Tepe spoke.

- Anyone stating the opposite must make available some evidence that can be scrutinized by other scholars, and the clues this person claims to have found, must be observable and recognizable by other people.

- Moreover, the discoverer must be able to explain, in commonsense logical terms, how he or she has arrived at his results. His chain of conclusions must be "nachvollzogen" by other scholars.

- You have not been able to present us with either evidence or conclusions. Instead, you have repeatedly attacked and poured scorn over people who have demanded such things.

- On the other hand, PIE is based on solid evidence and its proponents have left us clear instructions, evidence, and reasonings to be "nachvollzogen".

- Their conclusions are based on a comprehensive understanding and comparison of the languages involved.

- On the other hand, you are demonstrably ignorant of several branches of Indo-European. You have admitted that you know not a single Slavic language. You actually pour scorn and disdain over people who have
learnt languages unknown to you.

- To sum up, Magdalenian fails miserably already on the level of scientific method, which you disparagingly call "meta-level". Thus, no more discussion is needed.

- And as an addition, you cannot simply expect that everybody else is happy to discuss language as you define it. If you want to enter mainstream scientific discourse, you use mainstream scientific definitions for things.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Oct 5, 2019, 3:19:37 PM10/5/19
to
Sat, 5 Oct 2019 09:01:30 -0700 (PDT): M?cis?aw Wojna-Bojewski
<craoi...@gmail.com> scribeva:

Vervuiling. Hou daarmee op.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

marc verhaegen

unread,
Oct 7, 2019, 6:36:14 PM10/7/19
to
Op zaterdag 5 oktober 2019 08:37:15 UTC+2 schreef Daud Deden:


> > > > > > Selection of endurance capabilities and the trade-off between pressure and volume in the evolution of the human heart
> > > > > > Robert Shave, Daniel Lieberman ... 2019 PNAS 116:19905-10
> > > > > > https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906902116
> > > > > > Unlike other great apes, humans evolved multi-system capabilities for moderate-intensity EPA, but it is unknown if selection acted similarly on the heart. We present data from a sample of humans, chimps & gorillas, showing that the human (LV) evolved numerous features that help to augment stroke volume (SV), enabling moderate-intensity EPA. We also show that phenotypic plasticity of the human LV trades off pressure adaptations for volume capabilities, becoming more similar to a chimp-like heart in response to physical inactivity or chronic pressure loading. Consequently, the derived human heart appears partly dependent upon moderate EPA, and its absence (+ a highly processed diet) likely contributes to the modern epidemic of hypertensive heart disease.

> mv: > > > > > This is a beautiful example of traditional anthropocentric just-so thinking, that apes leaving the forests evolved into "hominins"

> dd: > > Human ancestors left the forest CANOPY. Those that left the forest entirely always camped under trees eg. Khoisan.

> mv: > > > > > running bipedally over open plains: the authors assume that human ancestors initially hunted & gathered,

> dd: > > They did.

> mv: > They did not: they collected waterside & shallow-aquatic foods.

> dd: That was part of their diet.

We know +- what they ate:
1) Mio-Pliocene hominoids (dispersal in Tethys coastal forests): fruits, aquatic herbaceous vegetation (papyrus, sedges, frogbit, waterlilies, cattails etc., probably also shell/crayfish e.g. mangrove oysters cf thick enamel originally & stone tool use by all great apes,
2) early-Pleistocene Homo (coastal dispersal: Java, Flores & islands): predom.shellfish, possibly also sea-weeds,
3) late-Pleistocene early H.sapiens: more fish & waterside foods, but isotopes still between freshwater & marine foods.

Google "coastal dispersal of Pleistocene Homo 2018 verhaegen"


> mv: > > > > > and then try to collect data that fit this unscientific idea.
> > > > > > In fact, their data (e.g. stroke volume, cardiac plasticity) are better explained by a littoral lifestyle (incl. wading bipedally & shallow-diving),

> dd: > > They did, mostly along shallow crystalline streams.

> mv: > Your "crystalline streams" might perhaps be late-Pleistocene in some populations,

> dd: From Morotopith.

Nonsense, DD: do you think humans still look like Morotopith.??


> mv: but all data show that early-Pleistocene Homo dispersed along coasts, rivers & islands, from Java & Flores to E.Africa & the Red & Med.Sea.




> > > which they didn't even consider: early-Pleistocene Homo dispersed intercontinentally along African & Eurasian coasts, rivers & islands, collecting different waterside & shallow-aquatic foods, rich in brain-specific nutrients (DHA etc., absent in savannas).




> > > > > > Endurance Running Versus Underwater Foraging:
> > > > > > An Anatomical and Palaeoecological Perspective
> > > > > > Stephen Munro 2013 Hum.Evol.28:201-212
> > > > > > The dominant theory of human evolution has long been that humans evolved as a result of leaving the forests and becoming better adapted to life in more open, arid habitats (terrestrial model). This idea pre-dates Darwin's ideas on natural selection, has never been subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny, and is far less credible than the alternative model proposed here: that human evolution occurred as a result of adaptations to a littoral environment

> dd: > > Super-littoral

> mv: > Meaning "very littoral"?

> dd: Littoral and beyond.

= deeper into the sea? No, DD.


> mv: > > > > > in which ancestral populations for part of the time foraged under water for slow moving, immobile and sessile resources such as shellfish; dispersed around coasts; and moved up rivers to inland wetlands,

> dd: > > Crocs & apes at swamps, Homo was at shallow streamside.

Try to be more specific:
-early-Pleistocene Homo was very littoral: POS etc.
-late-Pleistocene H.sapiens became more wading


> mv: > Early-Pleistocene Homo was littoral:

> dd: Stream-side.

No.

Daud Deden

unread,
Oct 8, 2019, 5:33:45 PM10/8/19
to
Lots of claims.

This is Sci.lang group, the science of human language.

marc verhaegen

unread,
Oct 17, 2019, 6:15:31 PM10/17/19
to
Op dinsdag 8 oktober 2019 23:33:45 UTC+2 schreef Daud Deden:

> > > > > > > > Selection of endurance capabilities and the trade-off between pressure and volume in the evolution of the human heart
> > > > > > > > Robert Shave, Daniel Lieberman ... 2019 PNAS 116:19905-10
> > > > > > > > https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906902116
> > > > > > > > Unlike other great apes, humans evolved multi-system capabilities for moderate-intensity EPA, but it is unknown if selection acted similarly on the heart. We present data from a sample of humans, chimps & gorillas, showing that the human (LV) evolved numerous features that help to augment stroke volume (SV), enabling moderate-intensity EPA. We also show that phenotypic plasticity of the human LV trades off pressure adaptations for volume capabilities, becoming more similar to a chimp-like heart in response to physical inactivity or chronic pressure loading. Consequently, the derived human heart appears partly dependent upon moderate EPA, and its absence (+ a highly processed diet) likely contributes to the modern epidemic of hypertensive heart disease.

> > > mv: > > > > > This is a beautiful example of traditional anthropocentric just-so thinking, that apes leaving the forests evolved into "hominins"

> > > dd: > > Human ancestors left the forest CANOPY. Those that left the forest entirely always camped under trees eg. Khoisan.

> > > mv: > > > > > running bipedally over open plains: the authors assume that human ancestors initially hunted & gathered,

> > > dd: > > They did.

> > > mv: > They did not: they collected waterside & shallow-aquatic foods.

> > > dd: That was part of their diet.

> > We know +- what they ate:
> > 1) Mio-Pliocene hominoids (dispersal in Tethys coastal forests): fruits, aquatic herbaceous vegetation (papyrus, sedges, frogbit, waterlilies, cattails etc., probably also shell/crayfish e.g. mangrove oysters cf thick enamel originally & stone tool use by all great apes,
> > 2) early-Pleistocene Homo (coastal dispersal: Java, Flores & islands): predom.shellfish, possibly also sea-weeds,
> > 3) late-Pleistocene early H.sapiens: more fish & waterside foods, but isotopes still between freshwater & marine foods.
> > Google "coastal dispersal of Pleistocene Homo 2018 verhaegen"


> > > mv: > > > > > and then try to collect data that fit this unscientific idea. In fact, their data (e.g. stroke volume, cardiac plasticity) are better explained by a littoral lifestyle (incl. wading bipedally & shallow-diving),

> > > dd: > > They did, mostly along shallow crystalline streams.

> > > mv: > Your "crystalline streams" might perhaps be late-Pleistocene in some populations,

> > > dd: From Morotopith.

> > Nonsense, DD: do you think humans still look like Morotopith.??



Humans have drastic brain enlargement (DHA), ext.noses (semi-aquatic), SC fat, fur loss, male pattern alopecia, full plantigrady, loss of grasping toes, H.erectus had moreover: platycephaly, ear exostoses, supra-orb.torus, platymeria, pachy-osteo-sclerosis, island colonizations etc.: these people were typically littoral animals.



> > > mv: but all data show that early-Pleistocene Homo dispersed along coasts, rivers & islands, from Java & Flores to E.Africa & the Red & Med.Sea.




> > > > > which they didn't even consider: early-Pleistocene Homo dispersed intercontinentally along African & Eurasian coasts, rivers & islands, collecting different waterside & shallow-aquatic foods, rich in brain-specific nutrients (DHA etc., absent in savannas).



> > > > > > > > Endurance Running Versus Underwater Foraging:
> > > > > > > > An Anatomical and Palaeoecological Perspective
> > > > > > > > Stephen Munro 2013 Hum.Evol.28:201-212
> > > > > > > > The dominant theory of human evolution has long been that humans evolved as a result of leaving the forests and becoming better adapted to life in more open, arid habitats (terrestrial model). This idea pre-dates Darwin's ideas on natural selection, has never been subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny, and is far less credible than the alternative model proposed here: that human evolution occurred as a result of adaptations to a littoral environment

> > > dd: > > Super-littoral

> > > mv: > Meaning "very littoral"?

> > > dd: Littoral and beyond.

> > = deeper into the sea? No, DD.




> > > mv: > > > > > in which ancestral populations for part of the time foraged under water for slow moving, immobile and sessile resources such as shellfish; dispersed around coasts; and moved up rivers to inland wetlands,

> > > dd: > > Crocs & apes at swamps, Homo was at shallow streamside.

> > Try to be more specific:
> > -early-Pleistocene Homo was very littoral: POS etc.
> > -late-Pleistocene H.sapiens became more wading



> > > mv: > Early-Pleistocene Homo was littoral:

> > > dd: Stream-side.

> > No.

> Lots of claims.

No claims: facts.
This is Sci.lang group, the science of human language, google:
"speech origins 2017 verhaegen"
0 new messages