Re: Human Language.

John Waters (jdwaters@dircon.co.uk)
24 Dec 1996 09:38:49 GMT

Al Curtis <alc@azotus.com> wrote in article
<59jk7h$3mh@news0-alterdial.uu.net>...
> "John Waters" <jdwaters@dircon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> >Peter Crowley <pcrowley@indigo.ie> wrote in article
> ><59csaa$318@news.indigo.ie>...
> >>
> >> Hunting is most unlikely at this time. The A-piths
> >> certainly did not have the anatomy for it; neither
IMHO
> >did
> >> H.erectus.
>
> >JW: This is interesting, Peter. Just what sort of
anatomy
> >is needed for hunting?
>
> It seems clear, as a result of research conducted by Alan
Walker and
> others, that due to secondary atriciality in newborn H.
erectus
> babies, the species had to have had a diet very rich in
protein.
> Unless H. erectus spent all its time locating kills from
which to
> scavenge scraps, hunting was clearly a primary occupation
of the
> species.

JW: Right. Alan Walker also noted that H. erectus had a
much smaller gut than the Australopithicenes, which
suggested more meat and less fruit etc. But did H. erectus
hunt, or gather shellfish? Did H. erectus have a hunting
anatomy (whatever that is?).

And since this thread is about language, Alan Walker also
claimed that H. erectus was dumb, by which he meant the
species had no language. Is this correct? Can you hunt
without language? Can you make war without language?

If H. erectus could manage without language for nearly two
million years of its existence, why did H.s.s need
language?

Could it be that language wasn't actually needed by the
species, but arrived as a result of another long-term
evolutionary process?

John.