Hallo!

On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:53:15 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> > Hallo!
> [...]
>  > Which tells a lot about their lack of inventiveness. 
> 700,000 years,
>  > and *still the same tools*?
> 
> The article doesn't say that they are the _same_. It says 
> that there is a resemblance.  We know very well that human 
> development was very slow and gradual during the early 
> palaeolithic.

Yes, it was very, very slow.  This slowness is the reason why I
speculate that pre-sapiens hominins were qualitatively less
inventive than we are; also, our species definitely must have
had some kind of edge over the others, as we were the only ones
to survive.

> Also travel was not quites so easy as in later  
> times; it some time for early hominins to spread out of Africa.

Sure.

>  > But some animals achieve quite much in the way of 
> organization and
>  > cooperation without even the tiniest hint of language; 
> take a look
>  > at various eusocial insects.  If bees and ants can 
> construct hives
>  > of remarkable complexity without language,
> 
> Insects are a very type of animal from mammals. Ant colonies 
> and bee-hives can be considered in some ways as a single 
> complex organism.  I recall some musing about re-incarnation 
> once wondering if one came back as a single ant or a whole 
> colony. I think there has evolved quite a complex method of 
> intercommunication between the individual insects within 
> such colonies. This will, of course, be very different from 
> what we understand as human language.

Sure.  Insects compare poorly with mammals, and insect hives can
verily be called "super-organisms".

>  > early hominins could
>  > probably build rafts with only "half-developed" langauge.
>  >
> 
> I assume that language, like every thing else, evolved over 
> a very long period. But I am becoming more convinced that 
> language pre-dated Homo sapiens.

Certainly, language evolved over a very long period.  There is little
reason to asume that Australopithecus mastered more than what chimps
can do - and that already is quite a bit.  Homo erectus certainly was
much more skilled in this regard, and from then on language evolved
*gradually* towards more complexity.

--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html