Dan, Edwina, Gene,
Dan
the Pirahãs... are initially welcoming. But you must make yourself
useful to the community. They do not have the luxury of accommodating
people who cannot carry their own weight.
I enjoyed your writings about the Pirahãs, and I certainly defer
to your expertise on anthropology. I have never met any hunter-
gatherers, but I do know Chomskyan linguists. And I liked the
anecdotes about the clash of theory and practice.
But when I used the word 'visitor', I meant it as a temporary state.
People in any culture are annoyed (or worse) by visitors who overstay
their welcome -- unless they "carry their own weight".
Edwina
Most of us don't think about economic thresholds and the sustenance
limits of a particular economic method - but, these critical lines
are real...
Every economic system has its limits. I had the luxury of working
at IBM for 30 years, starting when they had a monopoly (but refused
to use the word). While I was doing research, I was aware of pressure
to be "relevant" to the bottom line. Although my main interest was
in language, I chose a title for my first paper on conceptual graphs
that would emphasize applications: "Conceptual graphs for a database
interface": http://jfsowa.com/pubs/cg1976.pdf
Gene
But the interesting point is that the long-term evolutionary
characteristics John mentions, which include increased social
cooperativeness, remain deeply embedded in the human temperament.
Yes. My main point is that cooperation and communication is
essential for all living things from bacteria to humans. But
when famine or other crises create a scarcity, self preservation
can lead to greed, hoarding, theft, war, and even cannibalism.
Edwina
You don't get a city, i.e., a large hierarchical and specialized
population without FIRST being located in an ecological area that
can produce a surplus of food; that can support a large population;
that then becomes specialized in tasks.
Yes. Archaeologists have been discovering failed cities and
civilizations around the world. In many cases, the civilizations
thrived for several centuries -- until some long-term drought
or other catastrophe caused the ecosystem to fail and the cities
to be abandoned.
Edwina
Born to be wild? ... I've no idea what that means; I think
we are born to be socialized - which is why we have language,
a symbolic form of information storage and communication.
Yes. Anthropologists are pushing back the dates for the earliest
proto-languages. The great apes (chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and
orangutans) communicate among themselves with gestures. All four
species can also learn a useful subset of human sign language.
When Australopithecus walked upright, they probably supplemented
their gestures with some kind of vocalization.
Deacon writes about the co-evolution of language and brain.
That would imply Homo habilis (with a larger brain and better tools
about 2 million years ago) was very likely building on whatever
vocal signs they inherited from Australopithecus.
The much better and more complex tools by Homo erectus (1 mya)
were very likely accompanied by a better protolanguage. See, for
example,
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dietrich_Stout/publication/51818100_Stone_Tools_Language_and_the_Brain_in_Human_Evolution/links/00b7d524c29c5b7d37000000.pdf
John
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