IN THE BEGINNING WAS Aword. What was it and what others followed? Steven Mithen’s Language Puzzle seeks to solve this conundrum by rolling out the long-range guns: pre-historic archaeology, anthropology, primatology, and human evolution. The search for his linguistic quarry proves to be a catholic sift through humankind’s advent and our eventual, formative babbling and beyond.
From the outset, “taxonomic uncertainty” clouds the emergence and extinction of early hominin species. Some things we know: humans and chimpanzees last shared an ancestor 6 million years ago; in common with us, they use tools (e.g. sticks to bring termites out of mounds), walk on two legs, and have strong social ties, as shown in co-operating, playing, making friends and foes. Like other apes and monkeys, they grunt, bark and screech, but lack…
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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2024