0095 How does Razie Mah’s e-book, The Human Niche, differ from Newson and Richerson’s treatment of the Paleolithic, stretching (say) from 100,000 to 20,000 years ago.

0096 First, humans have enormous, energy-demanding brains.  What are people using their brains for?

Are they responding to the frequent and dramatic climate changes during the late Pleistocene?  Or, are they using their brains to explore the semiotic opportunities available to hand-speech talk?  One language tradition contains two fully linguistic modes of expression.  Plus, each mode of expression offers very different semiotic opportunities.

Initially, speech adorns hand-talk.  What an adornment it is.  Humans chatter like birds compared to other hominins of the Middle Paleolithic.  Plus, adornment adds to every team tradition.  Artistic artifacts appear more and more often in the archaeological record.

0097 Second, what types of abstraction are humans conducting with their hand-speech talk?

They are developing styles of implicit abstraction.  The judgments of implicit abstraction are built into our bodies, our “phenotype”, due to our “adaptations”.  One beauty of the way that the authors conflate “adaptation” and “phenotype” into one three-level interscope is that the situation-level actuality_2b, a secondness₂ within secondness_b, corresponds to the hylomorphes, body [and] mind_2b, culture [informs] brains_2b and social interactions [stimulate] hormone responses_2b.  These all speak to implicit, rather than explicit, abstraction.  These hylomorphes are diverse and innate.

0098 So, when do we (humans) start performing explicit abstraction?

Or, is explicit abstraction an unintended consequence of an event where something went wrong?

More on that, later.

0099 Third, humans grow up to fit into a family.  In this, Razie Mah and the authors agree.  However, Newson and Richerson do not develop the themes of other social circles, such as intimate friends, teams (where linguistic hand talk first evolves), bands (today’s parties, bars and workplaces), communities (today’s neighborhoods, churches, and clubs), mega-bands (today’s sport bars, festivals and county fairs) and tribes (today’s political rallies and feast-day celebrations).  All these entail sign-processing and yield implicit abstractions, an exemplar for culture [informs] brains_2b.  Imagine a world where all the social circles work in harmony.  Now, that would be like “original justice”.

0100 Fourth, the family, in particular, celebrates male-female pair bonds.  The family may be described as a three-level interscope, as portrayed in A Primer on the Family, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0101 Fifth, humans are built to endure starvation.  The authors stand out on this point, I admit.

One would imagine that the first organ to shut down when there is not enough food is the energy-intensive brain.  Forget that!  Our bodies prepare for famine by accumulating fat.  Lots of fat!  When food becomes scarce, our bodies metabolize those stores of fat instead of turning off the brain.  After all, the stomach has to complain to somebody, and that is the brain.

The authors shine in this vignette.

0102 Fifth, humans evolve to live longer than is necessary for only reproduction.

Of course, at 100kyr, most humans die of acute infections, other diseases, accidents, predators and people of different cultural phenotypes.  Those who live longer become more and more valuable, not only to their own families, but to various teams, the band, the community, the mega-band and the tribe.  These old folks know the timeless stories that contain valuable information, particularly about rare events.

Sudden changes in the Pleistocene climate may be separated by hundreds or thousands of years.  The old folk keep precious memories.

0103 In chapter six, the authors shift their attention to 30kyr.  This is the time of the Upper Paleolithic, known for innovations in tool manufacture and artistic expression.

Scientists are at a loss to explain the creativity.  Why are humans making clever and well-honed tools now, instead of much earlier?  Why are humans making art that… well… looks better than modern art?  Does it have something to do with changes in the Earth’s climate?  Does it have anything to do with ecological expanses such as Beringia, stretching from eastern Europe to northwestern America.

0104 Why the efflorescence of art and personal decoration?

Why are humans so interested in adornment?

0105 The hypothesis that speech is added to hand talk at the start of our species, two hundred thousand years ago, should allow contemporary archaeologists and natural historians to envision an unexpected causality.  The addition of speech to hand talk gradually opens new vistas into sign-processing.  At first, the voice adorns the word-gesture.  Then, the voice adds a symbolic overtone to the iconic and indexal word gesture. Then, the voice takes on a life of its own.

0106 Consider the famous (or, should I say, “infamous”) Venus of Willendorf as someone who a lonely fellow can talk to.  Newson and Richerson suggest that some Paleolithic cave drawings are… well… pornographic.  Or, are they merely depicting the footprints of various animals?  Their discussion is truly entertaining.

0107 Pierced shells are loaded onto strings.  Speech-talk adorns hand-talk.

In this chapter, the authors offer an extensive interlude describing a tribal gathering.  The characters speak, but they could just as well engage in hand-speech talk.  The Neaderthal and Denisovans probably practice only hand talk.  They do not have the adornment of speech talk.  Humans are like birds.  They are constantly speak as they flutter about.

0108 The authors dwell on a spectacular Paleolithic burial found at Sunghur in Russia.  It dates to between 34 and 25kyr.  What is the story behind this burial?

Well, it must have something to do with “culture”.

Today, when a late modern denizen of the West says the word, “culture”, one typically imagines performances of classical music played on very expensive instruments by highly trained technicians.  One does not think of culture as “information”, much less “habits of sign-processing”.  The specialized vocabulary of anthropology takes the word, “culture”, as its own.  “Culture” is what asks for interpretation.

0109 However, interpretation comes in two flavors.

Implicit abstractions interpret hand and hand-speech talk.

Explicit abstractions interpret speech-alone talk.

So, when the “cultured” musicians play their score, they hope the audience draws implicit abstractions.

But, within each audience, there are “critics” fully capable of drawing explicit abstractions, in order to sell their witticisms to someone who needs content for their snooty publication.

0110 Did I recently read of a performance where the French horns sounded like wolves baying at the moon?How civilized is that?

0111 So, what have Newson and Richerson missed?

Well, as far as Razie Mah’s, The Human Niche, is concerned, I should turn the question around and ask, “What does their book have to offer?”

0112 Here is the fourth depiction of the authors’ approach, using the three-level interscope.

0113 The authors’ approach may be rendered as a purely relational structure.  Key terms in their discussion are on display in every slot in the three-level interscope.  Every slot is occupied.  Particular importance is given to category-crossing terms.  

0114 Because completed three-level interscopes are inherently satisfying, the authors various arguments deliver a feeling that they all come together into a coherent whole.

This is an implicit abstraction.

This book holds together like a well-performed orchestration.

0115 Not unsurprisingly, Razie Mah proposes that the three-level interscope may serve as a purely relational model for langue, the mental system of differences that relates to parole (expressed as hand-talk, hand-speech talk or speech-alone talk).  One human may engage in word-gestures (hand talk) or vocal utterances (speech talk) as parole, but all conversants fill in the blanks of the same relational structure, the three-level interscope that is langue.

See Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2017) Why Only Us?, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0116 But, is the above interscope correct?

No and yes.

No, examine the first column in approach 4.  The virtual nested form in the realm of normal context does not hold together.  Does the normal context of natural selection_3a virtually bring the actuality of sociality_3b into relation with the potential of body development_3a?   Uh, what am I saying?  Yes, it seems to hold together.

That is one beauty of filled-in three-level interscopes.  Even when the interscope is somewhat questionable, the satisfaction gained from having each element occupied is profound.  This is what humans evolved to do.  Newson and Richerson, as professional anthropologists, have (perhaps unintentionally) illustrated one of humanity’s hidden evolved traits.  It is hidden, because anthropologists, pretending to be scientists, rather than rational inquirers, seek out and promote only material and instrumental causation.

0117 Another hidden gem within their approach is pictured in red in the following diagram.

0118 The dyad, body [and] mind_2b, encompasses both social interactions [stimulate] hormonal responses_2b and culture [informs] brains_2b.  The body_2b concerns signals.  The mind_2b concerns signs.

0119 To me, this gem touches base with the notion that hominins adapt to a wider and wider variety of social interactionsin terms of both cathexis and cognition.  Plus, this gem also reminds us that culture consists in information, defined as both signs and sign-processes.  Finally, this gem re-emerges in our current Lebenswelt as one of the evocative distinctions realized from many civilized traditions.  In the Greek and Roman and then Christian traditions, the normal context of spirit₃ brings the actuality of mind [and] body₂ into relation with the possibilities inherent in a soul₁.

0120 This brings me to the stair and step pattern that transports the reader from the realness of genes_2a to the potential of reproductive success_1c.  The stairs coincide with the author’s category-crossing imputations in the terms, “phenotype” and “adaptation”.  The steps go either from potential to actuality or from actuality to potential.

Follow the green arrows in the following figure.

0121 While I may be disappointed that the authors do not identify sign-processing as a key feature of the human niche, I am not disappointed in the authors painting in all the elements of a three-level interscope with features of their story about us.  If, as noted earlier (point 0115), the three-level interscope gives us insight into the nature of langue, then their success in this regard presents the reader with a work of art, as well as a work about science.

Indeed, the authors offer a new look at human evolution.

0128 The authors warn the reader.  There is no “progress” to evolution.  But, there are trends.

There is no “progress” for creatures that make their living within one ecology and one environment.  Why?  Ecologies and environments are always changing.

But, what of a genus whose ultimate niche is the potential of triadic relations?

And, what if signs are triadic relations?

Every ecology and environment is perfused with signs.

Plus, once the southern apes are on their feet, their hands are free for talking.

Then, southern apes hand-talk while cooperating with one another on team activities.

Culture is perfused with signs.

0129 The authors offer another warning.  Runaway natural selection can occur.  Consider the utter uselessness of the beautiful and eye-catching tail of the male peacock.  Yes, it is useless except for one problem.  The female peacocks are impressed by big, beautiful, eye-catching displays.

Is the runaway character of talk similar to the runaway character of the peacock’s tail… or should I say?… the peacock hen’s expectations.

0130 Speech is added as adornment to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.  Perhaps, sexual selection is involved.  Perhaps not.  Why?  The adornment of speech adds a strange semiotic ingredient, a spice, so to speak, to the semiotics of hand talk.  Without letting go of the iconic and indexal character of hand talk, speech adds a symbolic richness, as if the gestural words are distinct from one another, not because of habit, but because they are wrapped in distinct envelopes of formant frequencies.  Each hand talk word images and indicates a referent that can be pictured or pointed to.  But, the addition of speech as an adornment adds a situational expression.

0131 A situational expression?

Sort of like the tail of the male peacock?

Uh oh, is this the start of runaway natural selection?

0132 What happens to humans during the Late Paleolithic, the Epipaleolithic and the Early and the (start of) Developed Neolithic?

Are the archaeological sites of Goblecki Tepe, Neolithic Jericho, Catal Huyuk and Stonehenge dramatic achievements of hand-speech talking cultures?

What is notable about all these sites?

These sites belong to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

These cultures never clearly develop unconstrained social complexity.  Rather, these cultures seem to evaporate as civilization appears in Mesopotamia, then Egypt, then India, and then China.

0133 Towards the end of chapter seven, the authors introduce topics that apply to our current Lebenswelt.

If the authors had been familiar with Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall (or at least, the simple proposal offered in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace), then they would have heard that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0134 There is a twist in human evolution.

Here is a picture.