0080 Between 1.5Myr and 200kyr (thousands of years ago), the Homo genus adapts to more and more proximate niches.  Imagine the signs offered by both nature and an increasingly wide repertoire of team activities.  Each constellation of signs pulls hominins towards adaptations involving both body and mind.  The body responds to signals.  The mind responds to signs.

Newson and Richerson discuss the Turkana boy, who undoubtedly displays promise before he gets trapped in circumstances that, over the following millennia, would allow his body to decay undisturbed and his bones to turn into stone.  Then, there is the fossilized skull of a male who had lost his teeth, found in the Caucasian Mountains and dating to 1.8Myr.

0081 What do these fossilized bones tell archaeologists?

Hominins are developing larger brains.

The Homo genus has a diet that is not the same as the australopithecines.  Perhaps, the new diet involves novel methods of food preparation, long before the domestication of fire.

Hominins domesticate fire long before the oldest hearths yet found, dating between 400 and 300kyr.  This period corresponds to around the time when the Neanderthal and the Denisovan lineages separates from (what is to become) the Sapiens.

0082 The domestication of fire, what an achievement.

The same style of Acheulean stone tool lasts for over a million years, then starts to change around the time when fire is domesticated.

0083 For thousands of years, fire has been considered elemental.

Mythologically, I could say that the Acheulean stone tools show that the hominins had tamed the element of earth.  The use of gourds to carry water tamed that element.  The use of manual-brachial gesture in hand talk domesticated the air. So, fire is the last element to be domesticated.

Oh! The Chinese civilization has one more element.  Metal!  That element belongs to our current Lebenswelt.   Earth, water, air and fire belong to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Yet, our hand-talking ancestors could not label these elements as explicit abstractions, distinct from one another.  What is there to picture or point to?  Instead, these elements enter into implicit abstractions, as sign-vehicles that come into relation with sign-objects according to sign-interpretants held in body and in mind.

0084 After the domestication of fire, the pace of hominin innovation slowly increases.  The authors do not envision the possibility that the domestication of fire not only allows cooking (which increases the calories available from wild food), but permits talk to become… how to say it?.. a team activity, of sorts.  Yes, our ancestors shoot the breeze with hand talk around the fire after a meal.

Hand talk is no longer confined to task-oriented team activities.  A general vocabulary and grammar starts to evolve.

Our lineage loves to talk.  It is a wonderful as picking bugs off of one another.

0085 Before the first members of Homo sapiens appear, maybe around 200kyr, hominins talk with their hands.  The Neaderthals and the Denisovans probably practice fully linguistic hand talk.

Yes, before the appearance of humans, all hominins talk with their hands.  So, most stories are vaudevillian.  Hominins learn to laugh like never before.  Also, our ancestors begin to use their vocal tracts in precise ways, like a musical accompaniment to linguistic hand talk.  We learn to sing.  In community and mega-band and tribal gatherings, we synchronize ourselves through song.  In doing so, the vocal tract comes under voluntary neural control.  The larynx descends to accommodate a wider range of formant frequencies and then…

… with the evolution of Homo sapiens, speech is added to hand talk.

Hand-speech talks lasts for almost 200,000 years.

0086 Chapter five starts with a snapshot of 100kyr (one hundred thousand years ago).  Anatomically modern humans have been around say, since 200kyr.

0087 The authors face a difficulty.

Surely, the fossilized skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans suggest that they are identical to us.  At the same time, the cultural continuity between say, 300 to 80kyr is remarkable.  So, anatomically modern humans enter into the world and survive for thousands and thousands of years with no rapid cultural innovations.

0088 What are they doing with their enormous brains?

Apparently out of options, the authors suggest that our energy-consuming brains are an advantage when the climate dramatically changes.  The climate of the Pleistocene is like a roller coaster.  So, the suggestion is plausible.

Or, perhaps, since most adaptations at this time are cultural, cultural adaptations demand enormous brains.  Other adaptations to proximate niches are in play as well.  For example, small differences in the ability to protect oneself from the sun (with melanin) or from the lack of sun (with no melanin to encourage vitamin D synthesis, which requires sunlight) turn into significant selectors in terms of reproductive success.  

0089 Thus I arrive at the third version of the author’s big picture.

0090 A “cultural adaptation” is a perspective-level behavior or trait_2c that influences reproductive success_1c virtually contextualizing the situation-level actuality of culture [informs] brains_2b.  Our large brains are being put to use.

A “phenotype” is a situation-level potential_1b, underlying both a cultural trait and its neural substrate_2b, virtually emerging from (and situating) neural (or brain) plasticity_1a.  

Brain plasticity_1a favors certain potentials_1b over others_1b.  For example, humans tend to recall stories containing one notable unusual event.  If there are no unusual events, the story is readily forgotten (as one expects from sensible thinking).  If there are too many unusual events, the story is hard to remember (as one expects from overtaxation of sign-processing).

0091 In one of the interludes, the authors depict a person, using speech-alone talk, rather than hand-speech talk, labeling a situation, “evil”.   Surely, the same person could have expressed such an impression without using the spoken word, “evil”.

How about a grimace?

Hand-talk the offender’s name then grimace, with exaggeration.

How does one picture or point to a situation using hand-speech talk?

One cannot.  One can only image and indicate a sign-vehicle within the situation.  Then, the others must make the connection between that gestural-word and the nasty face.  The unhappy family member juxtaposes two signs, gestural-word and grimace.  What does that imply?

Everyone, to some extent, must guess.

0092 Is that not the nature of sign-processing?  Given a sign-vehicle, say a really sharp rock fashioned to the end of a long wooden shaft, one must guess the sign-object.  So, having a well routinized sign-interpretant makes good sense.  No one wants to end up on the wrong end of that stick.

0093 To me, the fact that the authors do not recognize that the human niche entails sign processing sets the stage for a lot of hand-waving as the story about human evolution comes closer and closer to our current Lebenswelt.

0094 The human niche includes the potential of sign-relations.

Signs are triadic relations.

So, what does that say about the human niche?

If the authors had only encountered the hypothesis proclaimed in Razie Mah’s e-book, The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), then they really could have worked their imaginations.

So many stories can be told.

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.