James Steele 
              (University of Southampton; 
AHRB Centre for the Evolutionary Analysis of Cultural Behaviour)

        "What can archaeology contribute to solving 
             the puzzle of language evolution?"

There is an appealing parsimony in some recent models of language
evolution, which indicate that structural regularities in language can
emerge through the self-organization of assemblies of co-operating
agents (alas, the technical detail sometimes goes over the head of this
archaeologist - but that is perfectly fine, since people in my
profession are used to taking things on trust).  These models inevitably
assume some level of cognitive pre-adaptation, but some also implicate a
process of genetic assimilation (the 'Baldwin effect').  I will review
archaeological data relevant to tracking the evolution of two dimensions
of human language: social co-ordination, and cognitive/behavioural
lateralization.  One question which we might want to ask is this: Did
key aspects of hominin social co-ordination emerge prior to cerebral
laterality - such that the latter is a manifestation of a Baldwin
effect? Or did it happen the other way round, with cerebral
lateralization as a preadaptation? Archaeological data should be able to
help us find the answer. 

In the first half of the talk, I will review evidence for the evolution
of hominin social strategies during the Pleistocene.  Using the
different coevolutionary models of R.  Dunbar and of D.  Bickerton as a
convenient dichotomy to structure this part of the talk, I will argue
that there is little evidence in the Pleistocene for Dunbar's large
co-residential social groups, in which conversation would have served to
maintain large numbers of simultaneous relationships under time
constraints.  There is clearer evidence for small but more intensely
co-operative groups in which exchange would have been carefully
negotiated and monitored - as proposed by Bickerton.  A further
dimension of social strategy is implicated by indirect evidence for
socio-spatial co-ordination among highly dispersed members of hominin
social groups.