Leslie Aiello

University College, London

l.aiello@ucl.ac.uk

``Fossil and other evidence for the origin of language''


For many years the origin of language debate was dominated by the work
of Lieberman and colleagues who suggested that the Nanderthals had vocal
tracts more similar to those of the modern apes than to those of modern
humans.  A corollary of this was the assumption that the human vocal   
tract, with a low larynx and a correspondingly long pharynx,
considerably increased the chance of death by choking.  Based on this it
was argued that the pressures selecting for human language must have
been considerable indeed to override the increased risk of mortality.
Analysis of UK death registers over the past 100 years suggests that the
risk of death is minimal in relation to other causes of death and that
there is no elevated risk of death from choking at the ages when the
larynx is descending during human ontogeny.  Research also shows that
the mechanisms of swallowing are similar in humans and other mammals.
In this context arguments are made on the basis of fossil material to
suggest that the descent of the larynx took place relatively early in
human evolution and had little to do with direct selection for human
symbolic communication.  The low position of the human larynx can be 
viewed as an exaptation in the context of language evolution and the
major cognitive changes that underlie human symbolic and syntactic
communication.