Exploring the Complexity and Structure of Acheulean Stoneknapping in Relation to Natural Language

Abstract

The intuition that there is a homology between sequenced action during stoneknapping and syntax in language is long-standing, but rarely explicitly analyzed. If valid, this proposed homology would allow paleoanthropolo-gists to gain a handle on the timing and context of language emergence. Here, I present the results of three pilot studies performed to explore the methods such an analysis would require, as well as the issues that such an analysis would raise. The replication of an Acheulean handaxe was videotaped, then coded. This lithic reduction was analyzed using information theory, formal grammars, and Markov models. These three analyses found: (1) in terms of information entropy, the thinning phase of handaxe manufacture is as complex as many English lan-guage utterances; (2) the lithic reduction can be represented as a Context-Free Grammar (CFG), though in reality it only has limited embedding and is largely iterative in structure; and, (3) the lithic reduction also can be simu-lated by ‘mindless’ Markov models. These results raise a number of issues. First, it is not clear how to define and validate comparable units in stoneknapping and language. It is also not clear that the flow of actions performed by a stoneknapper can be easily segmented into discrete units. Second, in Studies One and Two, it was found that handaxe replication could be simulated by both a CFG and a Markov model instantiating a Finite State Grammar. The types of cognitive mechanisms capable of instantiating these are significantly different, with a CFG requiring memory resources not needed by the simpler Markov processes. These pilot studies indicate that it is possible to utilize these methods in the analysis of stoneknapping, but a number of basic conceptual and methodological is-sues remain to be clarified.