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Submitted by greaut05 on Wed, 09/26/2007 - 6:02pm.Week I
The evolution of communication is a topic of great interest. Theorists hold many different beliefs on its emergence. Jared Diamond and Bo Graslund both discuss the evolution of Neanderthals their innovative tools and why they didn’t have what it takes to evolve into the ever communicating Homo sapiens. Bo Graslund states on (pg 111) that “Neanderthals toolkit was not the ability to think analytically, logically or in the abstract, Neanderthals brains have also been claimed to signal certain limitations in their overall ability and capacity for speech.” Jared Diamond holds that “But Neanderthal tools from 100,000 and 40,000 years ago look essentially the same. In short, Neanderthal tools had no variation in either time or space to suggest that most human of characteristics, innovation. As one archaeologist put it, Neanderthal’s had “beautiful tools stupidly made.” Despite Neanderthals’ big brains, something was still missing.” (pg 44) Bo Graslund and Jared Diamond agree on the subject of bipedal. This approach states that as bipedal evolved so did the Homo erectus. Through become bipedal we also achieved a straight bodyline in both our sitting and standing positions. This bodyline allowed us to move or bodies only a small bit to look around. In turn this made space in our necks for the throat to expand. It was this development that eventually takes us to the advent of speech. It becomes apparent through the observations of both Graslund and Diamond that if we had never managed to stand we may have never been able to speak.
