The Spirit in Human Evolution - Waldorf Research Institute

anatomical description of the fossil, noticed that the holes in the vertebrae, the vertebral
foramen, through which the spinal chord passes, were small in comparison to modern
anatomies. Given that erectus were of comparable body size to modern humans and
probably even more mobile, the small size of the spinal chord was puzzling. This would
imply that either the boy had less motor control, which seemed unlikely, or that there
was less sensory information passing to the brain from the lower limbs and upper body,
which also seemed unlikely. The conclusion Walker and his team came to was that the
boy, and by implication erectus generally, lacked fine control of the intercostal muscles
that move the ribs and thus control breathing.
Without this fine control of the breath, full articulated speech is not possible.
From a physiological point of view, erectus possessed the capacity to vocalize at a level
necessary for proto-language but probably insufficient for full vocal language.
Homo Sapiens Spoke
From a cultural-technical point of view, the first indications of conceptual
breakthroughs belong to the erectus-sapiens threshold, with archaic Homo sapiens (or
Homo heidelbergensis—I shall discuss this terminology in the next section). From the
point of view of social, behavioral development, this transition also seems a fruitful
place to start seeing the origins of full language. However, it is only with the arrival
of anatomically-modern Homo sapiens that full language may be assumed and only
since about 40,000 years ago that we have any real evidence for complex culture, use of
abstract symbols (Ice Age art), major technical innovation—of which much later in the
final chapters of the book.
The Fossil Evidence
What about the hard evidence, the fossils? In studying the fossil evidence for
anatomical indications of speech ability, the structure of the base of the skull is important,
as this reveals the shape of the palate. Where the soft body parts do not fossilize, the
points at which muscles attach to bones do give some indication of their size and position.
The physical preconditions for producing human speech give some indication as to how
bone shape can be “read” to deduce vocal ability.
The flatter the base of the skull along its middle axis, i.e. the roof of the mouth, the
flatter therefore the tongue lies in the mouth. The flatter the tongue lies in the mouth, the
more of it fills the mouth. The more the tongue lies in the mouth, the higher the larynx is
in the throat. In humans the larynx lies deep in the throat and the tongue falls back in the
throat and is thus rounded. The roof of the mouth, the hard palate, is particularly arched
to accommodate the rounded shape of the tongue. The extent of the arching is therefore
a measure of the shape of the supra-laryngeal airway and, therefore, an indicator of
language ability (see Fig 6.9).
Given the known shape of the cranial base of numerous skulls, and in some
cases the mandible (lower jaw), it is possible to reconstruct hominid airways with the
help of computer modelling. The first thing to note is that uprightness and the degree
of verticality of the head have a definite effect in altering the shape of the throat and the
angle between the throat and mouth. Being upright causes the larynx to slip down the
throat and makes a ninety degree bend in the supra-laryngeal tract into the mouth. So,
in a very real sense, language is related to uprightness.
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