Let me try once more. Humans (biologically modern humans) had ALREADY emerged from their non-human ancestors BEFORE any of them began to talk.
^^^^ CB: Well, the larnyx is soft tissue and talking sounds obviously don't leave fossils, so on what evidence do you base the origin of talking ? The substance of talking is symbolling, which is the substance of culture, so any beings who had culture could probably talk. I suppose there could have been sign languages for a long time before talking. But apes can make vocalized sounds , so, why not "ape" talk , if you can symbolize ?
Do you agree that most anthropologists disagree with what you and Tattersall say ? Tattersall is a small minority position (maybe of one) in anthropology.
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Full human devlopment first (including cultural development WITHOUT LANGUAGE going back a couple million years before homo sapiens).
^^^^^^ CB: Most anthropologists _define_ homo sapiens as culture bearing, so to say cultural development occurred before homo sapiens doesn't make sense.
Are you saying language and talking are the same thing ? There could have been sign type languages without literally talking, if the beings had symbolling ability.
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THEN: After modern humans (just like us) ALREADY exist, then language appears at some point.
Charles's argument is the equivalent of claiming that Newton discovered gravity after studying Einstein's theory of relativity.
Carrol
^^^^^^ CB: I have to think about the analogy, but I'm not sure that talking /language is to culture as Einstein's theory is to Newton's. You'll have to elaborate what you mean.
I'd say that culture is sort of generalized language. This is the whole idea behind Levi-Straussian structural anthropology. Levi-Strauss builds a whole theory of culture based on an analogy to language, which could imply that people invented culture based on "studying" their own use of language ( which would imply that language came before culture, the opposite of what you say).
The idea that language ability is not equivalent to culture ability is very questionable. It goes against ... Take a look at Kottak's textbook on basic anthropology or any 101 text. I'll get some quotes from anthro texts on this. Lets put it this way. The anthropologists at the University of Michigan taught me what I am saying, which is the opposite of what you are saying.