purple motes

The evolutionary origin of the iPhone has recently been pushed back another million years.   More specifically, scientists recently found evidence that hominini used tools about 3.4 million years ago.  Dr. Zeresenay Alemseged, Curator of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences, explains:

Tool use fundamentally altered the way our early ancestors interacted with nature, allowing them to eat new types of food and exploit new territories. It also led to tool making—a critical step in our evolutionary path that eventually enabled such advanced technologies as airplanes, MRI machines, and iPhones.

In related news, Android-based smartphones outsold iOS-based iPhones by 21% in the second quarter of 2010.  This is a major change from second quarter of 2009.  Evolution continues!

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Symbolic innovation and special forms of communication apparently spurred the earliest, enduring gatherings of large groups of humans.  The city at Tell Brak (Nagar) in northern Mesopotamia grew starting about 7,000 years ago to a resident population of about 10,000 persons 5,600 years ago.  Tell Brak grew mainly through the communicative process of population agglomeration, not internal growth through fitness advantages of economic specialization and political power.  In China from about 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, the invention and monopolization of technologies for communicating with ancestors was the basis for early states.

Large human groups closely associated with hunting and gathering behavior also seem to have been symbolically united.  In Çatalhöyük in southern Anatolia from 9,400 to 7,700 years ago, 3,000 to 8,000 persons lived together in closely packed, similarly sized houses that they entered from above.  Households were little differentiated socially and economically, and the same was true for women and men.  Hunting wild game was an important source of food for residents.   Along with these social and economic characteristics similar to those of hunter-gathers, the residents of Çatalhöyük had a rich culture -- the dead were buried beneath particular locations in the floors of the residences, the walls were richly decorated with murals, and a variety of figurines have been found throughout the settlement.

An even more remarkable hunter-gather symbolic life existed at Gobekli Tepe in southern Anatolia about 11,000 years ago.  Groups of perhaps 500 hunter-gatherers worked together for many years at Gobekli Tepe to construct a monumental complex.  It was not a fortified living space and not a center for craft work or commodity trading.  It seems to have been built before the development of agriculture, and hence it could not have been supported through the extraction of surplus from farmers.  Gobekli Tepe apparently was the site of a temple that somehow early humans were motivated to work together to create.

Music and dance probably were a central aspect of early human group formation.  Participating in music and dance provides neurological experience of group synchronization.  Singing and dancing for long periods to the point of physical exhaustion and psychological breakdown is common in the rituals of preliterate tribes.  That sort of experience can produce lasting neurological changes that foster group identity and within-group trust.[*]  What seems to have first brought humans together in large groups was not political power or economic advantage, but particular symbolic innovations and communicative practices.

Cross-species comparisons of non-human primates indicates that communication evolved with sociality.  Over a much shorter evolutionary time horizon, symbolic innovation and particular communication practices supported the rise of human civilization.  Expect the Internet to change everything.

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[*]  William Benzon has described music as producing neurological synchronization without symbolic communication.  Cognitive neuroscientist Walter Freeman calls music and dance "biotechnology of group formation."  Hebbian learning, which can be summarized in the slogan that neurons that fire together, wire together, describes enduring effects of sensory experience.

Note:  Thanks to Catalhoyuk for sharing a large number of photos.  In accordance with the license for the above photo, this post includes a share-alike provision in its Creative Commons license.

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Recent research indicates that human visual processing capabilities have shaped text. Letters in 96 non-logographic writing systems, Chinese characters, and natural scenes all have similar distributions of topological configurations. The human visual system evolved to process natural scenes. Writing systems from around the world and throughout the history of written language appear to be well-matched to the evolved visual capabilities of human beings.

This same research indicates that motor complexity of writing is less important than visual processing for reading in shaping the distribution of topological configurations. The frequency ranks of topological configurations in widely used writing systems are not significantly correlated with a measure of the motor effort required to produce the letter or character. Moreover, shorthand, which is designed to be written quickly, has a significantly different topological distribution of letters than does more widely used writing systems. Young children’s scribbles, which reflect relatively weak motor capabilities, also have a significantly different topological distribution than widely used writing systems. Within the space of relatively simple topological possibilities, motor complexity seems not to have strongly affected the design of writing systems.

This research suggests that the design of text favors reading over writing. That’s a plausible design orientation. The invention of text was probably oriented toward the market for memorializing events and storing knowledge. Those are communicative functions that involve writing that is read many times. Text messaging among family and friends is not that type of communication.

Text has other disadvantages as technology for personal communication. Compared to audible language, text has a relatively high bodily cost. Babies easily learn audible language. In contrast, the capability to read and write requires from humans a large, specialized investment in time and attention (schooling). Moreover, broad patterns of media use indicate that persons prefer spending time with audiovisual media than with text. This suggests that the marginal bodily processing cost of reading is higher than for audiovisual communication.

The design of text and the design of the human body disadvantage text messaging for presence-oriented, personal communication. Experts in the field assure me that their teen-aged daughters find great value in text messaging among their friends, value that voice communication does not provide. I respect this expertise. The research discussed above, however, at least indicates the importance of considering carefully how text messaging creates value relative to voice communication.

Addendum: The research on topological configurations in written languages is brilliant, pioneering research. Extensive discussion of the analysis and duplication of the findings would help to ensure that they are correct. I noticed that the analysis did not weigh topological configurations by frequency of use in representative text. Perhaps this wasn’t done because generating such weights might require considerable additional effort. I would like to see future research at least consider the significance of use weights.

The full citation for the research on topological configurations is:
Mark A. Changizi, Qiong Zhang, Hao Ye, and Shinsuke Shimojo (2006), "The Structures of Letters and Symbols throughout Human History Are Selected to Match Those Found in Objects in Natural Scenes," American Naturalist, v. 167, pp. E117-E139.

Update: Included in Tangled Bank #54, hosted by Science and Politics. Check out that carnival for other interesting science posts.

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