So, we're here in the syner of technology
and I just wanted to ask a simple question.
What was the greates technological
discovery ever made the basis for all
subsecuent technology,
and when was it made?
The gratest technological brakethrough
of human beings is language.
invented two million years ago
in the first and gratest information age
by Homo erectus: mom and dad.
Homo erectus was one of the most successful
crearures who ever walked the earth.
The lived on this planet for nearly
two million years.
We have so far lived on this planet
for a certain two hundred thousand,
perhabs as many as five hundred thousand.
So, we haven't lived the quarter
of the time that Homo erectus lived
on this planet.
Homo erectus was a marvelous creature.
Had the gratest brain the wolrd
have ever seen, maybe the universe
had ever seen.
The range of size of the Homo erectus brain
was about 950 CC, 75% of the size
of an adult Homo sapiens male
and roughly in the range of many
Homo sapiens females, and that proofs
to us that size doesn't matter.
The Homo erectus brain and body
were both phenomenal.
That was the first body Homo erectus
stood about as tall as we do.
They were probably aorund 150 pounds
and they were the first creatures
in the history of the universe capable of
persistance hunting or bipedal gate
enables us to run long distances and
cool down more efficiently than quadrupeds.
So, Homo erectus was actually able to
chase down its prey until the prey
either died of heat exhaustion or
Homo erectus beat it to dead with
a stone axe or club.
Homo erectus was a marvelous creature,
and they had many accomplishments.
Homo erectus made a variety of tools
starting with the Olduwan tools and,
they kept these tools and they
transported these tools and
they improved these tools, so they had
an upgrade: Acheulean tools
and they upgraded this to Levallois tools
and each tool was better than the one
before, but they weren't limited
to stone tools.
Homo erectus also made spears wooden
tools we have found hundreds of thousands
of year old spears, and they made
two kinds of sprears. They made spears
for throwing and spreasr for thrusting.
What does spears for thrusting mean?
It means you're a 5 ft 8 to 6 ft 1
Homo erectus male 150 lb
and you run up and stick that spear
into a mastodon.
These were first creatures, these were
brave creatures and they were
extremely intelligent creatures.
So, tools were one of the great
accomplishments that lets us know
what kind brain they were developing.
They also had representations of reality.
This is a 250,000 year old
partially naturally form and
partially artificially form by humans,
by Homo erectus venus. It's called
the Venus of Berakhat Ram,
and there's some evidence said
it was dyed red on certain parts.
A shell found on the island of a found
in Java, with engravings on the shell
by Homo erectus.
Homo erectus wasn't simply a toolmaker.
they were boat makers.
They traveled the oceans
2 million years ago.
How do we know this?
Well, the firts island that we find
evidence, is the island of Flores in
Indonesia, which would have been about
a 24 mile boat trip visible from land
about the size of the English chanel,
exept that Flores was then and now
surrounded the most treacherous
and strongest oceans currents
in the world.
They could't swim to Flores, they got
there by boat, and, this is actually
the island of Flores, and, it doesn't,
you know, I don't think Homo erectus
look quite like that.
But, archaeologists had actually
tried to simulate the voyages of
homo erectus by making graphs,
similar to the kinds of graphs that
Homo erectus would have made.
We know because of the amout of islands
that we find colonies of Homo erectus,
that their getting to these islands
was more than coincidence.
We know by the size of the colonies
the must have had there that multiple
individuals had to arrive around the same
time to start these colonies, and,
we know, therefore, that they
had the plan.
So, one was Flores, another was
Socotra. Then and now, 150 miles
into de ocean, from the nearest land,
where we find Homo erectus colonies.
That requires imagination, that sailing
to something in exploration, and
Homo erectus seems to do this.
So, there's also evidence that
Homo erectus head colonies on Crete.
So, Homo erectus was a seafarer,
Homo erectus was a toolmaker,
Homo erectus was
a very inteligent person, but
they did more than this.
Homo erectus also traveled the
world by land. Homo erectus evolved
1.9 million years ago by 1.7 million
years ago, which is not very long.
They were already in Beijin,
they were in Indonesia, they were
in the middle east, they were in Europe.
Homo erectus traveled, I won't be
sorprised when tne newspaper finaly
anounces that we have evidence of
Homo erectus in California, because
if they could walk to Beijin in a shot
period of time, It was just a little
hop skip and a jump up across the Bering
strait down into the new world,
maybe they did, maybe they didn't.
But their ability showed that they were
capable of a tremendous amount.
So, if we, now, it is not all good news
there were some deficiencies.
Homo erectus had the vocal apparatus
of a gorilla. They couldn't have made
all the sounds that we made.
They would have had a range of sound
more like what a gorilla could make.
Is that a big deal when it comes
to language? Well, no, it isn't.
There are many languages today
that have less than twelve sounds,
here's one: (speaking in Pirahã)
That's on of the languages I've worked on
in the Amazon over the past four years:
Pirahã, and it only has ten sounds if
you are a wonam, and eleven sounds if
you are a man.
And with eleven sounds you can produce
a fully functioning human language,
so, was erecrus capable of eleven sounds?
They didn't even need to be capable of
eleven sounds. You can type anything you
can communicate in English into your
computer. You can type it in Microsoft,
Word, or whatever software, or whatever
program that you use, and when you do that,
How many letters does a computer use?
Well, ultimately a computer only uses
two letters, two sounds: 0 and 1.
And, wtih those sounds you can communicate
anything.
So erectus, theoretically only needed to
make two sounds to communicate.
Our ancestors were the first and only
talking gorillas, with the anatomy that
they had. Their brains not only were
smaller, they were somewhat slower
than ours by the evidence, their
childhood development was faster tha ours,
which is disadvantage cognitively
because, our children have more time to
develop, I think is about 30 years now.
And they are able to put in the place
all sorts of cognitive mechanisms,
when I tell this joke in college, nobody
laughs, but, we know.
So, Homo erectus had andvantage and
disadvantage, but the most important thing
is that: none of the disadvantages
would have kept it from language and the
accomplishments we see.
So, rigth now scientist are exavating a
Homo erectus village about 750,000
years old and guests at off to Yakov,
in modern day Israel, and we find that
this village is organized hierarchically.
There's a section of the village for
processing animal products,
a section of the village for processing
plant products, another section of
the village where we find evidence of
the habitation. So, they not only built
villages, thuy built them in a structured
matter. So, they were capable of
hierarchical thought, they were capable of
planning, they were capable of imagination.
What makes language?
What was lackingo for them to
have language?
A language is just, in essence, two things:
Symbols and grammar.
And how many symbols do you need?
and, how many grammar do you need?
What's a symbol, first of all.
Charles Sanders Peirce, a philosopher
from United States, who lived over
a hundred years ago, defined three kinds
of signs: Indexes, which are physically
connected to what they represent.
So, you go outside, you smell smoke,
you know there's a fire.
Smoke is an index of fire.
You see a footprint, that's an index.
And the next sign, all animals need signs.
Our five senses evolved for us to be
able to read indexes.
without indexes and the ability to read
them, we can't function in the world.
The next kind of signs is an icon,
there's not a physical conetcion, but
there's a physical resemblance.
The figure of Berekhat Ram, that I showed
the venus earlier, that's an icon.
The Mona lisa is an icon.
The cross in Christianity started off
is an icon and has become a symbol.
So, you get this.
So, what is a symbol then?
The symbol is conventionally a sign that
is conventionally, or culturally connected
to its meaning.
So, take the number 4: F-o-u-r. or hold up
my fingers four.
That means what?
It means a cardinality of four,
we have to keep talking in English.
But, four is a cultural determent form,
and a cultural determent meaning.
Not all languages have mathematics.
Piraha, for example doesn't have even
the number one, there are not
mathematical concepts in that
language what so ever.
So, math is a cultural discovery,
if not a cultural construct, and
no everyone has math in that sense.
So, the symbols from math are culturally
determined.
Symbols are culturally determined.
The next thing we need to have a language,
and here's the fascinating fact.
When Peirce said that indexes come fist
and more simple, and then icons,
and then symbols.
He inadvertently, indirectly predicted
excatly what we find in the archaeological
record.
So, indexes all creatures have, those of
5 billion yeras old or however long
life been on earth closer to 4 billion.
But, when did the first icon, the first
image appear in the archaeological record?
Well, we have to go back 3 million years,
which is not that far back to
Australopithecus africanus.
And, we find in a cave of Australopithecus
to Makapansgat cave of Australopithecus
in South Africa, a small little 2 inch
by 3 inch stone