Current Anthropology
1994

Armstrong, David F. Stokoe, William C. Wilcox, Sherman E. Signs of the Origin of Syntax. Current Anthropology, Aug. – Oct., 1994. Vol. 35 (4): 349-368.

Within this article Armstrong, Stokoe, and Wilcox touch on the origin and evolution of the human capacity for language. They agree with a “continuous” hypothesis that language evolved slowly, as opposed to a “discontinuous” hypothesis that suggests language just appeared with the modern Homo sapiens. They suggest that gestures were a precursor and stimulator of syntax, “building blocks of syntactic language.” They touch on four major topics they build a scenario to support their theory: sign language, language as gestures, semantic phonology, and language-cum-syntax. On the topic of sign language the authors argue that it is equal to spoken language on the level of communication and cognitions, but different in surface structure and nuerophysiology, enough so that the study of such would provide insight to the evolution of language. They express favor towards Milo and Quiatt’s argument that the cognitive ability for language came before spoken language, deriving from the evolution of gestures; but disagree with their view that gestural systems were not fully syntactical when modern human vocal tracts appeared. Under the segment labeled “Language as Gestures” the authors go against the traditional idea of speech as abstract, formal linguistic units, and explain how speech can be described in terms of gestures. For example, the word ‘spoon’, if each letter is said alone there is no lip rounding but when combined the vowel segments force lip rounding. If language is thought of in terms of gestures or segmented activity the evolution of such is a continuous progression of gestures, supporting the authors’ original argument. To support the idea that language can be described as a collection of gestures, Stokoe introduces semantic phonology, the third segment of the article. The idea behind semantic phonology is that a sign can be seen as a combination of a gestured noun and gestured verb, so the sign is an agent-verb construction. By having a way to give gestures phonological aspects it allows sign language or gestures in general to be discussed along the same plane as speech. Next, the authors take the idea of semantic phonology into the final segment of the article, “Evolution of Language-cum-Syntax.” They believe the analysis of the structure of gestures can provide insight for the origin of syntax. They then discuss Greenfield and Savage-Rumbaugh’s “evidence that pygmy chimpanzees are capable of inventing and consistently using simple rules for relating classes of objects and actions.” This would be expected of early hominids according to the authors’ continuity theory. So, this would suggest cognition and communication progressed continuously, and syntax derived incrementally from presyntactic behavior. They go on to suggest that their scenario could also support the evolution of the large human brain. After a rather confusing discussion about the link between the left hemisphere of the cerebrum, cognitive development and language; the article concludes with a summary.

Comments
The commentators all at least agree that Armstrong, Stokoe, and Wilcox’s theory is plausible. They each then pick a segment the strongly agreed with or wanted to comment on. For example, Ben Blount comments on expanding out view of what language is. Catherine Callaghan commented that it is refreshing to read an article that takes an evolutionary perspective and offers a good question. “Why did we not maintain communication systems similar to one of the languages of the deaf?” Adam Kendon does criticize the way “gesture” is used without a detailed description of the word.

Reply
Armstrong, Stokoe, and Wilcox reply by basically thanking everyone for their helpful ideas and explaining some of their confusions. For example, they reply to Kendon, by explaining that they did not specifically define “gestures” intentionally because their focus is on finding a unity in bodily basis’s of language.

CLARITY: 2

NICOLE NARDONE Temple University (Deborah Augsburger)

Kim, Seung-Og. Burials, Pigs, and Political Prestige in Neolithic China. Cultural Anthropology, 1994, November. Vol. 35, No. 2, 119-141.

Seung-Og Kim presents a brief work on the importance of pigs in Neolithic Chinese culture. The author argues that pigs were not only depended upon highly for sustenance, but also functioned as a symbol of power and prestige in a culture rising into social and political complexity. By using archaeological data previously collected from various research, the author attempts to make inter-site and intra-site interpretations on the frequency and locations of pig interment in Neolithic Chinese burials. The author examines four sites in the Shandong province: Yedian, Sanlihe, Chengzi, and Dawenkou. These four sites are the largest Neolithic burial sites in the area, and are felt to represent primary and secondary centers. Using ample figures and tables to illustrate his data, Kim examines the number of burials, their spatial orientation, pig interment, grave wealth and other factors and, from this, determines that pigs were used as a means of expressing and maintaining political power and prestige in Neolithic China.

Comments:
The overall opinion of the reviewers is that Burials, Pigs, and Political Prestige in Neolithic China is an overall success, giving the author praise for using comparative methods to explore a region relatively prohibited to non-Chinese archaeologists, and for incorporating historical and ethnographic aspects and comparisons into the archaeological research. Despite these praises, the reviewers offer much constructive criticism to the author. Some examples of these critiques are mathematical application and interpretation, areas of insufficient development, inconsistencies in data, and weakness in evidence. In general, that article was well received as a first attempt to analyze the data.

Reply:
Due to the large variation in critiques, the author chooses to respond to the two most frequent comments: the use of pigs to manipulate political control and their use in the long distance exchange of prestige goods. The author attempts to clarify these two aspects by further explaining the data (statistical and ethnographic) and his subsequent interpretations. In summation, the Seung-Og Kim receives the critiques graciously and agrees that the argument can be improved in future work by the incorporation of many ideas noted by the commentators.

CLARITY: 3

JAMIE SHAMROCK, Temple University, (Deborah Augsburger)

McGhee, Robert. Disease and the Development of Inuit Culture. Current Anthropology December, 1994 Vol. 35(5):565-594.

Robert McGhee presents an argument that runs contrary to much archaeological theory concerning the replacement of Thule culture with Inuit culture in Arctic Canada and Greenland. McGhee contemplates his supposition that the Inuit culture developed out of a devastating series of epidemic diseases resulting from contact with European traders. His theory rests partly on the analogy of the catastrophic results of European contact with the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas. Furthermore, a good deal of his motivation for finding an alternative to the hegemonic theory of the development of Inuit culture seems to relate to his desire to reevaluate the anthropological perspective on a culture that anthropologists considered to be virtually uncontaminated by the West. The author associates the environmental-ecological adaptation perspective of Thule to Inuit culture negates the historical reality of European, pre-columbine, contact and the disruption this must have entailed.

Comments
Rather surprisingly there is not a single commentator who responds to McGhee's theories of the Inuit culture's development out of the ashes of a series of epidemics. The opposing arguements take various lines of reasoning. There is one commentator who respects McGhee's attempts at offering an opposing hypothesis that McGhee himself proposed earlier in his research among the Inuit. The standard argument appears to be that the Inuit developed out of a reaction to their physical environment. However, one commentator sensibly responds that there is a lack of research and access to the plethora of undiscovered archaeological sites that must exist in this very inhospitable environment, inconducive to preserving, for example, the ice huts that the Inuit (and possibly Thule) used.

Reply
McGhee produces a chart outlining the approximate time line of the existance of the Thule and includes information relating to both Nordic and European contact. He admits that his reaction and new hypothesis concerning the development of the Inuit was in partial reaction to the 400th anniversary of Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas. Futhermore, he wishes to align the theories surrounding the decimation of the indigenous populations of the Americas with that of the indigenous populations of what is now Northern Canada and Alaska.

CLARITY: 4

PHILIP MORRIS SHRAGA-FIVEL ROTHBERG Temple University (Deborah Augsburger).

Smith, Eric A. and S. Abigail. Inuit Sex-Ratio Variation: Population Control, Ethnographic Error, or Parental Manipulation? Current Anthropology, Dec., 1994. Vol. 35 (5): 595-624.

Population data on Inuit groups from 1880-1930 report a substantially lower amount of female children. Many researchers have attributed the difference to female infanticide. Others have argued that the data is flawed because girls, who marry at a younger age then boys, were counted as adults. This perspective also explains why most groups have a near equal adult sex ratio despite the child differential. By comparing life model tables to the data, Smith and Smith show that faulty data collection methods can only partially explain the imbalance. They conclude that female infanticide explains the remainder of the difference, a lower rate then previously claimed. They then challenge prominent explanations of Inuit female infanticide. For Smith and Smith, population control theory is inadequate because it assumes long-term scarcity of resources and that families would sacrifice for the group. Another theory that proposes that female infanticide was a response to high adult male mortality is discounted, despite moderate quantitative evidence, because the ethnographic record contains no supporting qualitative evidence. Smith and Smith next dispute the evolutionary theory that the sex that costs less will be preferred. The Inuit case is contrary because boys, who marry much later, actually cost more. Smith and Smith propose the differential payback hypothesis: boys cost more initially but their contributions as adults surpassed those of women. This theory can also account for the balance of adult sex ratios. High male mortality rates, due to harsh environmental conditions, would encourage infanticide in order to increase the chance of having a son by decreasing the delay between births.

Comments
Most commentators thank Smith and Smith for reviving evolutionary ecology and praise their use of life model tables. Several offer suggestions for how their argument can be strengthened. One notes that their method for calculating rates of infanticide and then confirming it by comparing the results to rates of adult male mortality is a circular argument. Another commentator disagrees with Smith and Smith’s explanation for infanticide and believes that endogamy and patriarchal authority are responsible. Another doubts that infanticide is the cause of the recorded imbalance and reminds the authors of the Inuit practice of raising some female children as males until puberty.

Reply
E. Smith thanks the commentators who support the differential payback hypothesis for progressing the argument. He expands on their method to demonstrate that it is not circular as the data for rates of female infanticide and male mortality were obtained independently. Smith says that endogamy was not widespread enough to account for the imbalanced sex ratio and that preventing their daughters from marring out was not sufficient motivation to kill them. Smith says that gender switching could account for a small portion of the difference but it was not common enough to discount infanticide.

CLARITY: 4

DANIELLE K WESTERGOM Temple University (Deborah Augsburger)

Symboling and the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic Transition. Current Anthropology. 35(4):1994.

Marin Byers discusses the presence of symbolism between Upper and Middle Paleolithic cultures in Southwestern Europe. His argument is that during the transition to the Upper Paleolithic you see the origin of symbolism amongst this cultural group. To confirm this claim would have wide-archaeological implications, in that it requires the acceptance of symboling and associated activities as being rule-governed and therefore their material had a rule-governed style. Furthermore, Byers states, that non-symbolic cultures perform only material behavior, whereas symboling cultures perform material actions. Byer describes this rule-governed symbolism as reflexive behavior, or in short, behavior that is done unconsciously but modified by a human’s own mental content. Symbolism as defined by Byers is a rule-governed rather than end-goal oriented behavior. Throughout this paper Byer gives examples of what he calls ruled-governed behavior, claiming that there are theoretical grounds to state that all symboling behavior is indeed rule governed rather than end goal behavior which can be distinguished by reasonable benefits for the individual.

Comments
Many commentators accuse Byers of not paying attention to the archaeological record. The commentators agree that symbolism is more apparent in the Upper Paleolithic then in earlier cultural groups, but argue that there are many signs of symbolism before this time. They also chastise him for not dealing with objects on functional terms, and instead just searching for rule-governing evidence; in short that Byers misinterprets archaeological evidence as symbolic in nature. These criticisms not only question artifact function and interpretive data sets, but the collection analysis itself and the ability to, recognize objects as “stylistic,” “rule governing,” or “functional.” Lastly issues arose surrounding his proof for such symbolism in the Upper Paleolithic, criticism his ability to articulate substantial evidence for this symbolism or behavior.

Reply
Byer replies that he took some knowledge for granted when he wrote his article, expecting the reader to have some background recognize his proof from the citation of well-published articles. During this reply he does admit he is not an archaeologist of the Paleolithic, however his issues were meant to be viewed from the aspect of looking at symbolism from practical theory or a post-processual view. In applying our understanding of our own symbolism to the Paleolithic. To summarize he takes heed as many points are presented by the commentators and generalizes to say there are many theories of the innate human ability to be “effortlessly reflexive beings.”

JOE GINGERICH (Temple University) Deborah Augsberger.

Wilkinson, T.J. The Structure and Dynamics of Dry-Farming in Upper Mesopotamia. Current Anthropology December, 1996 Vol. 35(5): 483-520

Mr., Wilkinson’s article is used to back up his hypothesis that during the Bronze Age settlements, depending on rain, in the Mesopotamian states did not exceed 100 hectares. What makes his research unique is the range data used, especially off-site, by Wilkinson.
This article is extremely dense as each page is packed with fact after fact with little breathing room. Wilkinson first gives an overview of his hypothesis and goes on to discuss the study region and the types of settlements (pattern, hierarchy, size, etc.) that are located there. It is about now that Wilkinson gets to testing his hypothesis. He argues in some areas for the land only supporting the growers while his main argument rests on the idea of surplus agriculture from the satellites feeding urban centers, which still have a size cap of 100 hectares. He uses a wide range of data from linear hollows and site catchment boundaries to ceramic sherds that he may rely, as we will see, too heavily on. The sherds represented storage or movement of agriculture in ceramic bins and their use in manuring. Wilkinson used the sherds to estimate whether there was storage or import/ export of grown goods. His article is not a quick read, but a long intense study intended for the serious researchers of archaeology.

Comments
Many of the responses to this article fit the same pattern: excitement at a new study by Wilkinson, accolades for Wilkinson, questions about the use of sherds, and finally a quick statement about Wilkinson’s wide range of data. Depending on the responder, the sherd issue was either lightly blown over or looked at in depth. Many believed it did not hold the relevance that Wilkinson would have liked. Joan Oates cited the fact that a single thunderstorm carried sherds 15-20 meters into another plough. Another commenter did not like that Wilkinson only looked at the villages as suppliers of grain surplus without looking at the sociological implications.

Response
Wilkinson responds to the issue of the sherds with a quick joke and then jumps in to his defense. His reasoning was the continuity of sherd patterns dispersed throughout the settlements. He also uses a lot of climatic examples that were left out of his original essay to discuss the manuring (fertilizing) of the land. He ends this response in another burst of humor rebutting a comment made about his lack of pastoral research. His response is extremely clear and easy to read and a great overview of his academic paper.

CLARITY: 3

WILLIAM L. WACKER Temple University (Prof. Deborah Augsburger)

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