Marwick, BenScarre, Chris2004-09-092004-09-282011-01-052004-09-282011-01-052003http://hdl.handle.net/1885/42089http://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/42089Distances of raw-material transportation reflect how hominid groups gather and exchange information. Early hominids moved raw materials short distances, suggesting a home range size, social complexity and communication system similar to primates in equivalent environments. After about 1.0 million years ago there was a large increase in raw-material transfer distances, possibly a result of the emergence of the ability to pool information by using a protolanguage. Another increase in raw-material transfer occurred during the late Middle Stone Age in Africa (after about 130,000 years ago), suggesting the operation of exchange networks. Exchange networks require a communication system with syntax, the use of symbols in social contexts and the ability to express displacement, which are the features of human language. Taking the Neanderthals as a case study, biological evidence and the results of computer simulations of the evolution of language, I argue for a gradual rather than catastrophic emergence of language coinciding with the first evidence of exchange networks.540981 bytes361 bytesapplication/pdfapplication/octet-streamen-AUPleistocene archaeologyLanguage evoltuionraw material transferexchange networks2003