Investigating Cognitive Abilities of Early Humans

Abstract

Abstract It is generally agreed that there is no direct evidence about the cognitive abilities, linguistic and non-linguistic, of early humans. There is an approach, though, that has been used to fruitfully investigate the linguistic abilities of these humans. Known as the “Windows Approach,” it proceeds from the assumption that inferences about early forms of human language, including their origin and evolution, can be drawn from other phenomena about which there is direct evidence. These other phenomena are taken to be or provide windows on such forms of language. The central idea expounded in the present chapter is that the conceptual constructs of the Windows Approach can be used to investigate non-linguistic abilities of early humans as well. The chapter does this in three steps: first, by setting out in general terms what a window of the kind concerned is; second, by illustrating the use of core concepts, distinctions and principles of the Windows Approach to make and appraise inferences about linguistic abilities of Neandertals; third, by showing how some of these conceptual constructs have been used in accounts of non-linguistic abilities of early humans. The focus here is on work that draws inferences about cognitive abilities of these humans from hafted spears, and from traps and snares used for capturing smaller animals.