Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!labrea!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Thought/Emotion/Feeling
Message-ID: <841@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 88 06:51:39 GMT
References: <569@epicb.UUCP> <1146@arctic.nprdc.arpa> <1857@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <1152@arctic.nprdc.arpa> <1863@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <1153@arctic.nprdc.arpa>
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Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
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In article <1153@arctic.nprdc.arpa> bickel@nprdc.arpa (Steven Bickel) writes:
>The primary
>   occurence in the last 10,000 years has been the development of
>   lauguage, which, followed or coresponded with the significant 
>   increases in cognitive processing with long term memory.

I am fascinated to discover that someone _knows_ what the cognitive
capacities of our ancestors were >10 kyr ago.  Given that the first
cities (Catal Huyak (sp?) and Jericho) were built around 9 kyr ago,
I have a really hard time believing that language developed only	
within the last 10kyr.  The only definite piece of evidence that I
know of about when human language developed is the configuration of
the larynx.  One of the major features which distinguishes mammals
from other creatures is their ability to breathe while eating.  We
are exceptional: we can't, even though other apes can.  Apparently
the location of the voice-box can be distinguished in some fossils,
and this is a _clue_ to when speech might have come into existence.
I haven't got the relevant references handy, but I do recall that
Cro-Magnon man had the right configuration right from the start, so
we're talking about rather more than 10 kyr.  There is some doubt
about whether Neanderthals could speak, but that doesn't mean that
they didn't have _language_: they might have used manual signals.
Given the evidence that Neanderthals had some kind of religion, it
is difficult to believe that they did not have long-term memory.

"Correspond with" = "exchange mail with".
I think Bickel may have meant "correspond to".