April 14, 2011 · Articles

The Archaeological Record Speaks: Bridging Anthropology and Linguistics

By Sergio Balari, Antonio Benítez-Burraco, Victor Longa, Guillermo Lorenzo, Juan Uriagereka


International Journal of Evolutionary Biology 2011 (1), 382679

This paper examines the origins of language, as treated within Evolutionary Anthropology, under the light offered by a biolinguistic approach. This perspective is presented first. Next we discuss how genetic, anatomical, and archaeological data, which are traditionally taken as evidence for the presence of language, are circumstantial as such from this perspective. We conclude by discussing ways in which to address these central issues, in an attempt to develop a collaborative approach to them.