How did people speak in the Stone Age? Tsubami, 8 years old, London, United Kingdom *.
* Curious kidscurious children) is a series in The Conversation where experts answer questions children askChildren do about the world.
The Stone Age refers to a time in the distant past. It started about 3 million years ago and lasted until about 40,000 years ago.
It is so called because during that time our distant ancestors made their tools out of stones.
Humans like us, Homo sapiens, appeared long after the start of the Stone Age, only about 200,000 years ago.
The Stone Age began when different species of apes started making simple tools by cutting sharp pieces of stone from larger pieces of rock.
These monkeys stood partially erect when they walked, meaning that their hands were free to do things, such as making tools.
these First monkeys erect They had small brains, not unlike that of a chimpanzee, and they didn’t speak
Other monkeys that walked upright came later in the Stone Age. They were given names such as Homo habilis (“handyman”) or Homo erectus (straight man).
This species lived in Africa about 1 to 2 million years ago, long before there were people like us.
They had bigger brains than the first monkeys, but theirs were still smaller than ours. They weren’t as smart as us and didn’t talk, even if they made sounds.
About 400,000 years ago, three species that had much larger brains than the first erect apes lived at about the same time. This was called Neanderthals, Denisovans and one Early form of the species Homo sapiens: our ancestors.
Neanderthals and Denisovans lived outside of Africa in the part of the world known as Eurasia, which includes Europe.
Little is known about Denisovans, but about 100,000 years ago, Neanderthals were wooden spears and some Tools simple with animal bones Like deer in addition to their tools made of stone.
Some people believe that because of their large brains and ability to make tools other than stone, Neanderthals could talk. But this is just a guess. The last Neanderthals died about 40,000 years ago.
people like us
The first humans lived in Africa. About 200,000 years ago, early Homo sapiens evolved into what we now call modern humans.
These modern humans were as smart as us today, and They can speak using language just like we do today. “Homo sapiens” means “wise men.”
Later in the Stone Age, about 60,000 years ago, people traveled from Africa and eventually spread to the rest of the world.
In the beginning, even our ancestors Homo sapiens only made tools out of stones, but they had the ability to talk, they probably used their language to teach (their knowledge) to each other.
Over time, they learned to make different types of tools with stones, wood, bone and leather.
They had Clothes, shoes, shelters, and they hunt together To eat 40,000 years ago, and perhaps earlier, modern humans They painted the pictures on the cave walls.
There would be far fewer different languages in the Stone Age than there are today. But the existing languages would have been like ours. modern languages.
People would talk Sentences with nouns and verbsalthough the words they used were different, just like Japanese words, for example, are different from English or French words.
different languages
Languages It varies between tribes. People may have found it difficult to talk to someone from another tribe, just as we go on vacation to another country, sometimes we have difficulty understanding the language.
Languages would have had fewer words than we use today because they don’t need words for things like televisions, cars, or computers.
But like us, modern humans 200,000 years ago were calculating things. They had words for ‘mother’ and ‘father’ or ‘sister’ and ‘brother’.
They would have Names of animals and plantsThey will be able to make plans, say “please” and “thank you” and get names for each other.
Early modern humans probably talked about many of the same things we do: what we eat, who their friends are.
Parents would talk about their kids and the kids would play with each other, probably talking all the time just as kids do today. They also sang songs among themselves.
They may have been from the Stone Age, but they were contemporary when it came to speaking.
*Mark Bagel He is a professor of biologyDevelopmental Sciences from the University of Reading, UK.
*this artThis article was originally published in The Conversation and is reproduced here under a Creative Commons license. Click here to read the original (in English).
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