Work

Transmission of Tool-making through Verbal and Non-verbal Communication: Preliminary Experiments in Levallois Flake Production.

Year: 1997

Type: article

Abstract: We describe a series of preliminary experiments undertaken to investi-gate the relationship between complicated tool-making and the presence or absence of language in its communicative role. The experiments involved teaching two groups of university students how to make Levallois flakes by either verbal or non-verbal demonstration. The rates and mean times of acquisition of the Levallois technique and of successful flake production were compared. They did not differ significantly between the two groups. From these results, we infer that spoken language was not indispensable for Levallois flake production in the Middle Palaeolithic.

Source: Anthropological Science

DOI: 10.1537/ase.105.159

Authors: KATSUHIKO OHNUMA, KENICHI AOKI, AND TAKERU AKAZAWA

Institutions: Kokushikan University, The University of Tokyo, International Research Center for Japanese Studies

Language: English

Topic: Language and cultural evolution

Subfield: Cultural Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: University of Tulsa, University of Tokyo

OpenAlex ID: W1977295653

FWCI: 21.07

Cites: 10

Cited by: 87

Related to: 10