Language and tool making are similar cognitive processes.
Design features for language and stone toolmaking (not tool use) involve similar if not homologous cognitive processes. Both are arbitrary transformations of internal "intrinsic" symbolization, whereas non-human tool using is mostly an iconic transformation. The major discontinuity between humans and non-humans (chimpanzees) is language. The presence of stone tools made to standardized patterns suggests communicative and social control skills that involved language.
Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. rlh2@columbia.edu
Ralph L
RL
Holloway
D000818:Animals; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013672:Technology; D053001:Tool Use Behavior