Fragile communication

Posted on by wanderer

The basic structure described in the previous section allowed inland communities to have access, for example, to seashells, despite the fact they might never have seen the ocean themselves. However, one may ask: how is it that the people of Papua were still trading with stone axes in the 20th century? Even more so if the reader knows that Papua might be the oldest place on the planet where agriculture was developed, with some estimates suggesting that root vegetables were cultivated at least 10,000 years ago—slightly earlier than the domestication of grains in the Fertile Crescent.

That is actually a question Yali, an exceptional politician from Papua, asked Jared Diamond in 1972 when he was conducting fieldwork there to study ornithology, including birds such as the bowerbird. The actual question was: “Why do you white people have so much cargo and bring it to Papua, but we natives have so little of our own cargo?”—summarised as: “Why do your people have so many things compared to us?” For Yali, cargo was the generic term for all the items Westerners had brought to Papua since World War II. He was, in fact, asking about the technological gap between the Westerners travelling there and the local people.

Diamond spent 30 years developing an answer, culminating in his book Guns, Germs and Steel. In it, he presents two main theses:

First, geographically, some populations had more access to natural resources to begin with, such as plants and animals that were easy to domesticate. For instance, in Papua, the largest domesticable animal was the pig, while in Eurasia and Africa, cattle have symbolised wealth and power for generations. Papua also had no access to grain, while civilisations like the Mayas domesticated maize. Despite not having large animals, that was sufficient to develop a thriving and complex civilisation with many types of “cargo”. Additionally, domestic animals made human populations more exposed to germs, which they gradually adapted to. However, when these naturally engineered biological weapons encountered previously isolated populations, they wiped out 90 to 99% of the locals in less than a century. The pigs kept by Papuans may have spared them a similar fate to that of the Americas and the distant Pacific Islands.

The second thesis is that, due to geography, some areas of the world were better connected than others. Again, Diamond argued that it was relatively easy for trade networks to span Eurasia and Africa, with goods, ideas, domesticated foods, technologies, and ideologies spreading far in just a few generations. This was especially true for crops; species domesticated in one location often had suitable growing conditions across the climate zones from the Iberian Peninsula to Japan. This did not occur in other regions, such as the Americas, where many similar technologies had to be independently developed by both the Mesoamerican and Andean peoples. Their centres of domestication were only a few thousand kilometres apart. However, both groups had to independently domesticate crops like maize, cotton, and beans. Moreover, useful animals like the llama and crops like the potato, domesticated in the Andes, never reached the Mayas, while the writing system developed by the Mayas never made it to the Andes. According to Diamond, these gaps are due to difficult and diverse geographies. There is no easy land route connecting these American regions—dense tropical jungles, vast swamps, and rugged mountain ranges with dramatically different climates hinder the spread of domesticated species. Even today, in the 21st century, there is no road connecting these two areas. The Darién region, on the border between Panama and Colombia, remains impassable by vehicle, making it the only place on the continent without a road from north to south.

With these two main theses and strong reasoning, Diamond makes his case to answer Yali’s question. According to him, Papua did not have the species or connections that benefitted Europeans upon arrival. Europeans were simply lucky and thus came to dominate the known world. That left Papuans with a relatively limited set of food sources and restricted access to technologies developed elsewhere.

This view has been widely debated and does not fully account for the timing of major expansionist events. Still, the picture Diamond paints holds reasonably well until the 16th–17th centuries and the largest biological genocide in human history. Afterwards, the situation becomes more nuanced, as the connectivity of the world began to increase exponentially—but we will explore this in another chapter.

The limitation on access to technologies and information for the Papuans is related to our earlier examples of basic trading networks. These can only extend as far as humans can reliably reach each other at a more or less consistent pace. If mountains, oceans, and jungles must be traversed, the task may be too dangerous or uncertain to attempt. In such cases, communities at each end remain isolated. On the other hand, if obstacles are surmountable and there is a desire to connect, these networks can transform the well-being of participants. This is the case with the Eurasian and Indian Ocean trade networks. These spanned over 2,000 years, bringing silk, gunpowder, spices, and paper westward, and silver and wool eastward. Or take the so-called Columbian Exchange, where Europe plundered the immense wealth of the Americas, borrowed some botanical knowledge and cultural inspirations, and in turn colonised and Christianised native populations, erasing or warping their lands, traditions, institutions, and knowledge systems.

Returning to our earlier examples and thought experiments, these scenarios depicted only weakly connected communities. For instance, fragmented travel and exchange networks were the norm in the Papuan highlands. Although goods like axes or shells could travel freely, people could not. Residents of a group traditionally could not travel far beyond their territories or their closest trading partners. Unannounced or long-distance travel posed great risks—aggression, even death—making lone long-distance trade virtually non-existent. Commerce beyond immediate neighbours was carried out by intermediaries. Each of these intermediaries usually took a cut or incurred costs, inflating the final price of the item. This inflation could only go so far—only items of high value or buyers with considerable resources could justify the costs. This effectively limited how far an object could travel and placed natural boundaries on the kind of connection network described in the previous section. This is comparable today to drug or wildlife trafficking, where lightweight, high-value items traverse vast regulatory and law enforcement hurdles over thousands of kilometres.

Conversely, if exchange links are too weak or complex, they may collapse shortly after forming—before significant transfers of goods, ideas, or technologies can occur. This has happened countless times across different regions and eras. Think of a group of friends that never fully bonds, or a business that cannot reach its customers. Let’s consider some more striking historical examples. At least twice before Columbus, people from faraway regions reached the Americas, but failed to establish lasting presence or strong cultural exchange.

You might be thinking of one such example: the Vikings from Scandinavia in the 11th century. They arrived from sparsely populated Greenland, but their colonisation efforts in Vinland (modern-day North America) failed. Without delving too deeply into why, it’s clear they had the means to reach distant shores and found good land, but not much more. The distances were vast, the local resources were not especially valuable, the natives were not always welcoming—possibly becoming infected or hostile—and the Vikings had limited capacity for sustained support. Climate and political factors played a role, but ultimately the venture proved too costly for too little return.

The second example is even more epic and deserves wider recognition: the Polynesian crossing of the Pacific Ocean to reach the coast of South America. Sadly, we lack written records—like the Vinland Sagas—or significant archaeological evidence. But through genetic, linguistic, and species transfer evidence, we know that about 800 years ago, seafarers from the Polynesian islands reached South America. For context, that’s more than twice the distance Columbus travelled—and his crew believed land awaited. It’s also more than three times the longest Viking sea crossing to reach the Americas. The Polynesians had no clear reason to expect a continent ahead, yet they sailed into the unknown.

Imagine being in a boat no more than 30 metres long and about one metre wide, possibly connected to another boat as a catamaran. This platform allowed a few dozen people to bring animals, water, and supplies across the vast ocean. Some examples of these vessels—such as Druas in Fiji—could carry more than 200 people. Now imagine that your only known geography was a scattering of islands, and you did not know where or if more land existed. Countless such expeditions must have failed before one succeeded in making the 6,000 km journey—until finally, they found an enormous continent. Then they had to sail back, locating tiny home islands amid the ocean after weeks at sea. The adventure, mindset, skill, and ultimate success—after who knows how many failures—is one of the most remarkable, untold stories of human exploration.

This is not comparable with the Viking or Iberian voyages across the Atlantic. Those sailors knew something awaited beyond. The Vikings had seen driftwood from the west wash ashore in Greenland. Columbus, though mistaken in his estimation of the world’s size, expected land. The Portuguese, too, found driftwood in the newly colonised Cape Verde islands—Paubrasilia, or “firewood”, due to its red colour—which gave Brazil its name. All these peoples had reasons to expect land in the west.

We know Polynesians completed this journey because they brought coconuts and chickens with them—and brought back sweet potatoes, which later spread across the Pacific islands as a staple crop supporting larger populations. They also had children with local peoples, leaving genes still found today in Mesoamerican and Mapuche populations. There is even evidence of American ancestry in Polynesian populations.

This widespread gene flow shows that Polynesians not only crossed the ocean more than once but established contact across a broad swathe of the Pacific coast of the Americas. Unfortunately, the contact was not maintained over time, and no further instances of intermarriage are evident after 1300 CE. Furthermore, Polynesian navigational technology was not passed on to the local peoples. Native Americans would have greatly benefitted from such skills—especially considering the lack of transport links between North and South America even today.

We can speculate why the contact faded and the technology was not adopted—unlike sweet potatoes. In a simplified view, the connection was likely too distant and involved too few people to become meaningful. Perhaps the Marquesas Islands had only a few hundred inhabitants at the time, while the continent had millions and two sophisticated civilisations that saw little value in these distant seafarers. Whatever the case, the exchange was short-lived and limited.

More complex reasons could also explain the lack of adoption. For instance, Austronesian sailors from Makassar routinely travelled to the northeast coast of present-day Australia—around 3,000 km away—to harvest sea cucumbers for the Chinese market. This trade continued for centuries, ending only in the 20th century due to Australian colonial restrictions. Although contact endured, no lasting colonies were established, and the mixed communities that emerged never thrived. Some wives were exchanged, and a basic trade language developed, but local people only adopted simple technologies such as dugout canoes and shovel-nosed spears. More advanced knowledge may not have been shared—or perhaps locals weren’t interested.

Similar patterns emerged with Austronesian expansion to Madagascar and Taiwan. Though close to the mainland, these regions show little lasting influence on nearby East Africa or Southeast Asia. This suggests that Austronesians successfully expanded to uninhabited or sparsely populated areas (e.g. Pacific islands, Madagascar), but failed to make inroads in already densely populated regions like Asia, Africa, Papua, or the Americas.

In Australia’s case, the issue might have been resource scarcity. Northern Australia may not have offered enough to entice settlers. Local people may not have seen value in adopting agriculture or foreign technologies. Additionally, complex knowledge like seafaring is often guarded. Sailing is more than boat-building—it involves reading stars, winds, currents, and more. Mastery takes time, risk, and community effort. If local life was already sufficient, why go to the trouble?

Moreover, the fact that sea cucumber expeditions were male-dominated may have prevented the creation of Austronesian communities in Australia.

A good related example, but limited to technology and infrastructure, is the first transatlantic telegram cable. It was build in 1856 and it only worked poorly for 3 weeks until it completely failed. It took 15 years to build the successful 2nd cable. In this case a combination of affordability, technological improvement and willingness to communicate more instantly two continents made the 2nd attempt stuck. Now we have tens of thousands of underwater cables connecting all continents to transfer high speed data. But we could imagine many scenarios in which after the first failed transatlantic cable, the trend did not continue.

From the cases outlined here, we can see how many different scenarios could limit cultural and technological exchange, creating a nuanced and often unpredictable picture. Establishing sustained connections across natural and cultural boundaries is a long, fragile process—often with little success on the first attempt.

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Exchange network stabilisation

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From the neighbours to the oceans

Exchange network stabilisation

Posted on by wanderer
Transparent Anthropocene. Image Credit: Globaia. https://globaia.org/geophanies. Creative Commons License. The image includes Global Roads, Global Human Impacts on Marine Ecosystems, Global Urban Footprint, Open Flights, Open Street Map, and Submarine Cables.

Going back to your encounter with a stranger in East Africa, the stranger might point to one especially appealing shell garment that you are wearing. You might decide to gift it away to create a bond, and it might not be a high price to pay because, back home, there are plenty more. Therefore, you might give away more spares, as we have seen Columbus did with cloth. To reciprocate, the stranger might give some of the ore. And with that, you might part ways, the only thing remaining from the encounter being an exchange or gifting of goods. The other person will go back to her or his community and show off the newly acquired item. Between curiosity and desire, more members of the same group might crave more of such objects. Then they might go in the general direction where the first object was found. Or, alternatively, the initial individual will go back to gather more. The same can happen with you and your home group returning to the meeting point.

However it is, after your exchange with the stranger, a link has already been established between distant groups. And maybe, after the first initial gift-giving from you or the others, a more constant exchange can be produced. Initially, you do not know where to obtain their shells, nor do they know where to obtain your ore—only that you know how to obtain it from each other. They actually get the shells not from the source but from another group. And these from another, and so on, until getting to the coast. It might be more efficient to continue doing so than to start the long journey, hundreds of kilometres away into the unknown, to get to the sea and obtain the sea shells directly. Same with the ore, food, spices or other objects. It is more valuable to keep good relations with your neighbours, if there is something to gain, than going solo.

With that thought experiment, we see how a basic exchange network and collaboration is established. Such a network, however, does not seem to be sustainable, as once the desire and rarity of an item are gone, the need for the network might erode.

With more useful items beyond rarity, like tools, that network and cooperation might be strengthened. This has often happened with specialised tool-making communities. For example, in the hinterlands of Papua, in the Wahgi Valley, existed the Tuman quarries, with stones of sufficient quality to make high-quality stone axes. These stones were not found in many other places in the highlands of Papua, and the quarries and the axe-making process were solely controlled by the Tungei people. They were excellent stone-axe makers, an activity to which they dedicated most of their time. That produced a high-quality product that they exchanged with people all around the region. The trade was not only in other goods, but also in dedicated rituals, respect, holding them in high esteem, and providing women to the Tungei community. They had access to the stones and the means to extract them in an efficient communal way. Every few years, they quarried as a whole community in expeditions that lasted for months. They also had access to the main source, so they had a higher number of people with the knowledge and skills on how to prepare them—both giving shape to the blade and hafting the T-shaped handle. With that knowledge, they were able to trade for goods far beyond their immediate neighbourhood.

However, the main exchange of the stone axes was for marriage. In their area, most marriages were arranged through a complex exchange of goods between the original community of the women and the receiving one. Sea shells, ropes, pigs, feathers of the birds of paradise, and salt were used in the exchange. But in the case of the Tungei, the stone axes were used profusely to buy wives, which allowed them to be relatively wealthy, because they were the source of the stones. They would be the petrol producers of the highlands! More than two-thirds of the marriages of the Tungei were with women from external communities with whom they traded. Interestingly, they did not trade with faraway groups like the coastal ones, but they did receive, through many intermediaries, the shells coming from there.

This dominion of the trading network of the Tuman quarries collapsed when patrols from the colonial era, and later the Papua New Guinea state, routinely accessed the area and brought with them steel axes and plenty of seashells, which they gifted to the locals or traded in large quantities. Needless to say, steel axes were much more appreciated. They were more efficient—cutting one tree in a day instead of several days with the stone ones—lasted longer, and were sharper, allowing them to be used for more refined work. With the European arrival of trade goods, the marriage pattern of the Tungei swiftly changed, with only half of brides being from exogenous communities. This reflects economic changes resulting from the loss of the axe trade.

On the other hand, other Papuan communities like the Goroka still traded axes well after the steel axes and pearl shells had saturated their communities. That is because they had a specialised workforce that was in charge of mining and crafting the Dom Gaima “bride axes”—large ceremonial stone axes so big and elaborate that they were crafted in a non-functional way. They were used for bride price and display purposes, and so were a sign of prestige.

In conclusion, the thought experiments and examples show how trade, commerce, needs, rarity, crafting, prestige, and aesthetically attractive items, plus basic communication, allow the establishment of rudimentary networks that extended much further than the basic interactions a community would have with its neighbours. The basic desire, need, and curiosity for what lies beyond might have created the roots for collaborative action.

But beyond the seeds of networks, there is the establishment of strong bonds. There are many ways in which these can be maintained, with one basic mechanism being intergroup marriages. Once the network and the trust between neighbouring groups are created, exogenous marriages can follow. In fact, this is quite common in nature, where many social animals have one group member who, after reaching maturity, travels, mingles, and often reproduces in a new group. Curiously, in the case of our closest relatives—the chimpanzees—females tend to migrate to a new group as teenagers. For bonobos, it is also usually the case that females migrate, though it is not rare for males to do so, while females from high-ranking matriarchs remain in their natal group. This exogenous mating and breeding is quite common in humans. The difference lies in the diversity of strategies. Exogenous reproduction is not always the case, and many human groups display a whole spectrum of migration patterns: from only females, to only males, to a mix, or exclusively endogamous systems. On top of that, there are complex kinship strategies regarding whom one can marry, from clan systems spanning hundreds of kilometres to, on the contrary, first-cousin marriages. Contrary to popular belief, first-cousin marriages are among the most genetically fertile unions. So keep in mind: if you want to have many children, have a lot of unprotected intercourse with one of your first cousins—like Darwin did.

Another way of strengthening networks is that of debt or gift exchanges. Many academics point out that one way to keep social relations alive, strong, and reciprocal is to build them upon accountability in the form of an unpaid debt or the need to return gifts. That happens continuously in our daily lives—when friends or family do us a favour, we “feel indebted” to them. The debt is not precisely measured (i.e., there is no numerical value assigned) and might never be returned in the same exact form—it might even be rejected by the giver—but it can be given to somebody else, like when someone pays for your dinner and you later do the same for someone else to keep the balance of the world. A good example of this is the Toraja, in central Sulawesi. Their current culture invests massively in the funerals of their people. When a family member dies, the body is kept at home for years and considered still a member of the family, even being served meals daily. It is kept until the extended family can secure enough funds to hold a massive funeral—one anecdote told to me was of a family that kept the body for 20 years before finally holding the funeral. Once the body is placed in a permanent tomb—which can be a sarcophagus in the rock, hanging on cliffs, in caves, or in a grain storage-like structure—the person is considered to be truly dead. Despite that, they parade many of the mummies every year over Christmas, dressing them in new clothes, jewellery, even sunglasses. At the funerals, guests are given large gifts. However, these are not “debt-free” gifts. Each gift is recorded, along with which family it was given to, with the expectation that when invited to a funeral by that family, the gift-givers will be given something of equal or similar value—or they will lose face. One young person I spoke with there told me that “Torajas are indebted from the womb of their mothers”. Debt is inherited if you belong to a specific family and culture.

Beyond marriages and debt, infrastructure is a way to keep long-distance connections over generations and across large areas. For example, roads might extend much further than the migration routes a group would typically follow, and information—in the form of basic agreed signs and trade-related language—would travel along these early infrastructures. Once infrastructure is created, it might stabilise a distant connection, though it comes at a cost. Maintenance can be expensive. Bridges must be built and maintained by the people on both sides of a river—or rebuilt repeatedly, like the Q’ichwa Chaka rope bridge rebuilt every year using a species of grass, despite a modern bridge being nearby. One theory posits that this is the future of humanity: the maintenance of an ever-expanding technological sphere—or technosphere (which we will explore further in the future).

Once the boundary of vicinity is broken, using this array of methods, connection might expand unhindered to take over the planet in a universal way. But, as we have seen, maintaining all of this is costly, and motivation may be lacking. Why should I learn seven different languages? Why should I tire myself travelling to another village with different food and unfamiliar people? Why should I marry into another community where none of my loved ones can protect me if things go sour? Why should I be indebted to traditions and infrastructure before I’m even born? Many of these costs may have prevented communication from expanding and stabilising any faster than it has—and it hasn’t happened until relatively recently in part due to major geographic obstacles like oceans, swamps, and mountain ranges, as well as cultural taboos and long, expensive trade networks. But if those obstacles didn’t exist, there would be nothing stopping a valued good or service—existing only in one place—from eventually reaching every other part of the world, along with all the communication needed to sustain that. This was exemplified by species trade and related colonisation— but we’ll talk about that in the next section.

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Signalling

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Fragile communication

Signalling

Posted on by wanderer

Similarly to the bower bird, humans do not have highly visible physical appearance and features. We lack flashy manes, colourful bottoms, prominent cheeks, a crest, or nicely spotted furs. But like the bower birds, we do like to use objects around us as a display. Virtually all human populations on the planet like to wear accessories to their bodies, which, in many cases, increase the visibility of our bodies. Even more, virtually all human populations invest in permanent body modification of one kind or another, from an earring to amputating body parts, like circumcision. However, unlike bower birds, this decoration or modification of the bodies is done by all genders; therefore, it is not only done to attract a mating partner but also to create social links, signalling and assessment of the others, like kids sharing toys or flashing the new shoes.

Both humans and the bower birds make use of visually arousing traits that coevolved with their effect on an audience, mates. However, the incorporation of external elements directly into our body seems to be an almost unique feat of humans among vertebrates. At the moment of writing, only the bearded and Egyptian vultures have been seen to add pigmentation from natural elements like oxide baths or cow excrements to their otherwise white feathers. There is debate whether this is for protection or for mate pairing, with the most recent research pointing that the bond with partners as the most likely explanation. For bearded vultures, the female, who usually is larger than the male, tends to have a stronger red pigmentation due to the oxides, while of the two males that might be in the polygamous trio, the one that copulates the second tends to be of whiter pigmentation. This is similar for the Egyptian vultures, where the more dominant birds tend to be of yellower colour and carry stronger faeces odour. Still there is no clear agreement on their motivation. But it seems that this is an innate, and not cultural, behaviour, as acculturated Egyptian vultures raised in captivity also engage in colouring feathers once they have sources to proceed with the practice. In the non vertebrate word, only some other crustaceans and insects use elements of their environment to incorporate to their body, and usually that is done in order to camouflage, as a protection, or for matting reasons. Examples are hermit craws, caterpillars, octopuses or beetles.

Humans, on the other hand, extensively decorate themselves with external elements in virtually every society that we know of. We also have archeological records with tantalising evidence of objects that could have been used as garments going back as far as 100.000 years. Therefore, body decoration is a trait that is deeply rooted in humans and at least also for the Neanderthals, whom we repeatedly mated.

Going back to our landscape in east Africa, you can imagine that you encounter for the first time with someone that you are unfamiliar with. The first thing that you might notice is the garments that the other is wearing. They might be covered in strange black, red, yellow pigments that are not available in your area, or an extensive use of seashells of strange bones arranged in strangely appealing patterns, feathers and teeth might decorate their necks, torsos, legs, arms and head in completely different ways and fashion that you are used to see.

At this point, many emotions might come to the front, but once the ones related with fear and harm have subsided, the one that might take over you is curiosity, as we discuses with the marbles. Some of the ornaments might resonate with you as a sign of beauty, the same way that when we see a complex seashell on the beach, we have the craving for it, despite not having any use as food or protection. Or we might get attracted to another person’s tattoo, despite not representing how successful in rearing kids that person might be.

The next careful step might be an approach. You share no language, but at this point, each other probably shares the curiosity. You might point to one of the ornaments that he or she is wearing.

Pointing is, as far as we know, a universal human gesture to indicate a specific emphasis, to draw attention to the direction of what is being pointed at. Not all pointing is done with the index and an extended arm, some cultures use their look and lips or nose to point, but this seems to be an additional gesture other than the one done with the arm. Whichever way the pointing is done, we understand it to be universal and can be shared across first encounters. Even if you saw someone point with their eyes fixed to the target of interest and protrude the lips, you would probably understand the gesture straight away, as the “intention” of gesture seems to be also understood, partially, by other non-human animals.

We can expect this pointing exchange as something that has happened repeatedly all over the world with first encounters. We started to notice this interaction among distant, unknown peoples, especially since the Europeans started their extensive conquest, colonisation and exploration voyages in faraway continents. A first encounter of this kind is illustrated by the account of Cristobal Columbus when reaching the Americas, or the New World, which in fact he thought were islands far away East of Japan. He was caring several books about accounts of European voyagers who had traveled to the Asian continent in the previous centuries. Among these books was Marco Polo’s account of his life and travels in Asia.

Columbus wrote of the first encounter:

I reached the Indies in the first isle I discovered, I took by force some of the natives, that from them we might gain some information of what there was in these parts; and so it was that we immediately understood each other, either by words or signs. They are still with me and still believe that I come from heaven. They were the first to declare this wherever I went, and the others ran from house to house, and to the towns around, crying out, “Come! come! and see the men from heaven!” At every point where I landed and succeeded in talking to them, I gave them some of everything I had cloth and many other things without receiving anything in return, but they are a hopelessly timid people. It is true that since they have gained more confidence and are losing this fear, they are so unsuspicious and so generous with what they possess, that no one who had not seen it would believe it.
They never refuse anything that is asked for. They even offer it themselves, and show so much love that they would give their very hearts.

Letter of Christopher Columbus to Luis de St. Angel on his first voyage to America, 1492

Even if this event unfortunately happened because Columbus was taking natives by force, as you can notice in this account of the first encounter, there seems to be at least a shared drive for communication and signalling. This encounter happened between peoples of different continents who had never shared any communication for at least 10.000 years (if we suppose the Caribs had no knowledge of the Vikings visiting Vinland).

The basis for that first contact seems to be conducted by gesticulations and not by vocal language. We do not understand why gestures seems to be the preferred form to start bridging the communication gap, maybe because its relative simplicity compared to vocal expression, or the existence of these universal gestures like pointing, or expressions, like smiling but within us seems to exist both an innate desire to communicate and the really rudimentary tools to start doing so, which rapidly evolve into a more complex and deeper understanding. At least that is what the case of Columbus illustrates, that in no time he thought he could understand that the captives that he took considered him as a divinity, and that they were communicating so to their countryfolk.

Again, this exchange is not exclusively done by humans, almost any social animal at some point interacts with other social communities of the same species, or even other species. There is a continuous flow of individuals who go from their group and integrate into another. However, the initial conversations are really limited, and no long-term cooperation is established between non-kin groups.

Most interesting is the case of Bonobos. They are highly social creatures that communicate in a rich language. And this communication, at least for body language, goes beyond their own species and cultural groups. There is the observation that humans from Western culture understand most of their facial expressions and some of their natural hand gestures, such as their invitation to play. In the wild, bonobos have contextual messages; they use the same call to mean different things in different situations, and the other bonobos have to take the context into account when determining the meaning. This contextual communication was previously only observed in humans. Furthermore, it was studied that sounds made by human infants and bonobos when they were tickled followed a similar pattern. Also, Bonobos recognise, to a degree, that humans are ignorant and point them towards hidden objects. These behaviours probably indicate that the richness and depth of human communication goes far back in evolutionary terms, as humans and bonobo lineages diverged about 4 million years ago.

But a much more distant social animal able to communicate are bees. A scouting bee is known to have really complex patterns of dancing and gestures to point to fellow bees in the bee colony where to find certain kinds of food. However, unlike humans, no bee has been seen that goes to another colony to tell the same thing, or that they might exploit together a certain area, or build a bigger nest in cooperation with another colony to fend off bad weather or predators. No, solutions to each of these problems have to be found within the colony, and no viable complex communication exists with external groups that we are aware of.

For non-human social animals, where an individual that migrates from one group to another, the newly arrived individuals adopt or conform to the traditions of the host group and do not return or communicate between groups. Or in the case of alpha males, they can impose their traditions. For example, experimenters trained wild vervet monkeys with corn of two different colours, one blue and the other pink (the researchers chose these because they were the colours of their genitals; that is how science is done). The blue and yellow popcorn tasted sweet or bitter, respectively, for half of the groups, and the other way around for the other half. They quickly learned to avoid the bitter taste with the respective colours. Four months later, after several baby monkeys had been born, the communities were again offered the coloured corn, although this time neither had the bitter taste. Then, both adults and infant monkeys strongly preferred the same colour as before, despite neither being bitter! This behaviour reminds to the rejection of food by humans when they are offered food with strange colours, but perfectly edible otherwise. The baby monkeys who had no previous exposure to the bitter taste, almost all of them just ate the same as the mothers. Interestingly, during that period, ten male monkeys migrated to a group that preferred the opposite colour as the one they were habituated. After observing the locals, nine out of ten shifted to the local preference of colour, giving up their habit. The only exception was that of a male that on arrival simply took the position as the dominant male upon arrival to the new group. This male continued his own habit, ignoring the locals and forcing his choice on the new group.

This experiment with monkeys can be similar to one conformity experiment done with humans. In a waiting room, an unsuspecting woman is surrounded by actors who rise up after a beep sound in the room. After 3 beeps, and seeing that every other person raises up after the beep, the woman rises up like the rest of them. Then, one by one, all the actors leave the room until only the unsuspecting woman remains. Even when she is alone, she keeps standing up after beeping. Then another unsuspecting man enters the room, and after seeing and talking with the woman rising up, he joins her. More and more people crowd in, and they keep adopting the odd behaviour after two or three beeps, with the exception of one male that took several more beeps to conform. Funny enough, as the repetitions happen, the movement of all of them becomes more coordinated, like a music band playing in synchrony. But there is no real communication in these cases, just examples of conformist adaptation. The members that entered the group would conform to whatever tradition was followed unless a new member took a position of dominance.

Whatever is happening with the monkeys and the popcorn seems to be similar to the humans and the waiting room. Some entrenched social learning mechanisms are taking the reigns of the individuals of each group to facilitate for the transmission of random cultural knowledge. This transmission is truly random in the case of these two experiments, but we can put the transmission in the context of an evolutionary pressure. For example, in the case of the monkeys, bitter taste is usually poisonous in nature, so colour → biter → poisonous; therefore, by keeping with the colour, one avoids the danger of poison even if the bitter is no longer there. But if one migrates to a new environment, it is better to follow the local norm, both to feel to fit in and because local differences might be different –when in Rome do as the Romans. The lone dominant male could go away with unchanging behaviour because truly the corn that he preferred was neither bitter nor poisonous. For the case of humans, it can be the same. Social conditioning might have evolved deeply, and it can be punished for not bending to the local norm, even if that contradicts the previous behaviour. That can relate to how people wearing clothes in a nudist beach feel uncomfortable and might be frowned upon by the nudists. Only people with a strong moral superiority would not conform and not care, like when colonists did not adapt their clothing to the places they were conquering but imposed theirs. While, exceptionally, western conquerors and explorers would “go native” if they were surrounded fully by the local culture.

A good example of adopting into the new group, or avoiding adaptation is the case of Gonzalo Guerrero and Gerónimo de Aguilar in the early stages of the conquest of Mexico. After a shipwreck, both where captured by the mayas in Yucatan amnd initially escaped together but got separated on their scape. Gonzalo Guerrero, after 20 days running through the jungle, arrived to a costal community were they made him became a slave. However soon after, after showing his skills as luthier, carpenter and his value in battle he assisted the Mayan lord Nachan Can’s as a general, fighting against other Maya groups and the Castilians. Gonzalo probably tattooed or marked his face and wore big earrings which changed the shape of his ears. He married one of Can Nachan’s daughters and fathered three euro-american children, probably the first mestizos. The story tells that he died at his 64 or 65 years fighting the Europeans, dressed, painted and ceremonially marked like the Mayas. In contrast, Gerónimo de Aguilar, was a seminarist, and never married or wed a native, but adopted local clothing and later despised European ones and partially forgot how to speak Castilian (spanish) after 7 years. He also became a warrior and a general for his later master Ahmay, who seemed to have second thoughts about sacrificing or killing him, but kept him alive and set him free because he valued his military skills. Aguilar, introducing European tactics like not capturing enemies alive, which where really useful in battles. However, unlike Guerrero, he later joined Hernan Cortés and assisted him in his conquests of Mexico, using his knowledge of the years living with the locals for that. He died covered in handicapping buboes as a soldier of the Castillians, making us wonder if these were syphilis buboes and he did wed somebody after he returned to the Europeans.

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Exchange and Gift-Giving

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An amazing behaviour from non-human animals is way seems present giving to their carers. If you own a cat that roams freely outdoors, or know someone who does, you are likely familiar with the slightly unsettling “presents” they bring home. A variety of dead or half-dead creatures—perhaps a headless sparrow on the bed or a twitching cockroach on the pillow—serve as feline offerings. These gifts are likely given because the cat considers you part of its pack, reciprocating the security, shelter, and food you provide. Alternatively, they may be trying to teach you to hunt, much as wild cats do for their young. This is particularly evident among mother cats raising kittens. Similar behaviour can be observed in lions, where females bring back food for the pride’s alpha male, and mothers present cubs with small, disabled prey—sometimes even scorpions with their stingers removed—as part of the hunting learning process of the kitties. Interestingly, this behaviour is one of the few documented examples of “teaching” outside the human realm, a concept debated by researchers studying how learning takes place in humans and non-human animals.

Other animals also engage in gift-giving, though usually in the context of mating rituals. Some species of flies and spiders, for instance, present food or other items to potential partners. Returning to corvids, they have been observed offering gifts to human carers, often in the form of shiny objects. This is intriguing, considering that research suggests corvids are actually afraid of shiny objects. Despite this, the belief persists that magpies and crows are attracted to glistening objects. While corvids have been documented presenting “gifts” to other individuals in experimental settings, these events are rare and not actively pursued, leaving the true motivations behind this behaviour unclear.

Both corvids and non-human apes share remarkable cognitive abilities in problem-solving, tool-making, social interaction, and environmental manipulation. These parallels suggest that complex cognitive skills have evolved multiple times in distantly related species with vastly different brain structures. For example, corvids and parrots perform cognitively demanding tasks at levels comparable to primates, despite having much smaller brains. This suggests that brain connectivity, rather than sheer size, is key to developing advanced problem-solving skills. This apparent case of convergent evolution may indicate that similar social behaviours and strategies are necessary to tackle shared socio-ecological challenges. Yet, while these species follow different paths in tool-making and social learning, we have not yet identified non-human examples of the kind of collaboration seen in human societies.

One potential comparison lies in large-scale infrastructure projects undertaken by collective animal efforts. Social insects provide the most striking examples, constructing elaborate nests, bridges, and even cultivating fungi. However, such projects appear to function at the colony level, with no evidence of inter-colony collaboration. An exception to this rigid structure exists among Argentine fire ants, which freely exchange individuals between related colonies, blurring the lines between distinct social groups. Beyond insects, some social animals also engage in large-scale collaborative construction. Beavers build extensive dams, and sociable weaver birds in southern Africa construct massive communal nests, accommodating hundreds of nesting pairs. These nests feature interior chambers that retain warmth at night and outer compartments that remain cool during the scorching daytime in the Kalahari. However, such complex communal infrastructure has not been observed in corvids, parrots, or non-human apes, though chimpanzees and orangutans do create nests and rudimentary shelters.

What all these collaborative species share is a sophisticated communication system, mutual benefits from group cooperation, a degree of specialisation, and the development of unique strategies tied to their social and environmental contexts.

Humans, however, have taken this a step further. We extend our networks beyond our immediate group through exchange and gift-giving, forming connections that span vast distances. In these exchanges, context is crucial—where the perceived “usefulness” of an object is shaped by the specific environment in which it is found.

Imagine a prehistoric landscape on the East African coast, where groups of foragers live between the Great Lakes and the sea. It is easy to see how these groups would not have access to the same resources. Coastal communities would have abundant seashells and seafood, while those inland would rely on savannah, jungle, or mountain resources, hunting different game and collecting unique plant species. Lakeside groups would have plentiful fish but limited access to large seashells, which would be abundant on the coast. This variation in resources stretches across just 600 kilometres—from Lake Victoria to the sea. No single forager group would regularly traverse such a distance, but a chain of six or seven groups, each moving within a 50-kilometre radius, could establish a web of exchanges over time. Such interactions lay the foundation for trade, gift-giving, and the vast cultural networks that would come to define human societies.

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Tool-making

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Tools can be seen as the means to a goal or goals. For example, a similar narrative to the shiny objects one can be constructed. Rare things were just objects to attract mates or facilitate social interaction. But obviously tools are also utensils that expand the range of resources in the environment accessible to a given individual. There are many examples of non-human animals using tools in their natural environments to widen their range of possible nutrient sources. One of the most studied behaviours is the use of stones or logs to crack nuts by non-human primates. We can perform the same exercise if we go to the countryside and see some freshly fallen nuts on the ground. Most likely, we will pick up a rock or a log and crack a few nuts for the pleasure of enjoying that small treat.

More sophisticated strategies for using tools also exist that can not be thought as tools in a strict sense, like fixed elements of an environment. And also more intelligent. I once saw a monkey in Colombia opening a coconut by hitting it against a large tree branch. I can honestly say that I could not have opened the coconut by replicating its technique, nor could I have devised the technique myself, even if I put my mind to it. For those unfamiliar with a fresh coconut, it has an inner hard shell, the same type we see in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. However, it is encased in a fibrous layer, about six inches thick, covered by a thin, smooth outer layer that is difficult to break. If you simply hit the coconut with a rock or throw it to the ground, the fibres absorb the impact, making it frustratingly difficult to access the inner part. Instead of a rock, the macaque had a neat and efficient opening process. It was a complex sequence: hitting the coconut against a large tree branch while standing on it, then rotating the coconut to remove the outer smooth layer and fibres until it had a convenient handle. Then it could crack the hard shell against the tree branch. This was a sophisticated process requiring knowledge, skill, and technique—one I have never seen a human use to open a coconut, and i counted almost about a dozen different ways of doing it on my travels.

Many other sequential, complex examples of tool use exist. In the case of birds, it has been observed that New Caledonian crows can create long-reaching tools out of short, combinable parts—connecting different short sticks to form longer ones that allow them to access food in a puzzle box. Interestingly, in that experiment, as we have seen, only one of the eight crows, called Mango, was able to piece together four or more short sticks. Therefore, intelligence is not evenly distributed among all individuals of the corvid family. Other great apes, including humans, can also use complex tools, especially to extract insects from holes and colonies.

More intriguingly, the other crows did not learn from Mango to apply his technique. His innovation, stemming from his superior intelligence, benefited only himself—perhaps allowing him to gather more food, gain a reproductive advantage, and produce more descendants who might inherit his heightened cognitive abilities. Consequently, knowledge acquired through innovation is retained only indirectly, as a genetic change—a process that occurs very slowly.

Despite their impressive tool use, neither non-human apes, birds, nor any other known species have made the cognitive leap to trading, exchanging objects or knowledge, or gifting them away. Each time a chimpanzee wants to eat ants, it must create an elaborate brush. There is no brush-making chimpanzee who exchanges their higher-than-average ability for food, grooming, or social status. Nor does Mango the crow trade his long tool with less skilled crows. There is no market or ceremony among non-human species where goods, tools, or knowledge are exchanged or given freely.

We will see that more sophisticated behaviour is needed, connectivity will allow the increased complexity of tools.

Rarity and Curiosity <- Previous Next -> Exchange and gift-giving

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Rarity and curiosity

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Let us first focus on rarity, which is conceptually easier to grasp. For some reason, we are extremely attracted to rarity. Imagine this thought experiment: there is a room full of white marbles on the floor, with just one or two red marbles, and you are allowed to pick three of them. Which ones would you choose? I can venture to say that you would probably pick the red ones.

Now, consider another room where another person is also allowed to pick just three marbles. However, in this room, the colours are inverted—one or two are white marbles, while the rest are red. Neither of you knows about the inverted arrangement.

Once both of you exit the room, you are allowed to see what the other has picked.

If there were only two red marbles in the room, you would have one or two red marbles and the rest white. Meanwhile, you would see that the other person also has one or two red marbles.

If you were now allowed to exchange marbles, which ones would you pick? The context has changed—both of you have more or less the same number of red and white marbles, but most likely, due to your previous experience, the other person would desire your white marbles while you would desire their red ones.

Other strategies might emerge, though. For example, given the possible rarity and imbalance of colours, you might choose to hold on to one white marble just in case.

This simple thought experiment illustrates how complex rarity becomes. Despite this, we have an innate mechanism that drives us to desire it. Marbles are completely useless in everyday life, and their being white or red makes no actual difference. There is no rational thought behind it—only the impulse to gather the rare.

We do not know where the desire for rarity comes from or how exclusive it is to humans. Perhaps the behaviour originates from selecting ripe fruit. However, similar curiosity and rarity-seeking behaviour can be observed in bowerbirds. These birds, native to Papua and Northern Australia, have no natural predators. Like birds of paradise, male bowerbirds have evolved complex courtship strategies. While birds of paradise have developed colourful feathers and elaborate courtship dances over generations, the plain-looking bowerbird has instead developed the ability to construct intricate and colourful structures—so-called “courting nests”—as part of its courtship strategy.

Males take years (four to seven) to learn how to build these structures, which can span several metres. These nests take weeks to construct using sticks, straws, shiny stones, and pebbles. Interestingly, bowerbirds have begun incorporating plastic rubbish into their nests. Each element is carefully arranged in complex structures that even manipulate depth perception, much like a Baroque painting, in order to attract a mate—or several. In many of these structures, a plastic piece—often an especially unattractive one, such as a torn energy bar wrapper or a crushed plastic bottle—occupies a central position. Perhaps this is not due to intrinsic beauty, but rather because of contextual rarity. Curiously, these birds also follow local trends, observing and copying the constructions of others. Young bowerbirds learn by imitating their older relatives, initially building crude and atypically coloured nests. This behaviour is particularly evident in species such as the Satin, Vogelkop (Amblyornis inornatus), MacGregor’s, and Great Bowerbirds.

Perhaps we desire marbles for the same reason—they are shiny, rare objects that can be used to attract potential mates or simply to gain the attention of our social peers. A child, for instance, may wish to show off a rare new toy to their family and friends or flaunt a shiny new pair of shoes.

Regardless of the underlying reasons, what bowerbirds lack is a system of exchange in which they can trade their surplus of blue plastic caps for an impressive white-and-green toothbrush two nests away. Instead, they resort to stealing decorations from their neighbours in an effort to attract mates. However, stealing is time-consuming and inefficient; the thief must wait until the other bird is away, sneak in, and then return to their nest with the prize. During this period, they are neither gathering food nor tending to their nest, and they are also vulnerable to theft themselves. It is far more efficient to exchange ornaments or to give them away in the hope of reciprocity—or, as some anthropologists suggest, to create a debt bond.

Beyond the intriguing fact that modern plastics have entered their courtship rituals, bowerbirds offer insight into a fundamental human desire: the pursuit of beauty taken to an extreme, combined with the imperative to reproduce. This will be analysed further in the texts.

From the small to the global <- Previous Next -> Tool making

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Curiosity and rarity, from the small to the global

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In the previous chapter, we established that humans are remarkable communicators, with the roots of language deeply wired into our brains and our methods of processing information. We share aspects of this nature with other animals, such as songbirds. There are also limitations within human communities, where individuals or groups have difficulty creating communication channels at a deep level due to differences in processing information—whether because of the brain’s wiring or due to cultural or professional distance. However, what makes us clearly distinct in the realm of communication from anything else that we know is that we seek to communicate as much as possible with our surroundings—even with our dogs, plants, and everyday objects. Children talk to their toys, and I have even seen my flatmate talk to his kombucha jar. Communication appears to be a universal need for humans, to the extent that it seems boundless within human communities. As mentioned, one human community would not only converse internally but would most likely also engage with its neighbours, with multiculturalism inbuilt in who we are.

The history of humanity is not plagued by conflict but by collaboration. As we have seen with the Palaeolithic trading networks—which spanned hundreds of kilometres—rare minerals, tools, shells or bones (what remains in the archaeological record) were found far away from their natural sources. These remains are much further afield and more widespread across the territory than what a human community would likely have been able to travel and carry with them.

The most likely explanation for that archaeological record is that exchange networks emerged through trading, whereby some communities exchanged goods with their neighbours. This exchange would have involved the same goods passing from hand to hand repeatedly until they reached distant places, across tens of pairs of hands.

This trading is not a minor matter; it involves a series of complex cognitive abilities, as well as the will and means to exchange information with neighbours who may have almost no connection to the community where the goods originated. First, one must understand the value and rarity of the materials to be exchanged. Their value might arise primarily from their rarity or usefulness. These are not simple concepts in themselves—rarity and usefulness are deeply contextual. One might combine these concepts under the term “desirability”, but that is an even more complex notion.

In the following texts, we will see how, from these small seeds, it is possible to reach Global communication and it is almost inevitable as proficiency in mutual understanding emerges, consolidates and improves over time.

Forms of communication <- Previous Next -> Rarity and curiosity

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Forms of communication

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Let us briefly explore the main forms of communication that humans tend to use before examining global communication.

Visual/Symbolic Communication

One of the most basic and almost universal forms of communication is visual communication. At some point between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago, humans across the lands they occupied began extensively using pictorial representations to depict the world around them. Even if we cannot understand the language or all the characteristics of the cultures that lived during the Ice Age in the Altamira caves, when we look at the drawings there, we can easily identify what they were trying to represent—impressive buffaloes, as well as various other animals like horses and deer, along with dancing human figures.

It remains a mystery why figurative art in the Homo lineage became dominant worldwide at that time and not earlier. Anatomically modern humans—the term palaeontologists use to describe human remains that resemble us, i.e., Homo sapiens—have existed for approximately 200,000 to 300,000 years. This increase in the use of visual communication may be the result of a gradual accumulation of increasingly complex cultural traits that allowed for more sophisticated pictorial art. Alternatively, our perception may be biased due to a limited sample size and poor preservation of earlier examples of figurative painting. Regardless of the reason, figurative art now appears to be a universal human trait, present in almost all individuals from an early age.

Human infants can identify familiar objects such as a house, a horse, a person, or even smiling and sad faces from a very young age. Moreover, children begin creating geometric figures by the age of two and produce rough paintings of figures by the age of three. By the age of five, their drawings evolve into more standardised and symbolic images.

This symbolic representation in images also appears to be a universal mode of communication among humans. Simple pictorial forms can be used to identify common animals and objects found all over the world. However, some people in cultures unfamiliar with photography struggle to recognise an animal from a picture and require a specific body part to make the identification.

You may have relied on visual communication yourself when travelling to a foreign land where you could not speak the language. In such situations, you might have used gestures to figuratively describe an action or object or even resorted to crude drawings to communicate your needs. However, this form of cross-cultural visual communication has its limitations. I encountered these limitations when I wanted to cross a river in Papua but could not find a bridge. I asked the locals for directions, but despite my best efforts, they could not understand me. Using my hands and gestures, I tried to depict a river and a bridge over it. I then resorted to drawing it in the sand with a stick, using mimics and pointing towards the river, which was not far away. Finally, a combination of all these methods did the trick. I was swiftly guided to a path through the jungle that I would not have found on my own, even if I had searched for days. At the end of the path—after crossing several streams via wooden logs used as makeshift, slippery bridges—I reached the other side of a hanging bridge, with the river rushing 50 metres below me.

Acoustic Communication

Another form of communication that appears to be universal among humans—and likely many non-human animals—is auditory signalling. For example, a high-pitched, loud scream would generally startle you and make you wary of its source. Moreover, if the sound persists—such as the crying of an infant mammal—you might instinctively try to stop it by feeding, warming, or comforting the creature in any way possible. It is not difficult to imagine that we have an inbuilt genetic predisposition to associate certain sounds with specific actions or emotional reactions.

Another largely human—but possibly primate—auditory signal is laughter. All human cultures seem to associate enjoyment and fun with laughter and its characteristic sounds.

Additionally, the intensity and duration of sounds tend to convey universal messages. Loud sounds generally indicate aggression, whereas quieter ones suggest closeness and attentiveness. Similarly, short, abrupt sounds are used to grab attention, while long, howling sounds are often associated with connection and emotional expression.

Language <- Previous Next -> Curiosity and rarity, fromthe small to the global

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Language

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The most critical basis for communication is language. It is difficult to define what a language is and what it entails. At its core, language is something that can capture deeply complex concepts—both external and internal—and transform them into words with specific meanings that can be shared with others. Therefore, it entails both an internal component, in which the brain must link specific concepts to words and structures of the language, and an external component, in which these words and concepts must be translated into structures that can be broadcast to other individuals. These broadcasts can primarily be via sound, visuals, or touch, but in principle, any channel capable of encoding information should work in order to create structured signals in the form of a language.

There is no clear agreement on how old human languages are. Some argue that they started emerging about 100,000 years ago, while others argue for an even earlier origin. Nevertheless, however they came to be, languages are an integral part of being human, shaping both how our brains function and how we understand and influence the world and ourselves.

Some examples illustrate how wired we are to shape our brains for learning a language. The clearest natural experiment demonstrating the spontaneous learning and generation of languages is that of Nicaraguan Sign Language.

In the 1980s, for the first time in Nicaragua, a school for deaf children was created, bringing together children from all over the country to live and learn in one place. Before this initiative, there was no institutionalised system to teach deaf children how to communicate. As a result, at the time of their arrival, these children’s vocabulary was limited to a few hand gestures used within their families or communities of origin, often in the form of idiolects or cryptophasia (“private languages” usually spoken by one person or between twins).

Compounding this initial lack of complex communication, the teachers at the new school aimed to teach the children lip-reading and Spanish through that method. They discouraged the use of any sign language, believing that the children would put less effort into learning to lip-read. However, lip-reading had very limited success—the children were unable to communicate with their teachers.

Despite this, communication flourished outside the classroom among the children themselves. In the courtyard and throughout their daily activities, they combined the hand gestures and signs from their respective communities and created new ones. This process of creation, sharing, and accumulation spontaneously generated a new language, which rapidly evolved into more complex structures, giving rise to grammar and a more elaborate vocabulary. This increase in complexity and fluency was particularly evident among younger generations of students, who picked up the signs from older peers and refined them with intricate flourishes and added layers of meaning.

This entire process was documented by sign language experts, who were called by the teachers after noticing that the children could communicate fluently with one another but remained incomprehensible to the teachers. Initially, these experts also struggled to understand the children, but by filming them, analysing the footage, and interacting with them using the learned hand gestures, they gradually acquired the language. Most interestingly, over the years, they recorded the cumulative process of increasing complexity, allowing us to witness how the language evolved and standardised rapidly.

Notably, the children were already familiar with a small subset of home signs. However, this is not so different from the basic signs shared by social animals or those we can teach our pets. For example, when I was living in Mallorca, I was responsible for a dog named Gordon. I could tell him “sit,” and he would sit; “down,” and he would lie down; “up,” and he would stand on his hind legs; “la pateta,” and he would sit and give me his left paw. Even more complex instructions, like “We are going for a walk, but first, we need to go to the basement,” were followed correctly—Gordon would go straight to the basement instead of heading directly outside. Not only that, but he also communicated with me: for instance, he would touch his water bowl to indicate it was empty or stand patiently by the courtyard door when he wanted me to open it. Through these examples, one might say that he and I shared basic communication and understanding, but no one would, in their wildest dreams, call that a language. Nor would a language ever emerge from these exchanges. This became especially clear when I said more complex things, like “Could you go to the cupboard, open the door, and bring me a kilogram of rice, please?” or “Do not bark at the neighbour’s dogs!” Gordon could open doors, so that part wasn’t a problem, but the rest was beyond his capabilities.

The case of Nicaraguan Sign Language is particularly important because it demonstrates the evolutionary nature of language within a short time frame and its ability to keep expanding—something that does not occur in any other non-human animal. To be fair, dogs can be trained in more complex ways than my simple set of commands (and one particular, named Chaser, learned can more than 1000 words!), and other animals, such as dolphins, elephants, circus animals, horses, buffaloes, parrots, pigeons, and crows, can learn to respond to basic commands from their human carers. Bonobos, in particular, can learn up to hundreds of hand gestures to communicate basic information with their trainers, and similarly, dolphins can understand basic sentence order. However, this is the maximum extent of their communication; it does not go any further. Nor do animals copy human language to communicate among themselves in more complex ways—not even parrots, which can mimic hundreds of human sounds, spontaneously start using them to communicate with each other. Humans, on the other hand, have the unique capacity to transform simple signals into an elaborate and constantly evolving set of communication codifications.

The connection between language and the brain is deeply rooted in humans, with both being intricately linked, as seen in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Language shapes the brain, and the brain, in turn, shapes language. The latter is evidenced by the fact that certain sounds seem to be more naturally associated with certain concepts—for instance, sharp objects are commonly linked to words with sharper sounds, while round objects tend to be described using softer pronunciations across multiple languages. Language is integral to memory, abstract thinking, and, fascinatingly, self-awareness. Language has been shown to drive much of the brain’s core “hardware”. Languages shape brains to such an extent that, most of the time, we think in a language—or in multiple languages if we are multilingual.

For those who are born deaf, rather than relying on an “inner voice” as spoken-language users do, their thought processes are shaped by visual sign thinking or the sensation of body gestures. Interestingly, deafness has a significantly greater impact on the brain than blindness. People born completely deaf and who never learn sign language fare only slightly better than the rare individuals who grow up without any language exposure. Without language, they fail to develop an “inner voice”, which is crucial for the brain’s ability to process information. This is especially significant in early childhood. Those who are not taught sign language until later in life often have learning problems throughout their lives. It seems that the brain processes sign language exactly as it does spoken language, using the exact same regions.

Communication - Culture <- Previous Next -> Forms of communication

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Growth of communication- Culture

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All of the previous examples I have highlighted until now, show living beings collaborating and cooperating require a basic feature: communication. Communication involves shared channels in which the individuals that form a group or interaction have cues and signals that can be understood by other members and entities. These are mainly visual, chemical, acoustical, and vibrational cues. With these cues, the basic structure of formations larger than the individual exists, allowing for the generation of other ways of interacting with the environment that individuals alone cannot achieve.

Out of the three bases of global reach (intelligence, collaboration, and communication), I will focus on communication as the most critical for our understanding of how we got here—that is, the capacity to communicate at many and diverse levels and across a wide range of scales. From really superficial to deeply technical ones, from proximity to global.

At some point in this arrangement, a complex cognitive structure emerged in the form of language. This sophisticated communication would encompass most forms of categorising the external and internal world of individuals in any group united by communication. Many debates concerning the limits of knowledge originate from analysing where our knowledge of the world around us is constrained by language. These debates span back centuries, for example G. Berkeley’s, A Treatise on Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) or J. Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), or take really interesting forms, like the Sapir-Whorf effect, where language might shape the essence of how we see our world. For example, many languages do not have words for numbers larger than 3 or 4, but might have hundreds of words for different scents, which we lack.

In any case, at some point language was used not only for the communication between members of in-groups, but also with external groups, becoming a federation of groups, as anthropological research shows. That is where everything really changed, where “Culture” emerged in the sophisticated form that we know and where information, collaboration, exchange, reduction of conflict and complex networks would extend the wealth of possibilities of how interact and shape our environment. This level of inter-group communication is something that has not been achieved successfully by any other living thing on this planet —maybe with the exception of the Fire Ants, and they are a only doing it for the last 100 years or so. As humans, we achieved the creation of a structure —culture— which allows detailed communication between virtually all the members of our species.

Once communication between groups emerges, everything changes. This accumulative communication allows for the complexity of the tools we use to be open-ended, as the evolution of technology and tools like large particle accelerators or space satellite constellations shows.

Communication is also open-ended, meaning that it can potentially keep increasing indefinitely, probably linked to the complexity of tools. In nature, communication channels tend to be very limited and do not show growth or evolution by themselves, while human languages are always in continuous evolution—incorporating new concepts and terms, combining existing ones, losing or forgetting others, and actually forging what is needed. This applies not only to language but also to symbols, signs, experiences, training, repetitions, etc. This indefinite addition of communication elements adapts to achieve the desired level of communication, understanding, and sharing of the initial information. To put it simply, to pass on a specific message. This depth of communication also requires boundless collaboration to construct the complex concepts needed for sophisticated knowledge.

All in all, this open-ended way of sharing messages has created what we have come to know as culture and cultural evolution—the body of messaging and knowledge that is passed from one generation to another, with the capacity to add new pieces to that pool or lose them. Moreover, we have, in principle, the limitless capacity to transmit accumulated knowledge and messages to other human beings, as long as there is a shared communication channel.

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