'Homo' on Flores: Some early implications for the evolution of language and cognition

Abstract

The Indonesian island of Flores has yielded evidence of a new hominin species, 'Homo floresiensis', and an earlier species currently known from tools only. This chapter reflects on some of the implications the new finds may have for the evolution of language and cognition. In the light of relevant existing patterns of argument about early hominin morphology and behaviour, the Flores finds appear to weaken the argument for "big brains" as a sufficient cause of cognitive and linguistic abilities, to highlight, conversely, the significance of brain reorganisation events in human evolution, and to refocus attention back onto the very dawn of our genus as the point at which interestingly human patterns of communication and cognition are likely to have appeared.