Professor Quentin Atkinson of the University of Auckland joins me to discuss his work on the origins of language and the evolution of culture. Professor Atkinson gained widespread recognition for his 2011 paper in the journal Science in which he used modeling techniques from evolutionary biology to show how human language can be traced to its origins on the west coast of Africa. I discussed this briefly in the last episode Language V - The Great Leap.
In our conversation we discuss this work and how understanding the core elements of languages can tell us about the movements and histories of human populations, how cultures are shaped by folktales and stories, the importance of connecting the past with the present as we attempt to understand ancient cultures and how the big questions in science can benefit from an interdisciplinary approach which applies diverse problem solving techniques to problems both old and new.
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https://www.quentinatkinson.com/
Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa. Q. Atkinson (2011).
Pagel, M., Atkinson, Q. D., Calude, A., & Meade (2013). Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 110(21):8471–8476. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1218726110
Ross, R. M. & Atkinson, Q. D. (2016). Folktale transmission in the Arctic provides evidence for high bandwidth social learning among hunter-gatherer groups. Evolution and Human Behavior, 37(1):47-53. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2015.08.001
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