Table 1.

Computational technic of the Paleolithic

Grammar type	Grammar/language	Automata class	Archaeology	Human fossils
Type 0	Unrestricted or recursively enumerable	Turing Machine	Later Middle Stone Age (<75 ka)/Upper Paleolithic: artifact design exhibits properties of natural language	Homo sapiens
Type 1	Context sensitive	Linear-bounded nondeterministic Turing Machine	?	?
Type 2	Phrase structure or “context free”	Pushdown automaton or finite-state machine with memory storage	Later Lower Paleolithic (<500 ka)/Middle Paleolithic: composite artifacts (hierarchically organized strings)	Neanderthals
				Denisovans
				Homo heidelbergensis
Type 3	Finite state or “regular”	Finite-state machine	Lower Paleolithic (>500 ka): core tools, flake tools, handaxes, single-component wooden artifacts	Homo erectus
				Homo ergaster
				early Homo

Application of the Chomsky Hierarchy of formal models of grammar/language (16–18) to the Paleolithic archaeological record suggests that generation of the full range of Neanderthal artifacts requires the equivalent of a type 2 grammar/language.