How did the early hominids think?

Our thought process doesn't always involve words. Newborn babies, for instance, are clearly thinking "WTF?" all the time, but they obviously don't have the language running through their brains. We probably think quite a bit like other animals when we're extremely frightened or otherwise overloaded. There's no real way to know, but at some point about 2 1/2 million years ago our ancestors started modifying tools---as in shaping a stone tool, that shows a certain type of thinking, as in, "if I do this, then a certain thing will happen." Other animals can do this too, though, but we can observe them. Scientists can make a cast of the inside of a skull and study brain impressions. By studying the shape and size of certain areas, they can make a guess at what type of communication or thought might have been going on. There was a pretty good PBS program on this the other day.

Humans have large brains relative to body weight and are capable of complex learning to a degree not shown by other animals. The human brain also neurologically reorganized during evolution so that humans can think symbolically. If you say 'tree' another person pictures a tree in his mind. It may not be exactly the same as your tree but then you can keep adding words to further define the tree. These words are all symbols. Humans have also adapted culture as a method of survival. People have varying jobs that taken together keep civilization running. Human ability to define these symbols and communicate them to others is crucial to civilization. In non-human primates the most rapid period of brain development occurs prior to and just after birth. In humans rapid brain growth occurs before birth and continues at least through the first year of life requiring about 50% of the infant's metabolic output.

They love their mates and family, and lived together with themn in small groups They utilized caves for shelter in South Africa and thought of using bone tools fthey made for digging termites out of mounds. Neandertal people were early humans (Nea means new and andertal means men in Latin) but before them hominids also had to be loyal to their group and love their offspring or they wouldn't have helped them to survive. but their were earlier hominids. Here is a link that will give us a clue about how they thought and behaved as a result of their thinking: we know they were jealous and were willing to steal and kill just like people today. http://anthro.palomar.edu/hominid/australo_1.htm Most food was probably plants. Were more often the hunted, rather than the hunter.

chimps speak in sign or have at least been taught to. a 100 word vocabulary would be sufficient to a simple hunter /gatherer