New research is challenging existing theories about the origins of verbal communication, suggesting ancient humans began to interact vocally long before previously thought.
An archaeologist argues that language gradually evolved after humans uttered their first rudimentary words around 1.6 million years ago, Knewz.com has learned.
Language is said to have begun between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, coinciding with the emergence of Homo sapiens. However, British archaeologist Steven Mithen, a professor of early prehistory at the University of Reading, says basic words were likely spoken between 1.5 and 2 million years ago.
Mithen made these arguments in his new book, The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved after examining all available archaeological, paleo-anatomical, genetic, neurological and linguistic evidence.
The book, published this month, details a “step-by-step explanation of how our human ancestors transitioned from apelike calls to words, and from words to language as we use it today,” according to Google Books.
About 1.8 million years ago, a more advanced form of bipedalism — walking upright on two legs — combined with changes in skull shape gave humans a greater physical ability to produce speech, Mithen said.
At this point in prehistory, the human brain experienced a significant growth spurt as an area of the frontal lobe associated with language production and comprehension first appeared.
Before about 1.6 million years ago, Mithen said humans were significantly more limited in their linguistic range, likely only producing a few dozen different sounds and arm gestures. However, this ability may have helped humans survive despite being weak compared to other animals, he argued.
“Humanity’s development of the ability to speak was without doubt the key which made much of subsequent human physical and cultural evolution possible,” Mithen told The Independent. “That’s why dating the emergence of the earliest forms of language is so important.”
Even the most basic means of communication would have been crucial to developing hunting strategies, which became substantially more advanced about 1.5 million years ago, according to Mithen’s research.
Language, he wrote, allowed humans to do three crucial and forward-looking things: Conceive of future actions, plan these actions, and pass knowledge along to others.
“That’s how language changed the human story so profoundly,” Mithen told The Independent.
His findings also challenge the idea that symbolic speech emerged suddenly, suggesting a more gradual development instead.
It took hundreds of thousands of years for language to develop, he argued, and verbal communication became more sophisticated as anatomically modern humans emerged 150,000 years ago.
Mithen also said he believes some features of the first-ever audible speech 1.6 million years ago have even been incorporated into present-day language.
The post Human’s First Words: When Did People Start Speaking? Long Before We Thought, Expert Argues appeared first on Knewz.
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Author: Marissa Papanek
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