Genomic study indicates our capacity for language emerged 135,000 years ago
3 comments
·March 17, 2025ggm
This appears to be an argument for terminus ante quem and useful in that sense but it ignores the possibility there is a far earlier terminus post quem when the actual language capacity emerges.
I think it true(ish) that in a model strongly aligned to a single root language the point of segmentation is the last point language seen in all post-fragmented states can exist. But I don't see why that is also the first point. It's just the one we can detect genetically. There will be some subsequent genetic evidence perhaps to a specific structural change in the brain, or vocal chords, or something else, indicative of language emergence.
If holographically defined families tools pre-date this time, then abstract concepts were being communicated, even if not vocally. Show-and-tell has limits and I would argue strongly suggest concepts inherent in language existed to communicate how to do the tool making.
wglb
The paper https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.... appears in Frontiers in Psychology.
It looks like they actually say at least 135K years ago, as that is the latest it could have happened.