Genomic study indicates our capacity for language emerged 135,000 years ago

It looks like they actually say at least 135K years ago, as that is the latest it could have happened.

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.

The paper https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.... appears in Frontiers in Psychology.