The 1.6 million-year-old discovery that changes what we know about human evolution
by David Keys
Mar 24, 2024
3 minutes
New research has pinpointed the likely time in prehistory when humans first began to speak.
Analysis by British archaeologist Steven Mithen suggests that early humans first developed rudimentary language around 1.6 million years ago – somewhere in eastern or southern Africa.
“Humanity’s development of the ability to speak was without doubt the key which made much of subsequent human physical and cultural possible. That’s why dating the emergence of the earliest forms of language is so important,” Dr Mithen, professor of early prehistory at
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