The 1.6 million-year-old discovery that changes what we know about human evolution

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. 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. open image in gallery An artist’s recreation of Homo erectus, now thought to have developed humanity’s first rudimentary language around 1.6 million years ago In evolutionary terms, language was almost certainly part of that physical strength compensation strategy. His new research, outlined in a new book, The Language Puzzle, published this month, suggests that before around 1.6 million years ago, humans had had a much more limited communication ability – probably just a few dozen different noises and arm gestures which could only be deployed in specific contexts and could not, therefore, be used for forward-planning. Although the birth of language seems to have occurred around 1.6 million years ago, that birth represented the beginning of linguistic development, not its culmination.