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How Firelight May Have Shaped the Origins of Spoken Language
Key Takeaways
- A new paper argues that firelight may have helped drive the shift from gestural to spoken language.
- Gesture-first theory is based on ape communication and the iconicity of gestures.
- Firelight is too dim for complex gestures, but speech works in darkness.
- The hypothesis connects primatology, linguistics, and archaeology.
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DT Editorial Team··via phys.org