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The thing that makes this a mystery is that we think the continents separated 175 million years ago, but primates didn't evolve until only 50 million years ago.
by ClayFerguson 10y ago
The thing that makes this a mystery is that we think the continents separated 175 million years ago, but primates didn't evolve until only 50 million years ago. I guess if there were still land-bridges between the continents 50 million years ago, then it makes sense that all humans are from the same small tribe that spoke the same "original" language. Problem solved. But my point was that language could have existed long before primates, and no one knows if that's right or wrong. The fact that monkeys don't talk is moot, because they are already 98% identical to humans so you can't make any argument based on similarity. Based on genetics there is no analysis that would have predicted monkeys wouldn't be able to speak, or for that matter be as intelligent as man.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> I guess if there were still land-bridges between the continents 50 million years ago There are land connections between two groups (of 3 and 2) of the inhabited continents today, and as recently as 11,000 years ago five of the six human-inhabited continents were mutually connected by land.
- ClayFerguson 10y agoYeah the simplest explanation is the conventional one, which is that all humans came from a common tribe that migrated out of africa long after the continents had separated mostly, and the way they got to some of the continents had to have been by boat. My initial post was merely saying how interesting it would be that language could have evolved well before primates, and we would have no way of knowing it. All you have to do is look at the fact that dolphins have language, and are very intelligent. Intelligence and language is far from being specific to human brains.