[language] Distant human ancestor may have spoken

[H. Mark Hubey]

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November 14, 2000

DISTANT HUMAN ANCESTOR MAY HAVE SPOKEN
from Newsday

The brain of a female individual who lived perhaps 400,000 years ago is so
similar to humans' that scientists believe she had the capacity for speech,
language and complex thought.

Doug Broadfield and his colleagues at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New
York reported that analysis of the nearly complete cranium determined that
it belonged to an ancestor of modern humans, even though the female lived
among a species whose fossils have not revealed such brain speciality.
Broadfield, a physical anthropologist starting out in the field, was asked
last year to study the fossil, which originated in Indonesia and turned up
in Manhattan last year.

It only took a moment before he realized that he was looking at a Homo
erectus, but something was off. In other fossils of the time, the skull
looks like a rugby football. But this was different, rounded and globular
like a human brain.

Full text:
http://www.newsday.com/coverage/current/discovery/tuesday/nd5778.htm

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