Human language gene's origin not as recent as previously thought

[Marxism-Thaxis] Human language gene's origin not as recent as previously thought Charles Brown Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:24:39 -0800 This implies that language originated earlier in human evolution than previously thought. CB

http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/

The Neanderthal genome includes the human version of the FOXP2 gene. In my most recent post on that finding (see: Narrowing Down the Suspects) I said: The original dating of the appearance of the FOXP2 gene in its human form put it between 200 and 100 thousand years ago. Many arguments about the recency of language have claimed authority based on that date, and now find their cards are very weak. ... In November 2006 this blog reported on a paper presented at a conference in Stellenbosch, South Africa claiming that the original dating effort on FOXP2 had been grossly in error and the true date of the human version of the gene was 1.8 to 1.9 million years ago. ... I have emailed the paper’s main author, Karl Diller, to ask for an update on his work, but have not yet had a response. Now I have gotten a response. In a nutshell, he is sticking by his earlier findings: It is true that the [original] date for FOXP2 was widely cited before the Neanderthal results, but I would say that hardly anyone believes anymore that the FOXP2 mutations were recent. The accepted date for the common ancestor with Neanderthals is ~660,000 years ago. We stand by the genomic evidence and our date of 1.8 or 1.9 million years ago for the FOXP2 mutations.

More Carl Zimmer reminds me of a letter Molecular Biology and Evolution (here) arguing that the Neanderthal gene is a contaminant from inbreeding with Homo sapiens. These things will be argued for some time, and as I said in my Narrowing Down the Suspects post: ... all dates on this gene are likely to be taken with several grains of salt without multiple, independent confirmations.