neanderthals

Humans get their linguistic functions from the left side of the brain (the left cerebral hemisphere, to use the proper semantics - more to come). But why? How did we begin using this 'hemispheric lateralisation' (told you!); setting us on the road to modern language? A team of American experts claims chimpanzees, our nearest cousins, hold the key.

The group, from Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, recently completed a study of 70 chimpanzees over a ten-month time period (published in Elsevier's Cortex, Jan 2010), recording their communicative gestures both towards humans and each other. Specific movements included 'arm threat', 'extended arm' and 'hand-slap', fulfilling social roles like attention-seeking, excitement, threat, reconciliation, grooming, play or aggression.

A research team from the University of Liverpool, led by Evolutionary Anthropology PhD student Emma Nelson, reckon they’ve made some tenuous inroads into establishing just how much early human-like primates liked to play the field when it came to sex. With it, they may have found some clues as to why Homo sapiens managed to see off Neanderthals as the dominant species on the planet.