Scientists from Boston University (USA) proposed a theory of the emergence of modern language and human civilization as a result of a rare mutation that occurred about 70 thousand years ago. The main author of this hypothesis, Dr. Andrei Vyshedsky, published his work in the journal Research Ideas and Outcomes.

Vyshedsky’s theory offers a possible solution to a problem that has long confronted anthropologists, neurophysiologists, and other scientists. Modern science has established that the speech apparatus, similar to the current one, developed in people about 600 thousand years ago. During this period, our ancestors were divided into Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and Cro-Magnons (Homo sapiens). At the same time, archaeologists argue that the beginning of the development of modern civilization happened half a million years later - about 70 thousand years ago. It was then that for the first time complex tools, artificial dwellings, and funeral rituals appeared that were impossible without the participation of imagination and inventive activity. The reasons for the delay in the development of our species are still a mystery. To solve it, Vyshedsky proposed the so-called "hypothesis of Romulus and Remus."

The key to modern language

The scientist claims that in all modern languages ​​the meaning of the message is transmitted not only with the help of syntax and grammar, but also with the help of a person's ability to contrast objects and phenomena in his imagination - the so-called prefrontal synthesis. It is prefrontal synthesis that forms complete images in our minds, which allows us to correctly understand simple sentences in which identical words are given in different order (“we are not slaves” and “slaves are not we”) and complex descriptive constructions (“a snake on a stone to the left of a tall tree behind that hill ”). This flexibility of verbal constructions is called by linguists recursion, and all modern human languages ​​are called recursive.

Dr. Vyshedsky and his colleagues investigated the development of imagination in modern children. Scientists have found that children whose access to language in early childhood was limited did not have the opportunity to develop an active constructive imagination, which is necessary to contrast mental images. In adulthood, such people make little use of prefrontal synthesis, their verbal constructions are simpler, and some elements, such as prepositions describing the location of objects, are very rare in their speech.

Researchers have found that the development of imagination and speech are possible in early childhood. And they asked the question of the appearance of a recursive language. It is noteworthy that among Neanderthals the period of active formation of the prefrontal cortex was less than that of Cro-Magnons, and they did not have time to develop their imagination and begin to use such a language.

Dr. Vyshedsky believes that the delay of half a million years between the formation of the vocal apparatus and the appearance of a recursive language is explained by the presence of an evolutionary barrier. Cro-Magnons needed not only to develop the ability for prefrontal synthesis, but also to have time to consolidate this skill. Their period of formation of necessary skills was longer than that of Neanderthals, but it was not enough for a further evolutionary leap.

Mutations as a breakthrough condition

Scientists have found that mutations that contribute to the appearance of prefrontal synthesis and increase the period of its formation in individual individuals have occurred within one generation. Dr. Vyshedsky suggested that at some point in human society two or more children with the same mutation of brain genes appeared and met. Children consolidated the acquired skill by talking with each other, and actually invented some elements of the modern language, and then passed this information on to descendants who also had the necessary genes.

  • In modern language, a message is conveyed due to a person’s ability to contrast objects and phenomena in his imagination
  • Gettyimages.ru
  • © Westend61

Researchers named the hypothesis in honor of Romulus and Remus, raised by the she-wolf of the mythological founders of Rome (since the children were brought up by a team of ancient people who, like the she-wolf, did not speak the language). Such an “invention” of a recursive language is happening even now, for example, among deaf children in Nicaragua, scientists say.

Vyshedsky concludes that the mutation of brain genes led to the final design of Homo sapiens in a separate form and laid the foundation for the development of civilization on earth.

“The newly acquired ability to quickly map mental objects through prefrontal synthesis has greatly contributed to thought modeling and dramatically accelerated technological progress. The person who first learned to work out any plans in the mind and share them with others would very soon have to become the dominant species, ”Vyshedsky explained.