Human footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, reported in 2021, show that human activity occurred in the Americas as long as 23,000 years ago – about 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. A new U of A study supports the 2021 findings.
Courtesy of David Bustos/ White Sands National Park
Fig. 3. Alkali Flat east escarpment.
(A) WHSA Locality 2 (view east) (Fig. 2B) with exposure of alluvial beds and palustrine beds along the escarpment. Stratum 1 is exposed in the foreground (comprising the eastern margin of Alkali Flat), but in this photo, it is dried out and covered with a thin sheet of eolian gypsum sand. The finely bedded sands and muds of Stratum 2A comprise the low escarpment in the middle ground, expressed by the thin, horizontal ledges formed by differential weathering of the stream beds. The trench exposing human tracks in Stratum 2A is at the left.
Fig. 1. Field area setting.
The northern Tularosa Basin showing the area of the White Sands (“Gypsum Sand Dunes”), the Alkali Fat deflation basin, modern Lake Lucero, and present-day Lost River, which drains southwest across the distal piedmont until it is buried by the gypsum dunes (see also fig. S4). The 1204-m contour line approximates the proposed extent of paleolake Otero (15). It was likely more extensive given the >4 m of lake beds at “G.” The two field areas (red dots) are as follows: “G” is the area of Gypsum Overlook, the Central study area, and WHSA Locality 2; “Loc 1” is a stratigraphic section along the west margin of Alkali Flat. The brown pattern at G is the area of exposures of deposits linked to paleolake Otero and overlain by truncated Holocene dunes (31). The inset shows the location of the White Sands and the Tularosa Basin within New Mexico [based on figure 1 in (31)].
The Bronze Age Middle Eastern authors of the Bible clearly knew little of the world beyond a few days' walk from their homes in the Canaanite Hills. The world they described — and the stories they invented to fill the vast gaps in their knowledge — contained nothing unfamiliar to them. They had no way of knowing the true age of the Earth or the Universe, which they imagined to be fixed and immobile. They knew nothing of the history of living or extinct species, nor of the compelling evidence for common ancestry stretching back hundreds of thousands, even tens of millions, of years. And they were entirely unaware of the existence of other peoples living in distant lands, across vast oceans on other continents.
It should come as no surprise, then, that they got so much wrong, and that their writings omitted nearly everything science has since revealed about human origins. We now know that Homo sapiens diversified from archaic ancestors in Africa and gradually spread across the globe—migrating over land bridges now submerged by rising sea levels and eventually reaching the Americas.
Almost all of this is well-established in modern science, with the only significant uncertainty remaining around the precise timing of the first human colonisation of the Americas from Siberia. Bible literalists attempt to sidestep this discrepancy between the scientific evidence and the biblical narrative by postulating, without any supporting evidence, that the Bible was authored by an omniscient creator god. They argue that any contradiction with scientific findings must be due to mistaken interpretation, not error in the Bible. In essence, their reasoning runs: “The Bible was written by an all-knowing god because the Bible says so—therefore, any conflicting evidence must be wrong.” Instead of critically examining the claims of Bronze Age hill farmers, they demand that science must bend to fit ancient, unsubstantiated assertions.
One striking example of the scientific evidence at odds with biblical literalism is the recent confirmation that human footprints discovered at White Sands National Park, New Mexico, are 23,000 years old—some 13,000 years older than biblical literalists believe the Earth itself to be.
These footprints were discovered in 2021 and initially dated to 23,000 years ago — 10,000 years earlier than the previously accepted earliest human presence in the Americas. While this early date was controversial, a team led by Professor Vance Holliday of the University of Arizona’s School of Anthropology and Department of Geosciences has now re-evaluated the evidence and confirmed the original finding.
Despite what creationist dogma requires its adherents to believe, anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) were present in Africa for a considerable time before following their archaic ancestors, H. erectus and possibly H. heidelbergensis, out of Africa and into, primarily, South Asia. One find, reported in 2017, suggested that H. sapiens were in Morocco, North Africa, as early as 315,000 years ago. Yet they don’t appear to have made a successful migration out of Africa until about 50,000 years ago.
The question is: what took us so long?
Aside from the need for favourable climatic conditions — providing habitable routes with sufficient food and water for hunter-gatherers — new research suggests that the delay may also have been due to a simple lack of the necessary skills and experience to quickly adapt to unfamiliar environments. It may have taken that long for humans to spread widely enough across Africa to acquire those crucial adaptive skills. Once we had them, there was little to stop us from using them beyond Africa.
Of course, they would not have been migrating in the sense of deliberately moving into new territory, which would imply a detailed knowledge of geography, but were simply spreading naturally into suitable adjacent areas as their population grew.
This new research was conducted by a consortium of scientists led by Professor Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany, and Professor Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge, UK. By analysing a dataset of archaeological sites and environmental records spanning the last 120,000 years in Africa, the team determined that humans began expanding into a wider range of habitats within Africa around 70,000 years ago. Although there had been earlier windows of favourable climate for migration into Eurasia, these attempts appear to have failed. Between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, however—despite more challenging conditions—the migration that ultimately succeeded took place. All non-African people today are descended from that event.
The mountain of evidence that creationists must ignore to maintain their belief that Earth is a mere 6,000–10,000 years old—because it says so in a book of Bronze Age mythology—just got a little bigger. A new analysis of the DNA of two frozen canid cubs found in Siberian permafrost confirms they were wolves, not early domesticated dogs as once speculated. The cubs, discovered near the village of Tumat in northern Siberia, are around 14,000 years old and genetically similar to modern wolves.
An analysis of DNA from their stomach contents reveals a mixed diet of meat and plant matter, consistent with the diets of contemporary wolves. Remarkably, some of the meat—specifically skin—came from a woolly rhinoceros, likely a calf, as adult rhinos would have been far too large for wolves to hunt. An earlier study had identified black fur in the cubs, prompting speculation that they might be early domesticated dogs, since melanism is commonly associated with dogs but not typically seen in wolves. However, further genomic analysis showed that these cubs belonged to a now-extinct wolf population that was not ancestral to domestic dogs. This suggests the black fur mutation may have been limited to that specific lineage, contributing nothing to the modern dog gene pool.
The puppies were found at the Syalakh site, the first in 2011 and the second in 2015. The site also contains mammoth bones showing signs of burning and processing by humans. This initially led to speculation that the cubs might have been tame or semi-domesticated wolves associated with early humans. However, that hypothesis can now be ruled out based on the genetic evidence. It is believed that the cubs died when a landslide trapped them in their den shortly after their final meal.
How the wolf cubs came to be fed on the skin of a woolly rhinoceros remains uncertain, but one plausible explanation is that it was scavenged from a kill made by humans.
Researchers Ian Hawes of the University of Waikato and Marc Schallenberg of the University of Otago measure the physicochemical conditions of a meltwater pond.
Credit: Roger Summons
Pustular microbial mat section such as could have existend in small melt-water ponds.
Only by systematically ignoring geological and archaeological evidence can creationists continue to delude themselves into believing that Earth is just a few thousand years old and was perfectly created by an anthropophilic god especially for humans – its supposed “special creation.”
The evidence, however, paints a radically different picture from that childish superstition. Not only was Earth clearly not perfectly created for humans, it wasn’t perfectly created for any life form. And it is far older than creationists assert. In truth, around 600 million years ago, Earth was such a hostile place for life that it was entirely covered in ice. The polar ice sheets had extended until they met at the equator. These “Snowball Earth” conditions led to a mass extinction so severe that it remains something of a mystery how any life survived – especially complex eukaryotic cells.
Now, a multinational team of researchers led by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found evidence that early life could have survived in small pools of surface meltwater. They reached this conclusion after studying similar meltwater pools on the McMurdo Ice Shelf in Antarctica. What they found not only showed that single-celled eukaryotes can survive in such conditions, but also revealed that the population of prokaryotes varies according to local environmental conditions
These meltwater pools act as microcosms of diverse environments and demonstrate how local factors shape the distribution of different species – exactly as predicted by the Theory of Evolution. Had the conditions been perfect as creationists insist, there could be no variation in the populations in these pools. Variation only arises because the species need to adapt to different conditions - something that would never be needed in perfectly designed conditions.
A fundamental problem with creationism is that it depends on wilfully ignoring the vast and ever-growing body of contrary evidence. The intellectual dishonesty required to sustain this belief system makes its adherents the subject of ridicule—not just among scientists, but even among many fellow theists. Its prominent proponents, often elevated to near-prophetic status by their followers, are notorious for misrepresenting or outright lying about scientific findings. Unsurprisingly, they are treated with contempt by the scientific community.
One of the more blatantly counterfactual claims in the creationist repertoire is the assertion that there are no transitional fossils, and no evidence supporting the evolution of species from common ancestors. This denialism is essential to preserve belief in the spontaneous, magical creation of all species a few thousand years ago, without any ancestral lineage.
Accordingly, the creationist industry will need to deploy its usual strategies of misdirection and denial in response to a fascinating Cambrian stem arthropod, first discovered in 1918 in the Burgess Shale of Canada. Initially described from a single specimen, this enigmatic fossil has now been thoroughly reclassified thanks to the work of a team of Harvard researchers led by Dr Sarah Losso, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Their analysis, based on 36 newly examined specimens, sheds significant light on early arthropod evolution.
A map of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) and the Sunda region as it appeared roughly 25,000 years ago at the height of the last Ice Age, with locations of archaeological sites surveyed by the Mindoro Archaeology Project.
A map of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) and the Sunda region as it appeared roughly 25,000 years ago at the height of the last Ice Age, with locations of archaeological sites surveyed by the Mindoro Archaeology Project. The sites yielded artifacts with remarkably similar characteristics despite separation by thousands of kilometers and deep waters that are almost impossible to cross without sufficiently advanced seafaring knowledge and technology.
It’s shaping up to be another difficult week for creationists. Hot on the heels of news that humans were fighting and killing in northern Italy 7,000 years before the alleged ‘Creation Week’ and ‘The Fall’—events which biblical literalists claim introduced death into the world—comes fresh evidence of a sophisticated maritime culture flourishing in what is now the Philippines 18,000 years before that.
Another significant challenge for the creationist narrative is that, like the skeletal remains found in Italy, this archaeological evidence in the Philippines was not obliterated by the supposed global flood—an essential element of young Earth creationism for which there is no credible supporting evidence.
The discoveries in the Philippines were made by scientists from Ateneo de Manila University, in collaboration with international experts and institutions. Their research reveals early human migration, technological innovation, and long-distance intercultural connections dating back more than 35,000 years. The findings have been published in Archaeological Research in Asia, and are also explained in a news release from Ateneo de Manila University.
Towards the end of that immensely long pre-Creation Week period of Earth’s history — when 99.9975% of everything had already happened before creationists believe their god made a small, flat Earth with a dome over it in the Middle East, as described in the Bible — humans were already fighting battles in what is now northern Italy. To be precise, this occurred around 7,000 years before 'Creation Week'.
This conclusion comes from the analysis of a 17,000-year-old skeleton belonging to a man aged between 22 and 30, bearing unmistakable injuries caused by flint-tipped projectiles—likely arrows or spears. The skeleton, discovered in 1973 at the Riparo Tagliente rock shelter in the Lessini Mountains of northeastern Italy, only recently revealed its violent past thanks to modern forensic techniques.
The findings, led by bioarchaeologist Vitale Sparacello of the University of Cagliari, were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
This artwork illustrates the disparity of the northern and southern hemisphere’s evolution of terrestrial Cretaceous faunas after the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum. On the left, End Cretaceous Southern Hemisphere (Western Gondwana) became dominated by megaraptorid theropods and titanosaur sauropods. The centre of the piece summarises the extinction event of terrestrial fauna at the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum, where the apex predators the carcharodontosaurids and allosaurs went extinct and tyrannosauroids (including megaraptoran and the ancestors of Tyrannosaurus rex) were small. On the right, the end Cretaceous northern hemisphere fauna dominated by tyrannosaurids (such as Tyrannosaurus rex), hadrosaurs and ceratopsian ornithischian dinosaurs. The environment also became more mesic compared to the more semi-arid seasonal environment earlier in the Cretaceous.
Credit: Pedro Salas and Sergey Krasovskiy.
One of the major challenges for creationism is how to ignore the overwhelming volume of evidence that contradicts it—especially from the vast span of Earth’s pre-'Creation Week' history, during which 99.9975% of geological time unfolded. Even allowing for their standard claim that scientists fake their dates and Earth is really only a few thousand years old, there is a vast amount of history to compress into so short a timeline.
During that immense period, something remarkable was happening: a distant ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, destined to become one of the most formidable land predators the planet has ever seen, was making its way across a land bridge from Asia into North America.
That’s the conclusion of a new study led by researchers at University College London (UCL), recently published in Royal Society Open Science. The team found that this transcontinental migration—via the Beringian land bridge over 70 million years ago—marked a key moment in the evolution of tyrannosaurids. They also noted a rapid increase in body size that appears to have coincided with a global cooling event following a climatic peak around 92 million years ago. The study was a collaboration between scientists from UCL and the universities of Oxford, Pittsburgh, Aberdeen, Arizona, Anglia Ruskin, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.
In a discovery that defies any literalist interpretation of the Bible's creation narrative—where humans were fashioned ex nihilo only a few thousand years ago—archaeologists have uncovered compelling evidence that Ice Age humans in Eurasia had not only mastered fire but employed it in remarkably sophisticated ways. Far beyond simple warmth and cooking, fire appears to have served as a focal point for social gatherings and perhaps even ritual activity.
What remains puzzling, however, is the relative scarcity of well-preserved hearths from the coldest phases of the Ice Age—precisely when one would expect fire to have been most vital for survival.
Nonetheless, the sites that have been identified reveal an advanced command of pyrotechnology. These early humans used wood, and possibly bone and animal fat, as fuel—achieving temperatures exceeding 600 degrees Celsius.
Life in Ice Age Ukraine: The Last Glacial Maximum.
Around 20,000 years ago, during the height of the Last Glacial Maximum, the region now known as Ukraine was part of a vast and frigid steppe-tundra ecosystem. Although glaciers did not cover most of Ukraine itself, the climate was bitterly cold, dry, and windy, with temperatures far below freezing for much of the year. Forests had retreated, leaving open plains dotted with hardy grasses, mosses, and shrubs.
Despite the harshness, this landscape teemed with Ice Age megafauna. Woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, reindeer, steppe bison, and wild horses roamed the steppes, hunted by highly mobile bands of Homo sapiens. These human groups were well-adapted to the extreme environment, using sophisticated stone tools, tailored clothing made from hides, and complex hunting strategies.
People likely lived in semi-permanent shelters—possibly built from mammoth bones and covered with hides—situated in areas with access to water, game, and fuel. Fire was not merely a tool for survival; it was a vital element of daily life, essential for heat, cooking, tool-making, and perhaps social cohesion and ritual.
Picture the scene. This is how our Eurasian ancestors would have lived:
I wrote about the find recently, but this version incorporates the article in The Conversation by Professor Ben Marwick.
The recent unearthing of Quina-style stone tools in southwest China has sparked significant interest in the archaeological community, as detailed in a recent article from The Conversation by Professor Ben Marwick, Professor of Archaeology, University of Washington.
These tools, previously associated predominantly with Neanderthal populations in Europe, were discovered at the Longtan site and have been dated to approximately 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. Their presence in East Asia challenges longstanding assumptions about the technological development of early human populations in this region.
Traditionally, the Middle Paleolithic period in East Asia was thought to lack the technological innovations seen in contemporaneous European and Middle Eastern contexts. The discovery of these sophisticated tools suggests that early human groups in East Asia were engaging in complex tool-making practices similar to those of their western counterparts. This finding not only broadens our understanding of human technological evolution but also indicates a more interconnected prehistoric world than previously believed.
From a scientific perspective, such discoveries are invaluable in piecing together the mosaic of human history. However, they also pose challenges to certain interpretative frameworks, particularly those rooted in a literalist reading of religious texts. The existence of advanced tool-making practices tens of thousands of years ago stands in contrast to timelines proposed by young-Earth creationist views, which assert a much more recent origin of humanity.
In light of this, the Longtan findings serve as a compelling reminder of the importance of evidence-based inquiry in our quest to understand human origins. They underscore the dynamic and multifaceted nature of our past, inviting us to reconsider and refine our narratives in the face of new evidence.
Professor Marwick's article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
It's a telling example of how creationists can ignore substantial evidence when it conflicts with their belief that the Earth was created from nothing between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Among the evidence they dismiss are stone tools made by humans in South Africa at least 20,000 years ago — well over 10,000 years before their proposed timeline even begins. These tools reflect not only human ingenuity, but also the sharing of technology between different groups across southern Africa.
The tools, associated with what archaeologists term the Robberg technocomplex, were likely used in hunting the large game that roamed the vast coastal plains during the Last Glacial Maximum—land that is now submerged following post-Ice Age sea level rise. Evidence for their manufacture and use has been found in sites such as Knysna Eastern Heads Cave 1, which now overlooks the coast but would have stood further inland around 20,000 years ago.
In a recent paper published in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, a research team led by Dr Sara Watson of the Field Museum’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center describes these lithic assemblages in detail. Their analysis of stone tool-making techniques offers insights into the ways prehistoric people moved through the landscape, interacted with one another, and transmitted their technological knowledge.
The team's research is explained in a press release from the Field Museum, Chicago, IL, USA:
While the biblical authors drew heavily from earlier Mesopotamian myths — most notably adapting the flood narrative from the Epic of Gilgamesh — they appear to have had little understanding of the broader historical and environmental context of the region. Recent research highlights a striking omission: the rich prehistoric past of the Arabian Peninsula, just to the south of Mesopotamia.
Far from being an eternal wasteland, the Arabian Peninsula was once a verdant, fertile region. Between approximately 11,000 and 5,500 years ago, it featured extensive river systems, lush vegetation, and a large freshwater lake. This environment supported human settlement and migration, acting as a corridor out of Africa rather than the barrier it is today.
The biblical narrative, especially in Genesis, reflects a parochial worldview, lacking any apparent awareness of the dramatic environmental transformations that shaped the region. The latest findings, published by an international team including researchers from the University of Geneva, show that around 8,000 years ago, a gradual shift in Earth’s orbit triggered a weakening of the monsoon systems. This climatic change led to severe aridification, culminating in the desertification of the region and the disappearance of the once 42-metre-deep lake.
What was once a cradle of biodiversity and human migration is now the Rub’ al-Khali or "Empty Quarter"—one of the most inhospitable deserts on the planet. The contrast between this rich prehistoric reality and the narrow scope of the biblical texts speaks volumes about the limited horizons and historical understanding of their authors.
What may present a fascinating puzzle for science often deals a fatal blow to creationism — if only its adherents would acknowledge it. However, creationism remains a "brain-dead zombie", artificially kept alive by the manoeuvres of creationist leaders whose power and income rely upon it.
For instance, the recent discovery in China of stone tools exhibiting 'Quina technology', typically associated with Neanderthals, raises intriguing questions for archaeologists and anthropologists. Neanderthals were previously thought to have inhabited primarily western Eurasia, yet these Chinese artefacts, dated to between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, suggest their influence or presence extended much farther east than previously known. These findings pose fascinating questions regarding ancient human migration and technological exchange.
However, these same discoveries directly contradict creationist beliefs that the Earth is merely 6,000 to 10,000 years old and that humans appeared through a special creation without ancestral links. While science thrives on unanswered questions and continuously adapts its theories based on new evidence, creationism relies rigidly on dogma. When its foundational claims are refuted, the entire belief system crumbles. Religion insists upon unreasonable certainty, whereas science flourishes through reasonable uncertainty.
The discovery of this evidence of Quina Technology was made at the Longtan archaeological site in southwest China by an international group of archaeologists, which included Professor Ben Marwick of Washington University, USA. It is first such discovery in Asia of a technology known to have existed in Middle Palaeolothic Europe and associated there with Neanderthals.
The question is, does this show that Neanderthals were more widespread than we thought, or has their technology been shared with other hominins such as the Denisovans? Or did the same technology arise independently in China?
This is approximately 40,000 years before young Earth creationists claim their proposed deity created a small, flat Earth beneath a dome in the Middle East, along with a man formed from dust and a woman from his rib as the founding couple of the human species.
As with approximately 99.9975% of Earth's history, the vast majority of human history occurred long before the supposed ‘Creation Week’. The established record of human origins and development differs so radically from the narratives found in the Bible and Qur’an that it is remarkable anyone still considers those texts to be authoritative accounts of history or science—or even credible allegories or metaphors for anything resembling reality.
Genetic evidence further shows that, during their migrations, the ancestors of modern Papuans interbred with now-extinct archaic humans known as Denisovans. As a result, while modern Eurasians typically carry around 2% Neanderthal DNA, many populations in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania—including Austronesian peoples—carry up to 3% Denisovan DNA.
The authors, Professor Dylan Gaffney and Marlin Tolla have published an account of the research that went into their book, open access in the online magazine, The Conversation Their article is reproduced here under a Creative Commons License, reformatted for stylistic consistency. The original can be read here.
An artist’s depiction of an Asgard archaeon, based on cryo-electron tomography data: the cell body and appendages feature thread-like skeletal structures, similar to those found in complex cells with nuclei.
Graphic: Margot Riggi, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Recent research indicates that the last universal common ancestor of complex (eukaryotic) cells, which encompass all multicellular plant and animal life, likely originated from the Asgard group of archaea. This ancestor is believed to have formed a symbiotic relationship with an alphaproteobacterium, which eventually evolved into the mitochondrion.
The initial nature of this symbiotic relationship—whether parasitic or predatory—remains uncertain. However, its establishment was pivotal in setting the evolutionary course that led to the diversity of life on Earth.
Compelling evidence supporting the Asgard archaea hypothesis has been uncovered by Professor Martin Pilhofer and his team at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland. Their findings have been published in the journal Cell and is explained in an ETH news item by Peter Rüegg:
In stark contrast to biblical literalism's simplistic and contradictory story, recent research provides a very different picture of the origins of human language. According to Bible literalists, there are two versions of how languages come about. In the first, the descendants of each of the sons of Noah spoke different languages; in the second, language originated just five generations after the mythical global flood, when the human population — miraculously expanded from eight closely related survivors - grew large enough to undertake a massive construction project. Supposedly, this project so alarmed God that he intervened by 'confounding their tongues' to stop their cooperation.
In contrast to these Bible stories which compete for the most ludicrous and unlikely, scientists led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have recently suggested that human language actually evolved between 100,000 and 135,000 years before creationists claim the universe itself existed.
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What is the current consensus on the time and place of the origins of language in humans? There is currently no clear scientific consensus regarding the exact timing and location of the origins of human language, primarily because language leaves no direct fossil evidence. However, there is broad agreement around certain key points:
Timing of Language Origin:
General timeframe: Most researchers propose that fully-developed spoken language originated between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago, during the late Middle or early Upper Palaeolithic period, associated with anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
Genetic clues: Genetic evidence, particularly the emergence of the FOXP2 gene mutation (linked to speech and language capability), suggests language capacity existed at least around 150,000–200,000 years ago.
Cultural and archaeological indicators: A notable increase in symbolic behaviour, such as sophisticated art, toolmaking, and ritual practices approximately 40,000–70,000 years ago (often referred to as the "cognitive revolution"), is widely viewed as indirect evidence of fully developed linguistic capabilities. However, many linguists argue for a much earlier, more gradual development extending back hundreds of thousands of years.
Place of Origin:
Africa hypothesis: The widely supported "Out of Africa" theory of modern human evolution implies that language, like other uniquely human traits, likely emerged first in Africa, associated with early Homo sapiens populations around 150,000–200,000 years ago.
Multiple origins or dispersal: While most linguists and paleoanthropologists favour an African origin due to genetic and fossil evidence, some researchers have proposed language capabilities could have evolved independently or spread quickly as humans migrated. However, the single-origin hypothesis currently dominates.
Mechanism of Origin:
Gradual evolution: The prevailing view today is that language evolved gradually through incremental cognitive, anatomical, and social adaptations, rather than appearing abruptly.
Social complexity: Most researchers believe language emerged alongside increasing social complexity, facilitating cooperation, teaching, and cultural transmission, which in turn provided strong evolutionary advantages.
Current Scientific Consensus:
No direct fossil evidence means pinpointing exact dates or locations remains speculative.
Broad consensus: Language emerged gradually, probably in Africa, between 50,000–200,000 years ago, closely tied to the cognitive evolution of anatomically modern humans.
In summary, while the exact details remain debated, the dominant scientific consensus positions the origin of human language firmly within the evolutionary context of anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Africa, sometime around or shortly before humans began their global migrations.
The findings of the MIT group are published, open access, in the journal Frontiers in Psychology and are explained by Peter Dizikes in MIT News:
When did human language emerge?A new analysis suggests our language capacity existed at least 135,000 years ago, with language used widely perhaps 35,000 years after that.
It is a deep question, from deep in our history: When did human language as we know it emerge? A new survey of genomic evidence suggests our unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago. Subsequently, language might have entered social use 100,000 years ago.
Our species, Homo sapiens, is about 230,000 years old. Estimates of when language originated vary widely, based on different forms of evidence, from fossils to cultural artifacts. The authors of the new analysis took a different approach. They reasoned that since all human languages likely have a common origin — as the researchers strongly think — the key question is how far back in time regional groups began spreading around the world.
The logic is very simple. Every population branching across the globe has human language, and all languages are related. [Based on what the genomics data indicate about the geographic divergence of early human populations] I think we can say with a fair amount of certainty that the first split occurred about 135,000 years ago, so human language capacity must have been present by then, or before.
Professor Shigeru Miyagawa, co-author.
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
The paper, “Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago,” appears in Frontiers in Psychology. The co-authors are Miyagawa, who is a professor emeritus of linguistics and the Kochi-Manjiro Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at MIT; Rob DeSalle, a principal investigator at the American Museum of Natural History’s Institute for Comparative Genomics; Vitor Augusto Nóbrega, a faculty member in linguistics at the University of São Paolo; Remo Nitschke, of the University of Zurich, who worked on the project while at the University of Arizona linguistics department; Mercedes Okumura of the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology at the University of São Paulo; and Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus of human origins at the American Museum of Natural History.
The new paper examines 15 genetic studies of different varieties, published over the past 18 years: Three used data about the inherited Y chromosome, three examined mitochondrial DNA, and nine were whole-genome studies.
All told, the data from these studies suggest an initial regional branching of humans about 135,000 years ago. That is, after the emergence of Homo sapiens, groups of people subsequently moved apart geographically, and some resulting genetic variations have developed, over time, among the different regional subpopulations. The amount of genetic variation shown in the studies allows researchers to estimate the point in time at which Homo sapiens was still one regionally undivided group.
Miyagawa says the studies collectively provide increasingly converging evidence about when these geographic splits started taking place. The first survey of this type was performed by other scholars in 2017, but they had fewer existing genetic studies to draw upon. Now, there are much more published data available, which when considered together point to 135,000 years ago as the likely time of the first split.
The new meta-analysis was possible because “quantity-wise we have more studies, and quality-wise, it’s a narrower window [of time],” says Miyagawa, who also holds an appointment at the University of São Paolo.
Like many linguists, Miyagawa believes all human languages are demonstrably related to each other, something he has examined in his own work. For instance, in his 2010 book, “Why Agree? Why Move?” he analyzed previously unexplored similarities between English, Japanese, and some of the Bantu languages. There are more than 7,000 identified human languages around the globe.
Some scholars have proposed that language capacity dates back a couple of million years, based on the physiological characteristics of other primates. But to Miyagawa, the question is not when primates could utter certain sounds; it is when humans had the cognitive ability to develop language as we know it, combining vocabulary and grammar into a system generating an infinite amount of rules-based expression.
Human language is qualitatively different because there are two things, words and syntax, working together to create this very complex system. No other animal has a parallel structure in their communication system. And that gives us the ability to generate very sophisticated thoughts and to communicate them to others.
Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.
This conception of human language origins also holds that humans had the cognitive capacity for language for some period of time before we constructed our first languages.
Language is both a cognitive system and a communication system. My guess is prior to 135,000 years ago, it did start out as a private cognitive system, but relatively quickly that turned into a communications system.
Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.
So, how can we know when distinctively human language was first used? The archaeological record is invaluable in this regard. Roughly 100,000 years ago, the evidence shows, there was a widespread appearance of symbolic activity, from meaningful markings on objects to the use of fire to produce ochre, a decorative red color.
Like our complex, highly generative language, these symbolic activities are engaged in by people, and no other creatures. As the paper notes, “behaviors compatible with language and the consistent exercise of symbolic thinking are detectable only in the archaeological record of H. sapiens.”
Among the co-authors, Tattersall has most prominently propounded the view that language served as a kind of ignition for symbolic thinking and other organized activities.
Language was the trigger for modern human behavior. Somehow it stimulated human thinking and helped create these kinds of behaviors. If we are right, people were learning from each other [due to language] and encouraging innovations of the types we saw 100,000 years ago.
Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.
To be sure, as the authors acknowledge in the paper, other scholars believe there was a more incremental and broad-based development of new activities around 100,000 years ago, involving materials, tools, and social coordination, with language playing a role in this, but not necessarily being the central force.
For his part, Miyagawa recognizes that there is considerable room for further progress in this area of research, but thinks efforts like the current paper are at least steps toward filling out a more detailed picture of language’s emergence.
Our approach is very empirically based, grounded in the latest genetic understanding of early homo sapiens. I think we are on a good research arc, and I hope this will encourage people to look more at human language and evolution.
Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.
Recent genome-level studies on the divergence of early Homo sapiens, based on single nucleotide polymorphisms, suggest that the initial population division within H. sapiens from the original stem occurred approximately 135 thousand years ago. Given that this and all subsequent divisions led to populations with full linguistic capacity, it is reasonable to assume that the potential for language must have been present at the latest by around 135 thousand years ago, before the first division occurred. Had linguistic capacity developed later, we would expect to find some modern human populations without language, or with some fundamentally different mode of communication. Neither is the case. While current evidence does not tell us exactly when language itself appeared, the genomic studies do allow a fairly accurate estimate of the time by which linguistic capacity must have been present in the modern human lineage. Based on the lower boundary of 135 thousand years ago for language, we propose that language may have triggered the widespread appearance of modern human behavior approximately 100 thousand years ago.
1 Introduction
More than any other trait, language defines us as human. Yet there is no clear agreement on when this crucial feature emerged in our evolution. Some who have studied the archaeological record suggest that language emerged in our lineage around 100 thousand years ago (kya) (Tattersall, 2012, 2017, 2018; Wadley, 2021), while others have claimed that some form of language preceded the emergence of modern humans (Albessard-Ball and Balzeau, 2018.1; Botha, 2020). Indeed, it has been argued [e.g., by Progovac (2016) and Dediu and Levinson (2018.2)] that language is not uniquely the property of the lineage that produced H. sapiens. Here we accept the reasoning of that behaviors compatible with language and the consistent exercise of symbolic thinking are detectable only in the archaeological record of H. sapiens (Tattersall, 2012; Berwick et al., 2013; Berwick and Chomsky, 2016.1), and approach the issue of the antiquity of language in our species by showing that, although it is not yet possible to identify the time when a linguistic capacity emerged, genomic evidence allows us to establish with reasonable certainty the latest point at which it must have been present in early H. sapiens populations.
Over the past 15 years, numerous studies have addressed the question of exactly when the first division occurred in the original stem population of early H. sapiens. While those studies do not tell us exactly when language emerged, they allow us to make a reasonable estimate of the lower boundary of the possible time range for this key occurrence. H. sapiens emerged as an anatomically distinctive entity by about 230kya (Vidal et al., 2022). Sometime after that speciation event, the first division occurred, with all descendant populations of that division having full-fledged language. From this universal presence of language, we can deduce that some form of linguistic capacity must have been present before the first population divergence. If the linguistic capacity had emerged in humans after the initial divergence, one would expect to find modern human populations that either do not have language, or that have some communication capacity that differs meaningfully from that of all other human populations. Neither is the case. The 7,000 or so languages in the world today share striking similarities in the ways in which they are constructed phonologically, syntactically, and semantically (Eberhard et al., 2023).
Genomic studies of early H. sapiens population broadly agree that the first division from the original stem is represented today by the Khoisan peoples of Southern Africa (Schlebusch et al., 2012.1). This conclusion was reached early on Vigilant et al. (1989), Knight et al. (2003), Tishkoff et al. (2007), and Veeramah et al. (2012.2), and it has more recently been bolstered by studies using newer genomic techniques (Fan et al., 2019; Lorente-Galdos et al., 2019.1; Schlebusch et al., 2017.1; Schlebusch et al., 2020.1; Pakendorf and Stoneking, 2021.1). The term “Khoisan” refers to a bio-genetic affiliation that is linked both to a proposed ancestor-group and to some modern peoples, living in present-day South Africa, who include modern speakers of the Khoe-Khwadi, Tuu, and Ju-ǂHoan languages that have some genetic affiliation to the first divergence of the human population (Güldemann and Sands, 2009; du Plessis, 2014). It follows that, if we can identify when the first division occurred, we can with reasonable certainty consider that date to define the lower boundary of when human language was present in the ancestral modern human population. Based on the results of studies focusing on whole genome single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we estimate that this first division occurred at approximately 135kya. 1
Huybregts (2017.2) was the first to attempt to pinpoint the timing of the first division in this way. Although he suggested a date of ~125kya, close to our estimate of ~135kya, his estimate was necessarily based on a fairly narrow set of studies showing a remarkably variable range. The studies he examined ranged from the clearly implausible 300kya (Scally and Durbin, 2012.3), to 180kya (Rito et al., 2013.1) and as little as 100kya (Schlebusch et al., 2012.1). Pakendorf and Stoneking (2021.1) later listed several studies proposing that the first division was older than 160kya (Fan et al., 2019; Lorente-Galdos et al., 2019.1; Schlebusch et al., 2020.1), along with four others, from 140 to 110kya, that overlapped with the range suggested by Huybregts (Gronau et al., 2011; Veeramah et al., 2012.2; Mallick et al., 2016.2; Song et al., 2017.3). Several newer studies now allow us to approach the age of the first division with greater precision.
In conclusion, the researchers say:
4 The picture that emerges
Based on the recent genetic studies of early H. sapiens, we have pinpointed approximately 135kya as the moment at which some linguistic capacity must have been present in the human population. Looking forward from this event, modern human behaviors such as body decoration and the production of ochre pieces with symbolic engravings appeared as normative and persistent behaviors around 100kya. We believe that the time lag implied between the lower boundary of when language was present (135kya) and the emergence of normative modern human behaviors across the population suggests that language itself was the trigger that transformed nonlinguistic early H. sapiens (who nonetheless already possessed “language-ready” brains acquired at the origin of the anatomically distinctive species) into the symbolically-mediated beings familiar today. This development of the most sophisticated communication device in evolution allowed our ancestors to accelerate and consolidate symbolically-mediated behaviors until they became the norm for the entire species.
Miyagawa, Shigeru; DeSalle, Rob; Nóbrega, Vitor Augusto; Nitschke, Remo; Okumura, Mercedes; Tattersall, Ian Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years agoFrontiers in Psychology (2025) 16 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1503900
It appears that the evolution of language in humans followed a familiar evolutionary pattern. Genetic mutations, including those affecting the FOXP2 gene—which influences brain development and vocal control—provided cognitive advantages, opening new opportunities for natural selection. This genetic foundation set human evolution onto a new trajectory, much like how feathers, originally evolved for insulation or display in dinosaurs, eventually led to powered flight in birds.
In contrast, simplistic explanations—such as the Bible's depiction of Noah's descendants rapidly diverging into different languages (Genesis 10–11), or a deity magically imposing language barriers to thwart human cooperation at Babel (Genesis 11)—reflect limited imagination and a profound misunderstanding of how closely related languages evolve geographically.
Today, science provides a coherent and evidence-based explanation, emphasizing gene-culture co-evolution and language divergence within geographically dispersed and partially fragmented human populations.
