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Updated: Jul 5, 2025

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Language likely promoted peace before 100,000 ya
1Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA wrangham@fas.harvard.edu; https://heb.fas.harvard.edu/people/richard-w-wrangham.
Abstract:
Based on evidence of selection against alpha-male behavior in the earliest Homo sapiens, I suggest that by 300,000 ya (years ago) language would have been sufficiently sophisticated to contribute to peacemaking between groups. Language also influenced the social landscape of peace and war, and groups' ability to form coalitions.
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