Bones point to origins of speech
New research suggests humans may have been able to talk much longer ago than previously thought, the Spanish media has reported. The claim is based on ear bones from skulls found in the Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones) at Atapuerca, northern Spain, in the early 1990s. They are said to belong to Homo heidelbergensis, who lived some 350,000 years ago and is thought to have been an ancestor of the Neanderthals.