Archives for language

05.19.17

Modern People Making Stone Age Tools

Journal Article, In the News
How did humans get to be so smart, and when did this happen? To untangle this question, we need to know more about the intelligence of our human ancestors who lived 1.8 million years ago. It was at this point in time that a new type of stone tool hit the scene and the human brain nearly doubled in size.
04.05.17

Grantee Spotlight: Meike Zemihn

Grantee Spotlight
Language is one of the prime facets of human nature and distinguishes us from other species. Nevertheless, its evolutionary origins are still largely unknown. What makes human language unique and why are we the only species that has it? Meike Zemihn is a Leakey Foundation grantee who is working to trace the origins of language.
01.29.15

Grantee Spotlight: Shelby S. Putt

Grantee Spotlight
We are happy to introduce another one of our fall 2014 grantees, Shelby S. Putt, PhD candidate from the University of Iowa. Her dissertation project is entitled “Investigating the co-evolution of language and toolmaking:  An fNIRS study.” Shelby S. Putt Our language and cognition are arguably the features that most distinguish us from other species, and yet, we still know so little about… more »