Genus Homo Anatomy May Explain Speech

Most of the effort to explain the superior speech abilities of humans have focused on cognitive abilities, but a new study finds that the loss of air sacs that are part of the anatomy of Great Apes and missing link genus Afarensis, but not part of members of the genus Homo (at least 600,000 years ago), may also have been important in the development of speech in humans. The study doesn't resolve the presence of this feature in Homo Eragaster or Homo Erectus, ca. 2,500,000 to 600,000 years ago, although it suggests that it makes sense to study those remains with this feature in mind.