The Symbolic Primate. How language and culture made us human
Humans diverged from our closest relative, the chimpanzee, about seven million years ago, a relatively short time from an evolutionary point of view. Biological continuity with the chimpanzee is evident in many physiological and behavioral aspects; equally evident is the cognitive gap between the two species. In this talk I will attempt to outline the process of hominization based on data from paleontology, genetics, bioinformatics, neurobiology, anthropology and linguistics. I will argue that the key point of this process is the development of a symbolic communication system that gave rise to language and culture, thus changing the rules of biological evolution, which became co-evolution of genes and culture.