The following New York Times report of June 11, 2003 shows faces of
humans over 160,000 years old.
It is possible that these humans had language competence (sic).
[Defining a human as distinguished by such competence.] I wonder
if the discipline of linguistics is adequate to reconstruct the
early languages of this part of the globe.
For those who need the full report, send me an email.
Kalyanaraman
Fossil Skulls Offer First Glimpse of Early Human Faces
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
In the 160,000-year-old fossilized skulls of three Ethiopians two
adults and a child scientists think they see for the first time
the faces of the immediate ancestors of modern humans.
Except for a few archaic characteristics, they are as recognizable
as Hamlet's poor Yorick...
"The key point is that we now have good fossil evidence of people
like us evolving in Africa when the only people in Europe were
Neanderthals," said Dr. Klein of Stanford. "The Herto humans are
anything but Neanderthals."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/11/science/12FOSSIL.html