Ethical Matters: How Did We Talk Our Way Out of the Stone Age?

The relationship between language, thought and culture is of concern to anyone with an interest in what it means to be human. In this Ethical Matters talk, Steven Mithen explains how the invention of words at 1.6 million years ago began the evolution of human language from the ape-like calls of our earliest ancestors to our capabilities of today, with over 6000 languages in the world and each of us knowing over 50,000 words.

Drawing on the latest discoveries in archaeology, linguistics, psychology, and genetics, he reconstructs the steps by which language evolved; he explains how it transformed the nature of thought and culture, and how we talked our way out of the Stone Age into the world of farming and swiftly into today’s Digital Age.

Steven Mithen is Professor of Early Prehistory at the University of Reading, having previously served as Pro Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor. He has published widely within his field and has written a number of bestselling books, including The Singing Neanderthals, After the Ice and The Prehistory of the Mind. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2004. His book The Language Puzzle: How We Talked Our Way Out of the Stone Age will be available on the day.