Molecular techniques then revealed that these changes occurred around 200,000 years ago — at just the point at which modern humans were evolving. This has led to much speculation about whether FOXP2 is a “gene for speech” — particularly given that people with major mutations, like the KE family, have major language defects.
Cool!
The genetic change for the development of language is now being placed about the time modern humans developed as well.
I was never comfortable with that 50,000-60,000 estimate for language development.
consider gene splicing it into a chimp to find out what they really think!