This is going to stir up the “when did we really become human?” debate. In short it has been a whole lot longer than the “language began 60,000 years ago crowd”. I’ve always thought that it was certainly strange to we should have waited a million years after we became physically able to speak to actually talk. That’s counter intuitive and begs the question “Why was the hyoid bone selected if not to use?”
I think you’re right but it’s not just speech. Wouldn’t these markings indicate some capability for abstract thought? Abstraction allied with speech is really what separates us from other animals.
This whole gradualism bit can be carried much too far.
Decades ago I read an article about Eskimos and how they moved into the Arctic and over centuries developed their tools and garments needed to survive under such condition.
Even though I was just a kid, I realized that if they didn’t have most of that stuff the first winter, they wouldn’t live through it.
I think every time we have one of those Ice Ages which are about 100,000 years apart we have a major decline in whatever civilization has been developed. It then takes tens of thousands of years for civilization to begin to rear its fuzzy head. Also, since Ice Ages suck up a lot of water, any civilization of people living along shorelines pretty much gets covered up when warming sets in again.