An evening with Chris Knight & Jerome Lewis - Gower Street

Join anthropologists Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis for a fascinating discussion on their new book The Revolutionary Origins of Language. Join us for an evening with anthropologists Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis for a fascinating discussion on their new book The Revolutionary Origins of Language.Speech is unprecedented in the natural world. Yet human infants can learn the grammar of their native tongue so quickly, it is as if they knew the basics already. How did such a unique ability evolve, and what does it reveal about the nature of our species?Drawing on evolutionary and social anthropology, behavioural ecology, archaeology, and linguistics, Knight and Lewis unearth the political and social origins of our capacity to speak. What they discover points to the revolutionary role played by women at every stage. It seems that formidable coalitions of women used laughter, song, and dance to restrain the male potential for violence. In so doing, women established extraordinary levels of community-wide trust—precisely what was needed for linguistic creativity to flourish.