Change in landscape for early hominids may have led to the development of speech, new study finds

Scientists have discovered what may have prompted early human ancestors to begin developing speech and language.

Scientists have discovered what may have prompted early human ancestors to begin developing speech and language.

As the landscape in which ancient hominids lived transformed from dense forests to open plains during the Miocene era, between 5.3 million and 16 million years ago, the transformation may have prompted the hominids to develop language, switching from vowel-based calls to consonant-based calls, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Thursday.

Hominids -- a family of primates from which homo sapiens evolved -- lived in treetops prior to a change in climate in the Middle and Late Miocene era that led to wide-open grasslands replacing forests in Africa, and hominids transitioning from living primarily in trees to moving onto the ground.

Researchers at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, studied two types of orangutan calls by playing them in the savanna in South Africa, which is similar to the landscape in which the hominids would have lived as language developed. That’s according to Charlotte Gannon, a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick's department of psychology and one of the lead authors of the paper.