Origin of language
Archaic Homo sapiens

Steven Mithen proposed the term Hmmmmm for the pre-linguistic system of communication posited to have been used by archaic Homo, beginning with Homo ergaster and reaching the highest sophistication in the Middle Pleistocene with Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis. Hmmmmm is an acronym for h olistic (non-compositional), m anipulative (utterances are commands or suggestions, not descriptive statements), m ulti- m odal (acoustic as well as gestural and facial), m usical, and m imetic.
detectable_content:number_placeholders[2], language:response_language[German], keywords:existence