Leaping to laterality and language: The case against

Crow, T. J. (Ed.) (2002). 'The Speciation of Modern Homo Sapiens'. Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. 106. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 272 pp. ISBN 0-19-726246-5. £29.50. The collection of papers making up this edited book were presented at a meeting of the British Academy in March, 2002, the theme of which was the evolution of modern humans including, of course, evolution of the brain and language. the first paper, by Stringer, presents the evidence for the African origin of 'Homo sapiens', now further substantiated by the recent and exciting discovery of the oldest modern human crania found so far - from Ethiopia and dated to between 154,000 and 160,000 years ago (White, 2003; commented on by Stringer, 2003).