It was announced today that Neandertals had the same version of the FoxP2 gene that humans do. Because it’s thought that our particular version of FoxP2 is involved in speech and language, it may be that Neandertals also had these skills. It’ll be interesting to see if Neandertals get an upgrade accordingly, or if the significance of FoxP2 is now downgraded because it turns out to not be so uniquely human after all. National Geographic, Current Biology, Anthropology.net.
