How did humans evolve biologically so that our brains and social interactions could support language processes, and how did cultural evolution lead to the invention of languages (signed as well as spoken)? This book addresses these questions through comparative (neuro)primatology – comparative study of brain, behavior and communication in monkeys, apes and humans – and an EvoDevoSocio framework for approaching biological and cultural evolution within a shared perspective. Each chapter provides an authoritative yet accessible review from a different discipline: linguistics (evolutionary, computational and neuro), archeology and neuroarcheology, macaque neurophysiology, comparative neuroanatomy, primate behavior, and developmental studies. These diverse perspectives are unified by having each chapter close with a section on its implications for creating a new road map for multidisciplinary research. These implications include assessment of the pluses and minuses of the Mirror System Hypothesis as an “old” road map. The cumulative road map is then presented in the concluding chapter. Originally published as a special issue of Interaction Studies 19:1/2 (2018).

Pamela Villar González, University of Warsaw, on Linguist List 32.2164 (24 June 2021):
As I see it, this volume provides a fascinating and well-connected mix of approaches to the development of the faculty of language in humans; it will be useful from the last courses of undergraduate programs to the explorations of senior researchers. It provides a new perspective on language research and makes clear the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach. It makes clear as well the need for the integration into the new models of developmental and biological information about both humans and apes, taking into account social and cultural context without forgetting the computation challenges.