Uniquely human. The evolution of speech, thought and selfless behavior

Lieberman attempts to integrate information about comparative neurology, neuroanatomy, linguistics, child development, and the hominid fossil record, in an effort to identify features that are uniquely human. The text is well written, and I enjoyed the discussions about neural networks, linguistics, and language acquisition in children. Despite these positive aspects, I cannot recommend this book because it provides misinformation about primate (including human) neuroanatomy, brain evolution,, and the hominid fossil record. Beginning with neuroanatomy, on page 23, an illustration of the cerebral cortex (cerebrum) is described as showing the functional organization of the "human cerebellum." I thought the misidentification of the cerebrum as the cerebellum surely must be a typo. However, this misidentification appears throughout the book. For example, on pages 88 and 101, we are told that the basal ganglia are located "deep in the cerebellum." Lieberman repeatedly states that monkeys and apes lack neocortical control of vocalizations (e.g., pp. 21 and 85). In so doing, he neglects a good deal of experimental and comparative neuroanatomical evidence that strongly suggests socially meaningful vocal communications in monkeys are both lateralized and cortically controlled. [The interested reader will find these studies summarized by Falk et al. (1990)]. On page 106, the "homologue of Broca's area in nonhuman primates" is incorrectly identified as "the part of the lower precentral cortex that is the primary motor area for facial musculature." Broca's area certainly is not pr/mary cortex in humans, nor does primary cortex constitute the most likely homologue of Broca's area in monkeys--i.e., the region in and around the inferior limb of the arcuate sulcus (Galaburda and Pandya, 1982). There is only one