G. Rizzolatti, WHAT HAPPENED TO HOMO-HABILIS - (LANGUAGE AND MIRROR NEURONS) (CORRECTED VERSION OF 126BQ), Behavioral and brain sciences, 21(4), 1998, pp. 527
The evolutionary continuity between the prespeech functions of premoto
r cortex and its new linguistic functions, the main thesis of MacNeila
ge's target article, is confirmed by the recent discovery of ''mirror'
' neurons in monkeys and a corresponding action-observation/action-exe
cution matching system in humans. Physiological data (and other consid
erations) appear to indicate, however, that brachiomanual gestures pla
yed a greater role in language evolution than MacNeilage would like to
admit.