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The Mbuti people still reproduce a 75,000 years old recursive pattern

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2025

Lluís Barceló-Coblijn Open the ORCID record for Lluís Barceló-Coblijn [Opens in a new window]
Lluís Barceló-Coblijn*
Affiliation:
Laboratori d'Investigació en Complexitat i de Lingüística Experimental-University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain lluis.barcelo@uib.cat https://www.uib.eu/personal/ABjE5MTc3MQ/
*
*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

Modern humans don't always leave cultural or technological evidence. Yet, Mbuti artifacts, like net-hunting tools and patterns, reveal their modern cognitive capacity. They create geometric and musical structures requiring specific working memory seen in modern Homo sapiens. Evidence from Blombos Cave suggests these skills existed 75,000 years ago, underscoring shared cognitive abilities among all modern human populations.

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Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 48 , 2025 , e2
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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