The language was estimated to have been 70,000 years old. Amazing!

The whole field of linguistics and the origin of languages is definitely something that I wished I had more time to involve myself in. When you better understand how slowly languages progress, and the iterative process by which is splinters it reshapes how we think about "civilized" man, and truly challenges our preconceived notions about human history.

The problem, as usual, in this debate is that in soft sciences there is less of a willingness, shall we say, to step outside the safety zone and make a statement. In math or physics you have show a repeatable test to prove your hypothesis. When you make statements about the past, you don't have that luxury and therefore scholars are less likely to make a statement they believe to be true and stay with the status quo.

All this rambling to say that I think we will find out that human civilization is far older than we give credit to.

and recently here one of the last people able to teach the Arikara (Sahnish) language died. she was 78. its just tragic that no matter where you are from, the loss of these people is a loss of culture, history, and heritage for all of us.