Campfire flicker may have sparked the evolution of human language
New research suggests that campfire light, by its flicker and blue spectrum, helped shift human communication from gestures to spoken language. The unpredictable flame makes gestures hard to follow, encouraging speech, while the blue light can extend social time without severely disrupting sleep. The observed fire flicker rate (~1.4–2.7 Hz) may align with brain rhythms linked to attention and memory, potentially synchronizing listeners and storytellers. The authors propose experiments to test whether firelight rhythms influence storytelling cadence and neural alignment; the work was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
