Food for Symbolic Thought; January 2008; Scientific American Magazine; by JR Minkel; 1 Page(s)

A cave on the southern coast of South Africa contains a bowl's worth of edible shellfish dating back to about 165,000 years ago. Besides pushing back the earliest known seafood meal by 40,000 years, the discovery also marks the earliest time when people might have engaged in symbolic thought.

Anatomically modern humans probably emerged between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago in eastern Africa. When those humans first developed the potential for symbolic thought, including language, has remained a puzzle.