The Recent Mutation Hypothesis of Modern Behavior is Wrong

Klein (1989, 1994, 1999, 2009), Stringer and Gamble (1993), Mellars (1996), Berwick and Chomsky (2016), Tattersall (2017), and others have speculated that a recent mutation related to neural circuitry was responsible for the emergence of modern behavior. (Although Gamble no longer subscribes to the theory.) The mutation is posited to be recent in the se…