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To suggest that modern imagination and the recursive thinking necessary for language evolved _after_ humans started making complex tools (which required hierarchical recursive processes to make) is, to me, dubious. The tool-creation/language similarity was commented upon recently [0].

[0] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...

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The article mentions one such tool - needles with eyes. As this innovation is mentioned, I imagine the time of its invention is consistent with the hypothesis. Do you have in mind specific tools from before 70kya that seem to require recursive thinking?

I am not sure what would constitute recursion in tools - maybe something like an atlatl, sling or bow, where a tool is applied to another tool? These particular examples do not seem to challenge the timing of the hypothesis.

Other species have the ability for tool making, some of it relatively complex. So clearly there are other factors. Language is obviously one of them. The differentiator described here is PFS secondary to a genetic (evolutionary) change in the prefrontal cortex. Tool making to me implies sequential processes, not the juxtaposition of mental objects. I'm not clear on what you mean by toolmaking as a recursive process.

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