The Neanderthals had large brains and were able to inhabit much of Eurasia from around 350,000 years ago.
Ancient DNA reveals us to be over 99% identical in the sequences of our protein coding genes to our sister species the Neanderthals ( Homo neanderthalensis) [ 10]. The Neanderthals had large brains and were able to inhabit much of Eurasia from around 350,000 years ago. If the Neanderthals had language, that would place its origin at least as far back as the time of our common ancestor with them, currently thought to be around 550,000 to 750,000 years ago [ 10, 11].