“…These captive actions challenge conclusions reached by studying fossils of extinct human ancestors. One influential paper suggests, for instance, that only late in evolutionary history did muscles and nerves allow for fine control of breathing, and thus, speech…
…look at this whole matter in another way: It’s not as if human children show evidence of innate breath control. Rather, just like Koko does, they learn breath control through shared cultural routines with their caretakers and play partners…
…This is an embodied, ecological perspective on skill emergence. Through it, we come to see that it’s not only skills like language and tool-making that flourish via shared social practice, but also actions like skilled breathing that might at first be attributed wholly to biology…”
