I-IV -- Contents -- Introduction: New perspectives on an old academic question -- 1. Biological aspects of the question -- On the subcortical bases of the evolution of language -- The origin of the human language faculty: the language amoeba hypothesis -- 2. The first language -- The apparent paradox of language evolution: can Universal Grammar be explained by adaptive selection? -- Elementary forms of linguistic organisation -- From potential to realisation: an episode in the origin of language -- Protothought had no logical names -- The birth of rules -- How language changed the genes: toward an explicit account of the evolution of language -- 3. Beyond biolinguistics -- The narration "instinct": signalling behaviour, communication, and the selective value of storytelling -- Taxonomic controversies in the twentieth century -- The origin of origins: a play in five acts, with a prologue im Himmel and an epilogue auf der Erde -- References -- Index