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Originally Posted by Buffy
"Language" 50k years ago? Spoken? Written? HOw many words do you have to have to make it a "language?"
You'd better define what you mean by the term a bit better!
There's no evidence that would really be able to pin this down very well, with evidence of symbols going back 8-10,000 years ago at least but that's written language, something designed to merely make permanent spoken language.
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I mean spoken language. Sorry if this was ambiguous. I'm not too concerned about how many words are needed, rather I am interested in how or when humans made the intellectual leap in being able to associate and express objects and, more importantly
ideas, in abstract sounds and syllables. Oral traditions have lasted a great deal longer than written language, which if I remember corrrectly lasted less than 6000 years. Certainly after the appearance of the very first city-states and regional "kingdoms".
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It is clear that the areas of the brain that focus on language as well as the physical ability to create "words" goes back at least to early homo species.
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Well, I'm not sure about that. They were certainly present in early homo sapians, but earlier species of the genus "homo" and the Neanderthals did not have the proper anatomical structures (especially within the larynx) to make a wide range of sounds and syllables. As well, early "homo" species had much smaller brains...
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There's also the fact that language can be described very broadly to include what most mammals do with their voices at at least a simple level, and even bees have their "dance language" which is inarguably a mechanism for communication!
The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate, 
Buffy
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Those are not really languages though. Sounds, grunts, hormones, and motions (what we would collectively call "body language") have been used as a means of communication for tens of millions of years, especially among social animals and super organisms. But they rely mostly on instinct, and are rarely used as abstractions. And most of the time they convey very simple information, such as emotional states or basic desires/needs.
Language, by definition, incorporates a well defined
syntax, a set of rules on how to manipulate various sounds and grammar and relate them to the outside world. The way we do this is quite arbitrary; it is not necessary for the sounds to have any relation to the objects in question; We can assign any sound or grammar to a given object or idea. It is our ability to do this that have allowed us humans to communicate not just simple emotions needs, but abstract ideas and observations. Also, all language has to be learned, rather than known by instinct.
