eli5 Why do people have a brain center for reading comprehension (areas 39, 40) when we clearly did not need to have this skill for the majority of our history as a species?

Question

eli5 Why do people have a brain center for reading comprehension (areas 39, 40) when we clearly did not need to have this skill for the majority of our history as a species?

In: 16

Answer 1

I believe it’s the same part of the brain that is responsible for processing and decoding sounds, including speech, and also for producing sounds, including speech. Reading is an indirect way of producing sounds in your brain. It’s like the first way people recorded sounds, long before the record player.