> Now we have evidence that both chimps and bonobos have syntax, it is inevitable that this capacity for compositionality was inherited from our last common ancestor, says Leroux. “They just showed, unambiguously, that this core building block is evolutionary ancient and at least 7 million years old, and maybe even older.”
This is not true at all. It's like saying that tool construction must be >300 million years old because both chimpanzees and New Caledonian crows make tools. Things can be invented or discovered multiple times by different species. It might be inherited from a common source, but it might not.