A study published in 2021 found that our Neanderthal cousins had the ability to hear and produce the sounds of modern humans.
The study, based on detailed analysis and digital reconstruction of the skull’s structure, settles one aspect of the decades-long debate surrounding Neanderthal language abilities.
“This is one of the most important studies I’ve been involved in in my career.” Paleoanthropologist Rolf Quam said: in 2021 from Binghamton University.
“The results are robust and clearly show that Neanderthals had the ability to perceive and produce human speech. This is a notoriously tricky subject in anthropology, which studies the evolution of language. It is one of the few ongoing lines of research that relies on fossil evidence to
Neanderthal (homo neanderthal) were much more primitive than modern humans (homo sapiens) are obsolete, and in recent years there has been a growing body of evidence that they were far more intelligent than we once assumed. They developed technology, made tools, created art, and held funerals for the dead.
However, whether they actually spoke remains a mystery.Their complex behavior seems to suggest that they must have been able to communicate, but some scientists fought This means that only modern humans had the mental capacity to perform complex language processing.
It would be very difficult to prove that this is the case, but a first step would be to determine whether Neanderthals could produce and perceive sounds at a range optimal for voice-based communication.
3D models of modern human (left) and Neanderthal (right) ear anatomy. (Mercedes Conde Valverde)
So a team led by paleoanthropologist Mercedes Conde Valverde from the University of Alcalá in Spain tried this out using a bunch of really old bones.
They took high-resolution CT scans of the skulls of five Neanderthals and created virtual 3D models of their ear structures. They also modeled the structure of the ear. homo sapiensand much older fossils – the skull of Sima de los Huesos Manalso known as Shima hominin, the ancestor of Neanderthals, whose origins date back to approximately 430,000 years ago.
They then used models of the hearing capabilities of these structures from the field of auditory bioengineering to understand the frequency range (also known as occupied bandwidth) to which the ear is most sensitive. For modern humans, the occupied bandwidth is the human vocal range.
The researchers found that Neanderthals had better hearing in the 4-5 kilohertz range than their Sima ancestors, and that Neanderthals’ occupied bandwidth was closer to that of modern humans than that of Sima hominins. did. This optimization strongly suggests that Neanderthals needed to hear each other.
Occupied bandwidth of modern humans (blue), Neanderthals (gray), and Sima hominid (red). (Conde Valverde other., nut. Ecole.Evol., 2021)
“Actually, this is the key.” Conde Valverde said:.
“The existence of similar auditory abilities, especially bandwidth, indicates that Neanderthals had a communication system as complex and efficient as modern human speech.”
Interestingly, Neanderthals’ occupied bandwidth extended to frequencies above 3 kilohertz, which are primarily involved in the production of consonants. The researchers noted that this would distinguish Neanderthal vocalizations from the vowel-based vocalizations of non-human primates and other mammals.
“Most previous research on Neanderthal language abilities has focused on their ability to produce the main vowel in spoken English.” Quam said.
“However, this emphasis is misplaced, as the use of consonants is a way to include more information in the speech signal, and is also what separates human speech and language from nearly all other primate communication patterns. We feel that the fact that our study addresses this is a very interesting aspect of the study and a new proposal regarding the language capabilities of our fossil ancestors.”
The researchers cautioned that just because Neanderthals had the anatomical structure to produce and hear sounds does not necessarily mean they had the cognitive abilities to do so. However, they point out that there is no evidence that Sima hominins exhibited the complex symbolic behaviors such as funerals and art that are known to be associated with Neanderthals.
The researchers say this behavioral difference is similar to the difference in auditory abilities between Neanderthals and Hominids, suggesting the co-evolution of complex behavior and vocal communication abilities.
“Our results” they wrote in their paper“Coupled with recent discoveries showing Neanderthal symbolic behavior, Neanderthals possessed a kind of human language that, in its complexity and efficiency, is second to none used by nonhuman organisms on Earth.” It reinforces the idea that it is very different from the oral communication system of the world.”
This study natural ecology and evolution.
A version of this article was first published in March 2021.