Neanderthals – the closest ancestor to modern humans – had the ability to observe and produce human speech, according to a new study published by an international multidisciplinary team of researchers, including the University of Binghamton, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rolf Quam and graduate student Alex Velez.
“This is one of the most important studies I have been involved in during my career,” Quam said. “The results are thorough and clearly show that the Neanderthals had the ability to observe and produce human speech. It is one of the few current, continuous lines of research that relies on fossil evidence to study the evolution of language, a infamous difficult subject in anthropology. “
The evolution of language, and especially the linguistic abilities in Neanderthal people, is a long question in the evolution of man.
“For decades, one of the most important questions in human evolutionary studies was whether the human form of communication, spoken language, was also present in any other kind of human ancestor, especially the Neanderthals,” said co-author Juan Luis Arsuaga, professor of paleontology. said. at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and co-director of excavations and research at the Archaeological Sites of Atapuerca in northern Spain. The latest study reconstructed how Neanderthals heard people make inferences about how they communicated.
The study relies on high-resolution CT scans to create virtual 3D models of the superstructures Homo sapiens and Neanderthals as well as earlier fossils of the Atapuerca site representing Neanderthal ancestors. Data collected across the 3D models were incorporated into a software-based model developed in the field of auditory bioengineering, to estimate the hearing capabilities up to 5 kHz, which includes most frequencies of modern human speech sounds. Compared to the Atapuerca fossils, the Neanderthals between 4-5 kHz sounded slightly better, which looks more like modern humans.
In addition, the researchers were able to calculate the frequency range of the maximum sensitivity, technically known as the occupied bandwidth, in each species. The occupied bandwidth is related to the communication system, so that a larger bandwidth enables a greater number of easily distinguishable acoustic signals for the oral communication of a species. This in turn improves the efficiency of communication, and the ability to deliver a clear message in the shortest amount of time. The Neanderthals show a wider bandwidth compared to their ancestors from Atapuerca, who in this feature look more like modern humans.
“This is really the key,” says Mercedes Conde-Valverde, professor at the Universidad de Alcalá in Spain and lead author of the study. “The presence of similar hearing aids, especially bandwidth, shows that the Neanderthals possessed a communication system that was as complex and efficient as modern human speech.”
“One of the other interesting results from the study was the suggestion that Neanderthal speech is likely to include an increased use of consonants,” Quam said. “Most previous studies on Neanderthal speech ability have focused on their ability to produce the main vowels in the English language. However, we feel that this emphasis is misplaced as the use of consonants is a way to get more information into the vocal signal. and it also separates human speech and language from the communication patterns in almost all other primates.The fact that our study was included in this is a very interesting aspect of the research and is a new proposal with regard to the linguistic abilities in our fossil ancestors. “
Thus, Neanderthals had a similar ability to produce the sounds of human speech, and their ear was ‘tuned’ to observe these frequencies. This change in the auditory abilities of Neanderthals, compared to their ancestors from Atapuerca, is consistent with archaeological evidence for increasingly complex behavioral patterns, including changes in stone tool technology, domestication of fire, and possible symbolic practices. In this regard, the study provides strong evidence in favor of the co-evolution of increasingly complex behaviors and increased efficiency in vocal communication during the course of human evolution.
The team behind the new study has been developing this line of research for almost two decades and has been collaborating continuously to expand the analyzes to additional fossil species. For now, however, the new results are exciting.
“These results are particularly gratifying,” said Ignacio Martinez, a professor at the Universidad de Alcalá in Spain. “We believe, after more than a century of research into this question, that we have provided a conclusive answer to the question of Neanderthal speech ability.”
The study “Neanderthals and modern humans had similar hearing and speech abilities”, was published in Natural ecology and evolution.