A question that has amazed paleoanthropologists for decades. Can Neanderthals produce and understand the equivalent of human speech? Were Neanderthals orally and linguistically capable, just like their cousins Homo sapiens?
After many years of investigation, it seems that this mystery may now be solved. According to a team of multidisciplinary researchers affiliated with the University of Alcalá and the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain and Binghamton University in New York, Neanderthal’s speech abilities were significant and they possessed all the necessary physical qualities to speak and understand speech. .
Neanderthals had an ear for speech
In the latest issue of Natural ecology and evolution , the scientists used the results of their study, in which data they obtained from a fossil-based reconstruction of the Neanderthal auditory system. After thorough analysis, they were able to confirm that Neanderthals do have the physiological characteristics needed to produce and understand a full spectrum of sound combinations.
“We do not know if they had a language, but at least they have all the anatomical parts needed to have the kind of speech we have,” says Mercedes Conde-Valverde, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Alcalá and leading the study. writer. ‘It’s not that they had the same language, not English, not Spanish, nothing like this. But if we were to hear it, we would realize that it was people. ”
A Homo sapiens skull (left) and a Neanderthal skull: different, but also extremely similar when it comes to speech ability. (hair museum mat (original photo), DrMikeBaxter (derivative work) / CC BY-SA 2.0 )
The use of technology to confirm Neanderthal speech ability
For the purposes of their analysis, the scientists used sophisticated medical imaging software to make accurate three-dimensional models of the Neanderthal auditory system, using the results obtained from CT scans of fossil skulls. Understanding what Neanderthals could hear is the key to understanding what they can say, and the images obtained using this high-tech approach revealed that Neanderthal hearing was sharply tuned to the sounds associated with human speech.
As a checkpoint, the research team used the same technique to build virtual fossil-based reconstructions of the auditory abilities of Sima de los Huesos hominins, another long-extinct primate identified as the most immediate ancestor of the Neanderthals. It is especially the anatomical features required to hear and distinguish human speech, in this species, that make it clear that such a refined auditory structure was not so common.
A Sima de los Huesos skull (pictured here) was also made for the study using a virtual fossil-based reconstruction. The study concluded that this species could not “hear” sounds like Neanderthals. (UtaUtaNapishtim / CC BY-SA 4.0 )
With an accurate rendering of the Neanderthaler ear cavity architecture in hand, scientists were able to evaluate the Neanderthaler’s ability to detect sounds at a frequency of up to 5,000 cycles (or five kilohertz) per second. Compared to the Sima de los Huesos people, Neanderthals were better equipped to detect and distinguish sounds in the four to five kilohertz range, placing them on the same level as modern humans.
The researchers were also able to calculate the frequency range, or bandwidth, of the sounds that Neanderthals had the ability to hear and comprehend. Verbal communication requires a relatively large bandwidth, as the acoustic signals of a typical language are produced with varying frequencies. Again, the results for the Neanderthal speech showed a relative equivalence with modern humans, as well as a better hearing ability compared to their immediate ancestors of the primates.
Previous studies of theoretical Neanderthal speech have focused on their anatomical ability to produce vocal sounds. What this new study revealed, however, was something quite different.
The Neanderthal audience was particularly set on detecting consonant-related sounds, the added elements that can transform simple “oohs”, “aahs” and “uuhs” into more complex, meaningful words. Study author Conde-Valverde identified the ‘s’, ‘k’, ‘t’ and ‘th’ sounds as one that Neanderthals could clearly hear.
“Most previous studies of the Neanderthal speech ability have focused on their ability to produce the main vowels in English-speaking language,” explained Rolf Quam, an anthropology professor at Binghamton University and participant in the study. “However, we feel that this emphasis is misplaced, as the use of consonants is a way to include more information in the vocal signal and it also separates human speech and language from the communication patterns in almost all other primates.”
In other words, this discovery is very suggestive, as it identifies an ability found exclusively in Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, the primate cousins who were apparently unique in their ability to produce the sounds with many syllables and understand what ‘ an authentic language is associated.
A modern man (left) and a Neanderthal (right). It looks pretty similar and now, based on the latest study, we know that Neanderthal speech ability does not differ too much from that of modern humans. (Daniela Hitzemann (left photo), Stefan Scheer (right photo) / unknown (reconstructions) / CC BY-SA 4.0 )
Neanderthal speech ability makes them “equal to people”
Fossil studies have determined that Neanderthals possess the anatomical tools needed to make and hear all the sounds used in the language. Studies of their skulls also revealed that their heads were large enough to house brains similar to those of modern humans.
Of course, these facts alone do not prove that Neanderthals possess the cognitive skills and abilities to construct languages, as the authors of the Natural ecology and evolution study fully recognized.
However, other evidence regarding Neanderthal culture, society, and technology strongly suggests that they would have had the mental capacity to create and disseminate an intelligible language.
Excavations of Neanderthal areas have revealed that these extinct cousins of modern humans created and used a range of stone tools, made jewelery that they apparently wore for decorative purposes, and left cave art that left valuable data about their lifestyle and thought processes. revealed, and their death, and often managed to survive in harsh or marginal climates that would severely test their ingenuity and adaptability.
All these behaviors imply significant intelligence, of a practical, abstract and symbolic nature. Exactly the type of intelligence that can be expected in a species that has created and used language.
Is that enough to end the debate over whether Neanderthals have a language or languages? At least one expert thinks so.
“These results are particularly gratifying,” said Ignacio Martinez, University of Alcalá. A colleague from Conde-Valverde and another valued participant in the study. “We believe, after more than a century of research into the question, that we have provided a conclusive answer to the question of Neanderthal speech ability.”
The full report is available from Nature, DOI: 10.1038 / s41559-021-01391-6
Top image: A 3D model and virtual reconstruction of the ear in a modern human (left) and a Neanderthal (right), used to determine the Neanderthal hearing and speech ability. Source: Mercedes Conde-Valverde / Natural ecology and evolution
By Nathan Falde