BINGHAMTON, NY – Neandertals – the closest ancestor of modern humans – were able to see and express human language, according to a new study published by an interdisciplinary team between national network of researchers including Binghamton University professor of anthropology Rolf Quam and graduate student Alex Velez.
“This is one of the most important studies I’ve been involved in during my career,” says Quam. “The results are solid and clearly show that the Neandertals had the ability to sense and implement human language. This is one of the few conventional lines of research that relies on fossil evidence to study linguistic evolution, a very difficult subject in anthropology. “
Language evolution, and the linguistic abilities of Neandertals in particular, is a long-standing issue in human evolution.
“For decades, one of the key questions in human evolution studies has been whether the form of human communication, spoken language, was also present in any other species of human ancestor, especially the Neandertals,” says coauthor Juan Luis Arsuaga, Professor of Paleontology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and co-director of excavation and research at the Atapuerca site. The latest study is reconstructed as Neandertals heard to draw some conclusions as to how they would have communicated.
The study relied on high-resolution CT scans to create meaningful 3D models of the ear structures in Homo sapiens and Neandertals as well as earlier fossils from the Atapuerca site representing the ancestors of the Neandertals. Data collected on the 3D models were integrated into a software-based model, developed in the field of audio bioengineering, to estimate the listening capacities up to 5 kHz, which ‘incorporates most of the frequency range of modern human speech sounds. Compared to Atapuerca fossils, the Neandertals showed slightly better hearing between 4-5 kHz, much more closely like modern humans.
In addition, the researchers were able to work out the maximum frequency range of sensitivity, technically known as the resident bandwidth, in each species. The relative bandwidth of the communication system, so that wider bandwidth allows a greater number of easily recognizable acoustic signals to be used in oral sex communication. This, in turn, improves communication efficiency, the ability to deliver a clear message in the shortest time. The Neandertals feature a wider bandwidth compared to their Atapuerca ancestors, more like modern humans in this feature.
“This is the real key,” said Mercedes Conde-Valverde, a professor at Universidad de Alcalá in Spain and lead author of the study. “The presence of similar hearing aids, especially bandwidth, demonstrates that the Neandertals had a communication system that was as complex and efficient as modern human speech.”
“One of the other interesting findings from the study was the suggestion that Neandertal language apparently led to increased use of consonants,” Quam said. “Most previous studies of Neandertal speech abilities focused on the ability to produce the main vowels in the spoken English language. However, we feel that this emphasis has gone wrong. , because the use of consonants is a way of introducing more information into the vocal signal and also separating human speech and language from the patterns of communication in almost all other prime ministers. Our study of this highlighted an interesting aspect of the research and is a groundbreaking recommendation for the language abilities of our fossil ancestors. “
Thus, Neandertals had the same ability to produce the sounds of human speech, and their ear was “tuned” to see these frequencies. This shift in study capabilities in Neandertals, compared to their Atapuerca ancestors, parallels archaeological evidence for increasingly complex behavioral patterns, including changes. in stone appliance technology, fire home and potential symbolic uses. Thus, the study provides strong evidence that favors coexisting increasingly complex behaviors and increasing efficiencies in vocal communication during the course of human evolution.
The team behind the new study has been developing this line of research for nearly two decades, and they have an ongoing collaboration to extend the analyzes to additional fossil species. For now, however, the new results are encouraging.
“These results are particularly pleasing,” said Ignacio Martinez of Universidad de Alcalá in Spain. “We believe that, after more than a century of research on this question, we have given a definitive answer to the question of Neandertal speech abilities.”
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The study, “Study and Speech Abilities Similar to Neandertals and Modern People,” was published in Ecology Nature and evolution.
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