Neanderthals Could Hear? May Have Understood, Recognized Human Speech Like Modern-Day Man

Neanderthals are the closest ancient ancestors to modern-day humans. Recent studies suggest that they could perceive and possibly produce human speech.

Rolf Quam, co-author, and professor at Binghamton University says that the study is one of the most significant studies of his career, showing solid evidence that Neanderthals had the ability to perceive and produce human speech.

Language of Neanderthals

The collaborative study by an international multidisciplinary team published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution entitled, "Neanderthals and Homo sapiens had similar auditory and speech capacities" is one of few on-going research types on fossil evidence in studying the evolution of language in Neanderthals.

The evolution of linguistic and the capacities of Neanderthals has been a long-standing question in the mysteries of human evolution.

Juan Luis Arsuaga, a co-author and professor of paleontology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, explains that for decades the central question of human evolutionary study has been on forms of communications in other ancient human species, especially in Neanderthals.

The latest study reconstructed how Neanderthals would have heard and draw inferences about how they would have communicated.

Unraveling the Linguistic Abilities of Neanderthals

The study heavily relied on high-resolution CT scans to create virtual 3D models of the ear structures in Neanderthals and Homa Sapiens as well as early fossils recovered from sites in Atapuerca that represent ancestors of Neanderthals.

Data gathered from the 3D models were entered into a software-based model specifically developed for the field of auditory and bioengineering that estimates the hearing abilities of Neanderthals up to 5 kHz, encompassing most frequency ranges in modern human speech.

Comparing data from Atapuerca fossils and Neanderthals showed better hearing between 4-5 kHz, thereby resembling modern humans more closely.

Furthermore, researchers calculated the frequency range at maximum sensitivity known as occupied bandwidth in each species. This is related to the communication system wherein those with a wider bandwidth allow for a larger number of easily distinguishable acoustics to be used in oral communication of species.

In turn, this improves the efficiency of communications or the ability to deliver crisp messages in the shortest time possible. Researchers found that Neanderthals had wider bandwidth compared to their Atapuerca ancestors, which closely resemble modern human features.

Mercedes Conde-Valverde, lead author and professor at the Universidad de Alcala, Spain says that the study is a vital key where the presence of similar hearing abilities and bandwidth demonstrates how Neanderthals could have possessed a communication system as complex and efficient as modern-day linguistics.

Thus, the study proves that Neanderthals had the capacity to produce sounds of human speech mostly due to their ears being 'in tuned' with perceivable frequencies. The changes in auditory capacities in Neanderthals compared to Atapuerca ancestors coincide with archaeological evidence for increasingly complex behavioral patterns.

The team behind the study has been developing the research for roughly two decades with a continued collaboration to further extend the analyses to additional fossil species.