Neanderthals speak for first time in 50,000 years

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 1:01pm BST 16/04/2008

Neanderthals have spoken out for the first time since they were wiped out or outcompeted by our ancestors tens of millennia ago.

It may only sound like one small burp, but for scientists the Neanderthal “E” sound marks a 50,000 year step back in time.

Prof Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton has used Neanderthal vocal tracts reconstructed from fossils to simulate the voice with a synthesizer, reports NewScientist.com.

By one analysis, Neanderthals had a shorter vocal tract than modern humans that was shaped differently (the horizontal tube, near the bottom of the cranium, was longer than the vertical tube from the level of the palate to the vocal cords) and in theory could manage higher pitches.

But there have been years of controversy over whether these archaic humans had fully articulated speech, rather than grunts, gestures and pre-language.

Three decades ago, the team of Prof Philip Lieberman, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, inferred that Neanderthal speech did not have the subtlety of modern human speech.

Some researchers attacked this finding, citing archaeological evidence of an oral culture and even errors in Prof Lieberman’s original vocal tract reconstruction.

Full story, source: The Telegraph

I read the article, but what I missed was the avarage size of the brain volume of the Neanderthals.. it was some 100 cc larger than the brain volume of the avarage modern man.

We all know the standard story of the evolution of humans: getting upright, getting larger brains, and so on.

But somehow those reporters 'forget' to mention the fact that Neanderthals had larger brains than we have now. Even our direct predecessors, the Cro Magnons had larger braines than we have.

I won't buy this story; I think the Neanderthals were able to speak as well as we do now.

Brain size is relative to body size. A larger body needs a larger brain to run it. Just because an elephant has a larger brain than us doesn't mean that they are more intelligent.

That being said I think they were very very similar to us.

Right. And they were smaller than us.

And their absolute brainsize was bigger than ours, so their relative brainsize was even larger than that.

The average Neandertal brain was actually somewhat larger than the brains of most people today. However, the difference is minimal when people of similar body size are compared. In fact, the average Neandertal brain may have been slightly smaller from this perspective. The large heads and massive but short bodies of Neandertals very likely were more efficient in cold climates and were probably selected for by nature.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_2.htm

The difference would even be larger if we would compare the brainsize of an avarage Neanderthal with that of a modern human of similar size.

And I am not convinced about the theory that their body size and large heads were adaptations to living in a cold climate. What about the Inuit who have lived in the Arctic for millenia?

They have been finding more and more evidence that Neanderthal cohabited with our ancestors and that they might have even mingled. I listened to the recording and it sounded very odd. Sort of eerie.

I found it eerie too. Obviously we'll never know how accurate it is (unless someone clones a Neanderthal).

I expected it to be somewhat human and somewhat non-human primate. It didn't sound like it was in the primate auditory spectrum. There was a machine-like quality to it. I wonder if that's just an inevitable part of synthesized sound.

It's a guess. Kind of wasted science if you ask me. They could be so far off on this.

the recording does have that machine sound too it but so does the "modern human" recording and you can clearly hear the difference... but like somoene else said they could be WAY off.

No, generally Neanderthals were larger boned and more heavily muscled than us. Yes they were shorter, but probably heavier overall. Hence they can have a slightly bigger brain but we still have a higher brain/weight ratio.

Climate affects modern human morphology like it affects other animals. We haven't had that long since we left Africa to develop diffrerences amongst us as drastically as other animals. But yes the Inuit do generally have stockier builds with shorter limbs.

?? How do they know thats what a neanderthal sounds like? To me it sounded like someone from the Fargo movie.

Man the things we can do with technology....ama-za-zing