Neanderthals were our closest human relatives, and they had many similarities to anatomically modern humans.
But could Neanderthals conversation? Several pieces of evidence suggest that this may be the case. But to answer this question, it is first important to distinguish between speech and language.
Speech refers to the ability to verbal saying sounds and words. Language is much more complex; it means use these sounds to share ideas.
Related: ‘It just didn’t work’: Mating between Neanderthals and modern humans may have been a product of failed alliances, says archaeologist Ludovic Slimak
Some research suggests that speech had been acquired long ago Homo sapiens and Neanderthals once split in the evolutionary tree between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago.
‘Before modern humans split from Neanderthals, their last common ancestor already possessed articulate speech’ Andrey Vyshskya neuroscientist at Boston University told LiveScience.
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence to support this theory is that H. sapiens and Neanderthals share two evolutionary mutations in a gene called FOXP2. This gene is associated with control of the muscles in the mouth and face that help produce speech. Mutations in FOXP2 can lead to: language deficits in people.
This suggests that Neanderthals could make the movements associated with speech, Vyshedskiy said. But what about the language?
By studying modern humans with language problems, Vyshedskiy and colleagues have proposed that humans have evolved through evolution three different language comprehension phenotypes. The most advanced phenotype, which is what most people have, is syntactic language. Syntactic language conveys complex stories, uses possessive pronouns and includes verb tenses and spatial prepositions, he said.
Neanderthal DNA lives within us
A less complex phenotype for language comprehension, called modifier language, involves understanding colors, sizes, and numbers. The least complex phenotype of language comprehension involves understanding only commands, he said.
The command language comprehension phenotype likely evolved early in our evolutionary history, shortly after the human lineage split from the chimpanzee lineage six million years ago, he said. Modifier language gradually evolved 3 million years later, when people started making stone toolsfollowed by syntactic language acquisition only 70,000 years agohe said.
“So Neanderthals probably spoke like us, but they had a language-adaptive phenotype,” he proposed. “Effectively speaking, Neanderthals may have spoken like a three-year-old child – well-articulated speech, but no syntactic language understanding,” he said.
Some fossil research also supports the idea that Neanderthals had language. For example, in a 2021 study in the journal Nature ecology and evolutionresearchers have taken high-resolution CT scans of the bones associated with hearing ability. They found that Neanderthals and modern humans have greater sensitivity to some sounds in the frequency range of spoken language than other primates.
“There appears to be a convergence in hearing ability between Neanderthals and… Homo sapiens and probably also language skills,” Rolf Kwama paleoanthropologist at Binghamton University in New York and co-author of the study told LiveScience. Because maintaining senses is energetically expensivemost creatures do not develop sensory abilities that they do not use. So if Neanderthals had a modern human hearing pattern, the theory goes, they would likely be able to perceive modern human speech and therefore have some form of language, he said.
However, Quam acknowledged that there is some uncertainty about the Neanderthals’ language skills.
“Neanderthal language is one of the oldest questions in human evolutionary studies,” he said.
Some fossil studies, such as those looking at the hyoid bone in the neck, which is involved in speech production — have been inconclusive, he said.
Still, most experts would probably say Neanderthals had some language skills, Quam said.
“At least her [Neanderthals] had a communications system that was much more complex than [that of] any living ape or primate species,” he said.
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