Neandertal supralaryngeal vocal tract

Abstract

Interpretations of skeletal anatomy claiming to show that Neandertals could not have had a similar supralaryngeal vocal apparatus to that of humans are demonstrated to be flawed. Correction of the errors suggests that the Neandertal vocal apparatus need not have differed from that of recent humans.

Functional tongues and neanderthal vocal tract reconstruction: A reply to Dr. Houghton (1993)

“…Houghton (1993) notes that the intervertebral disks are not apparent in the diagrams of Lieberman (1989). The omission of the intervertebral disks, according to Houghton, resulted in an abnormally short vertebral column lacking lordosis.…”

“…The section of the scaled frame between hyoid and vocal folds has been added to Houghton's incomplete SVT sketch, superimposing the anterior and superior margins of the radiographic image of the hyoid on Houghton's sketched hyoid. The Neanderthal SVT of Houghton (1993) is, therefore, completed in Figure 1. The Neanderthal "monster" again has its larynx positioned below the cervical vertebrae-an impossible solution.…”

Neanderthal genomics and the evolution of modern humans: Figure 1.

“…However, hypotheses that Neanderthals were independently capable of complex symbolic behavior, based on analyses of artifacts speculated to have been fashioned by Neanderthals, are disputed (Gravina et al 2005;Zilhão et al 2006;Mellars et al 2007). We also do not know if Neanderthals had language, although arguments for and against have been made based on the significance of anatomical features shared between humans and Neanderthals that may or may not have enabled Neanderthals to speak (Houghton 1993;Lieberman 1994;Martinez et al 2008). The fundamental problem in all of these studies is the lack of data: Modern humans came to dominate the planet, while Neanderthals died out ;28,000 yr ago (Finlayson et al 2006).…”

Constraining the Time When Language Evolved

“…Already Homo erectus had a near-modern skull base (Baba et al, 2003), but the significance of this is unclear (Fitch, 2000;Spoor, 2000), and other factors than vocal tract configuration, notably brain size and face size (Bastir et al, 2010), strongly affect skull base shape. Hyoid bones are very rare as fossils, as they are not attached to the rest of the skeleton, but one Neanderthal hyoid has been found (Arensburg et al, 1989), as well as two hyoids from Homo heidelbergensis (Martínez et al, 2008), all very similar to the hyoid of modern Homo sapiens, leading to the conclusion that Neanderthals had a vocal tract adequate for speech (Houghton, 1993;Boë et al, 1999;Boë et al, 2007;Granat et al, 2007, but see also Lieberman (2007) and Fitch (2009)). The hyoid of Australopithecus afarensis, on the other hand, is more chimpanzee-like in its morphology (Alemseged et al, 2006), and the vocal tract that Granat et al (2007) reconstruct for Australopithecus is basically apelike.…”