Neanderthals 'could speak, just like humans', study finds (2023)

FAQs

What evidence is there that Neanderthals could speak? ›

An analysis of a Neanderthal's fossilised hyoid bone - a horseshoe-shaped structure in the neck - suggests the species had the ability to speak. This has been suspected since the 1989 discovery of a Neanderthal hyoid that looks just like a modern human's.

TRENDING SCIENCE: Neanderthals could hear and communicate like Homo sapiens, say scientists. Neanderthals had the capacity to produce and hear human-like speech, new study finds.

Humans were thought to have spoken language unlike any other species on Earth. But now, scientists think another species of human, the Neanderthal, had the ability to hear and produce speech just like us.

Neanderthals shared many features with their ancestors—a prominent brow, weak chin, sloping skull and large nose—but were as big-brained as the anatomically modern humans that later colonized Europe, Homo sapiens. At the same time, Neanderthals were stocky, a build that would have conserved heat efficiently.

German researchers have discovered Neandertals apparently had the human variant of a gene that is linked to speech and language. A team of scientists, primarily from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, made the discovery during efforts to reconstruct a full genome of the extinct hominid.

Measurement of our braincase and pelvic shape can reliably separate a modern human from a Neanderthal - their fossils exhibit a longer, lower skull and a wider pelvis. Even the three tiny bones of our middle ear, vital in hearing, can be readily distinguished from those of Neanderthals with careful measurement.

New research published on Monday suggests that Neanderthals had a vocal communication system that could have been similar to human speech. “Neandertals could have produced all the sounds in that frequency range, like we can. There does not seem to be any difference in their ability to produce speech sounds.

Neanderthals Turned to Faith When Confronting Death, New Evidence Suggests. We aren't sure whether they could speak, let alone intone liturgy over their dead in the light of controlled fires, but a child's burial site in Spain suggests they might well have, say archaeologists.

To date, there's no evidence that Neanderthals developed writing, so language, if it existed, would have been verbal. Unlike writing, spoken languages leave no physical trace behind. Our words vanish as soon as they're spoken.

This information is generally reported as a percentage that suggests how much DNA an individual has inherited from these ancestors. The percentage of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans is zero or close to zero in people from African populations, and is about 1 to 2 percent in people of European or Asian background.

Were Neanderthals as smart as human? ›

Neanderthals, we now know, were likely more intelligent, sophisticated and complicated than previously believed. Pääbo and other scientists have rapidly increased their understanding of Neanderthals—and, by way of contrast, exactly what it means to be a modern human.

Neanderthals, our ancient human cousins, were smarter and more culturally evolved than previously thought. Not only had they successfully built different kinds of tools out of bone and wood, a new study shows that they also made cave art before the arrival of Homo sapiens.

Research has found links between Neanderthal DNA and fertility, how people feel pain and immune system functionality. Neanderthal DNA may affect skin tone and hair color, height, sleeping patterns, mood and even addiction in present-day Europeans.

Neandertals and anatomically modern humans overlapped geographically for a period of over 30,000 years following human migration out of Africa. During this period, Neandertals and humans interbred, as evidenced by Neandertal portions of the genome carried by non-African individuals today.

Neanderthals and modern humans belong to the same genus (Homo) and inhabited the same geographic areas in western Asia for 30,000–50,000 years; genetic evidence indicate while they interbred with non-African modern humans, they ultimately became distinct branches of the human family tree (separate species).

Together with an Asian people known as Denisovans, Neanderthals are our closest ancient human relatives. Scientific evidence suggests our two species shared a common ancestor. Current evidence from both fossils and DNA suggests that Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago.

Overall, we found that Neanderthal ancestry contributes less-than-expected to the genetics of most traits in modern Europeans. However, Neanderthal variants contribute more-than-expected to several traits, including immunity, circadian rhythms, bone density, menopause age, lung capacity, and skin color.

Those on the list include Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, the Indonesian hobbit-size people, Homo erectus and Homo naledi. The list also includes other species that existed closer in time to the common ancestor of humans and chimps, and so look more like chimpanzees than modern-day humans.

The spread of modern humans across Europe is associated with the demise and ultimate extinction of Neanderthal populations 40,000 years ago, likely due to competition for resources.

Modern humans have a mutation that boosts the growth of neurons in the neocortex, a brain region associated with higher intelligence. This is absent in more ancient humans like Neanderthals, so it is likely that it makes us cleverer, say the researchers who uncovered it.

Are there any animals that can talk like humans? ›

Some animals, including parrots, songbirds, beluga whales, and dolphins, can mimic human speech. These animals are vocal learners and are adept at mimicking noises after hearing them.

The origins of speech has been one of the great unsolved mysteries of modern science. A new article in Current Anthropology explains why it is that out of 220 primate species we are the only ones that talk. Speech is not an improvement on the hooting of an ape or the chattering of a monkey.

Neanderthals are hominids in the genus Homo, humans, and generally classified as a distinct species, H. neanderthalensis, although sometimes as a subspecies of modern human as H. sapiens neanderthalensis. This would necessitate the classification of modern humans as H. sapiens sapiens.

One of the Neanderthals had a genetic mutation that diminished its ability to smell androstadienone — a chemical associated with the scents of urine and sweat. That could've been a big help for those living in close proximities with other Neanderthals in caves.

The first religious texts mark the beginning of religious history. The Pyramid Texts from ancient Egypt are one of the oldest known religious texts in the world, dating to between 2400 and 2300 BCE.

There is now good evidence that Neanderthals were cognitively sophisticated, displaying many of the cognitive traits that were traditionally regarded as proxies for modern human cognition, notably including language.

According to their analysis, Neanderthals contributed roughly 2% of their DNA to modern people outside Africa and half a percent to Denisovans, who contributed 0.2% of their DNA to Asian and Native American people.

Researchers have long debated when humans starting talking to each other. Estimates range wildly, from as late as 50,000 years ago to as early as the beginning of the human genus more than 2 million years ago. But words leave no traces in the archaeological record.

Now a study, published this week in Cell, presents a striking find: Modern African populations carry more snippets of Neanderthal DNA than once thought, about a third of the amount the team identified for Europeans and Asians.

Red hair wasn't inherited from Neanderthals at all. It now turns out they didn't even carry the gene for it!

What color eyes did Neanderthal have? ›

Fair skin, hair and eyes : Neanderthals are believed to have had blue or green eyes, as well as fair skin and light hair. Having spent 300,000 years in northern latitudes, five times longer than Homo sapiens, it is only natural that Neanderthals should have developed these adaptive traits first.

A structure that represents the biggest known genetic difference between humans and Neanderthals also predisposes humans to autism.

Anthropologists and other scientists have held that human intelligence crossed a threshold (a 'magical' rubicon) with the arrival of Homo sapiens , who replaced Homo erectus a million years ago. It was believed that Homo erectus was not intelligent enough to make anything more than crude stone tools.

We found that Neanderthals had nearly the same genes for emotional reactivity as chimpanzees, and they were intermediate between modern humans and chimpanzees in their numbers of genes for both self-control and self-awareness.

A Neanderthal would have a clear power advantage over his Homo sapiens opponent. Many of the Neanderthals archaeologists have recovered had Popeye forearms, possibly the result of a life spent stabbing wooly mammoths and straight-tusked elephants to death and dismantling their carcasses.

What is clear however, is that all organisms are dynamic and will continue to adapt to their unique environments to continue being successful. In short, we are still evolving.

Scientists have concluded that Neanderthals were not the primitive dimwits they are commonly portrayed to have been.

The Neanderthal hyoid bone

Its similarity to those of modern humans was seen as evidence by some scientists that Neanderthals possessed a modern vocal tract and were therefore capable of fully modern speech.

Only one Neanderthal's blood had been typed in the past, and was found to be type O under the ABO system used to classify the blood of modern humans. Since all chimpanzees are type A, and all gorillas are type B, it was assumed that all Neanderthals were type O.

Ancient DNA contains clues about complexion. An analysis of 50,000-year-old Neanderthal DNA suggests that at least some of the ancient hominids probably had pale skin and red hair. The findings, published this week in Science¹, are based on the sequence of a single gene, called mc1r.

Who did the first human mate with? ›

As some of the first bands of modern humans moved out of Africa, they met and mated with Neandertals about 100,000 years ago—perhaps in the fertile Nile Valley, along the coastal hills of the Middle East, or in the once-verdant Arabian Peninsula.

New DNA research has unexpectedly revealed that modern humans (Homo sapiens) mixed, mingled and mated with another archaic human species, the Denisovans, not once but twice—in two different regions of the ancient world.

A window has been opened into a unique ecosystem that once existed in northern Greenland. Sediment samples taken from the geological formation Kap København contained minute DNA fragments, dating back two million years into the Pliocene.

The Neanderthal and modern human lineages diverged about 550,000 years ago. So far, we have no evidence of Neanderthal mtDNA lineages in modern humans. Neanderthals were not as genetically diverse as modern humans were at the same period, indicating that Neanderthals had a smaller population size.

These early humans probably had pale skin, much like humans' closest living relative, the chimpanzee, which is white under its fur. Around 1.2 million to 1.8 million years ago, early Homo sapiens evolved dark skin.

sapiens arose in either eastern or southern Africa within the past 200,000 years and, because of its inherent superiority, subsequently replaced archaic hominin species around the globe without interbreeding with them to any significant degree.

Both of the brain regions in which the Neanderthal fragments were discovered are involved in key functions such as learning and coordinating movements. However despite this, the scientists stressed there is no indication the DNA pieces have any effect on the cognitive abilities of modern humans.

Humans have flexibility in the mouth, tongue and lips that lets us form a wide range of precise sounds that chimps simply can't produce, and some have developed this complex voice instrument more than others.

To date, there's no evidence that Neanderthals developed writing, so language, if it existed, would have been verbal. Unlike writing, spoken languages leave no physical trace behind. Our words vanish as soon as they're spoken.

Fair skin, hair and eyes : Neanderthals are believed to have had blue or green eyes, as well as fair skin and light hair. Having spent 300,000 years in northern latitudes, five times longer than Homo sapiens, it is only natural that Neanderthals should have developed these adaptive traits first.

What Race Has Highest Neanderthal DNA? ›

Now a study, published this week in Cell, presents a striking find: Modern African populations carry more snippets of Neanderthal DNA than once thought, about a third of the amount the team identified for Europeans and Asians.

It's striking and paradoxical that half of all the Neanderthal genes in our genome play a role in determining skin and hair colour. Yet this new research shows us that Neanderthal genes have no more influence over these features than the unique human genes we carry for them.

According to their analysis, Neanderthals contributed roughly 2% of their DNA to modern people outside Africa and half a percent to Denisovans, who contributed 0.2% of their DNA to Asian and Native American people.