10th Jul 2008
If Cavemen Could Talk
Oh, wait. Apparently, they could. New research on Neanderthal skeletons proves it, according to Discovery News online:
The researchers analyzed bones from five such individuals that lived at Sima de los Huesos, a cave in Atapuerca, Spain. Using skull bones, they created very detailed three-dimensional computerized tomography (CT) reconstructions of the cave dwellers’ outer and middle ear. CT involves multiple X-ray-like images that serve as thin slices, which gradually build whole body parts or other structures.
The comprehensive model revealed that the Atapuerca human-ish residents had a heightened sensitivity to sounds falling between one and five kilohertz, a range linked to listening to speech that other primates seem to lack.
“Our results show that the audition of hominids of the Sima de los Huesos was equivalent to ours, and clearly different to that of the chimpanzees,” Mendizabal said.
He and his team recently presented the findings at the Acoustics ‘08 meeting in Paris.
The hearing range they detected indicates H. heidelbergensis spent around 90 percent of its time listening to sounds that fall within the bandwidth of speech. Their hearing was best suited to such noises, even though they could also listen to other sounds, just as we can today.
Looks like we were a talkative bunch, even back then. You don’t say.
Leave a Reply