Neandertals and Language: An Evidentiary Analysis
Introduction
They have been branded the prototypical caveman: Short and stocky, sloping of brow, wielding a beefy club, shuffling about prehistoric fires burning in a small pit. They are the Neandertals, the pre-Sapiens species that have captured the public imagination since the first fossilized remains were discovered in the German Rhineland in the middle of the 19th century. Despite its infamous public image, recent research has challenged the notion of the Neandertal as a grunting, dim-witted brute.
Here we will look at one of the most perplexing questions regarding these mysterious figures.: Could they speak beyond mere animalistic communication? Did they utilize a complex language with components such as phonological differentiation, syntax, negation, and more? What did these haunting figures share with us as a species? The idea that a Neandertal could participate in that activity – language – that makes humanity what it is speaks to profound anxieties, questions, and discoveries of what it means to be an intelligent species.
Who were the Neandertals?
Neandertals were advanced bipedal hominids who lived in Europe and Central Asia between 100,000 and 35,000 years ago (Arensburg, 1991). Brain volumes averaged around 1133.98 cubic centimeters, slightly smaller than the human 1332.41 (Stromberg). Note that there is some inconsistency with the spelling of “Neandertal,” with older texts spelling the word “Neanderthal.” The name derives from the Neander Valley, the area where the first remains were recovered in 1856 (Romagnoli, 2022).
The question of whether they were a subspecies of humans or their own genetically distinct group has, like language usage, attracted its own extensive debate, though for the purposes of this article, we will not address the pros and cons of this debate and will focus on their potential language use.
Genetic Evidence
As Romagnoli and colleagues (2022) further point out, the pace of Neandertal research has grown rapidly over the past twenty years, spurred on by modern digital and forensic methods. The most important of these methods has been the extraction of DNA evidence from fossils. DNA indicated a series of interbreeding among humans, Neandertals, and another hominid group known as the Denisovans.
Another breakthrough in Neandertal genetics occurred in 2007, when researchers discovered that Neandertals and humans shared two distinct changes in the FOXP2 gene, a gene that is sometimes labeled the “language gene” for its role in the development of language and motor control of the orofacial apparatus (French, 2019). Human individuals who have a deletion of FOXP2 struggle to produce and comprehend language.
The implication that Neandertals possessed the same evolved features of FOXP2 as humans is profound. This would indicate that the changes to the FOXP2 protein emerged before the split between humans and Neandertals, dating back to the last common ancestor, who lived between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago (Krause, 2007).
Anatomical Evidence
The possibility of Neandertal language took center stage in 1989 with the discovery of a hyoid bone in Israel in 1989. The hyoid bone, a u-shaped structure that supports the root of the tongue, is essential anatomy for the production of verbal speech in modern humans. This Neandertal fossil has the same characteristics of the human hyoid in terms of shape, size, and dimensions.
Meanwhile, Charles (2021) reported on anatomical reconstructions developed by University of Alcalá researchers, who asserted that Neandertal ears had the same capacity for processing distinct sounds as human ears. Employing medical imaging software, the study authors argued that Neandertal hearing was geared toward producing consonants that appear in overwhelming and universal rates in modern human languages, including [s], [k], and [t].
Artifact Evidence
What pulls all of this information together is the question of whether or not Neandertals were capable of symbolic behaviors. Neandertals “created a diversified and versatile stone tool technology that goes beyond the original Mousterian [a particular manufacturing of tools associated specifically with Neandertals] definition…” (Romagnoli, 2022). This means that Neandertals, who also incorporated wooden materials into their productions, had industries within their social structure.
Furthermore, a recent study originating in the University of South Hampton confirms that Neandertals were responsible for ancient cave paintings in Spain, paintings that predate human arrival by roughly 20,000 years. The ability to generate art demonstrates an understanding of symbolism, as well as advanced skills of preparation – the artist would have to prepare pigments for distinct colors and find a suitable spot to display his or her creation (Marris).
Controversies
Not all experts agree that Neandertals were capable of speech, or if they were, what their phonological inventory would have consisted of. Researchers have narrowed in on the quantal vowels, [i], [a], and [u], which, like the aforementioned consonants of [s], [k], and [t], are present in the vast majority of the world’s spoken languages. Brown University cognitive scientist Philip Lieberman was among those who advanced the idea that the Neandertal supralaryngeal vocal tract (SVT) diverged from the human adult (Lieberman, 2007). In his 1971 paper, “On the Speech of the Neanderthal Man,” he concluded that Neandertal SVT was akin to a human newborn in terms of formant measurement (formants being acoustic energy that refer to a particular sound’s frequency). Thus, Neandertals would have, in his theory, significant vocal limitations.
“Neanderthal man…represents an intermediate stage in the evolution of language,” Lieberman concludes. “This indicates that the evolution of language was gradual, that it was not an abrupt phenomenon.” This is a key argument to address because it proposes a third option in the debate over Neandertal language: That there could have been incredible divergence among Neandertal populations with a spectrum of complexity of language production (Arensburg, 1991).
Boë and colleagues disputed Lieberman’s arguments in their 2007 rebuttal article that lays out a comparison of the vocal tracts of newborns and Neandertals as a matter of consequence for determining when language emerged and whether it was shared with our closest paleolithic relatives. The nexus of the Boë et al. assertion is that, while they do not know if Neandertals spoke, their vocal tracts would not have made it impossible to do so. Indeed, they proposed that the vocal tract was comparable to that of a ten-year-old human child (Boë, 2007). This comparison plays into theories that, because of their large rib cages and noses, Neandertal speech would have been high-pitched and nasally (Neanderthal: The Rebirth). However, Boë et al. do state that they never “claimed or [wrote] that Neandertal had the same SVT as an adult human” (567).
Conclusion
Whether Neandertals spoke, had communicative abilities that existed on a spectrum, or were entirely without language has been debated by the anthropological community for as long as Neandertal remains have been unearthed and studied. As stated above, these questions cut to the quick of the uniqueness of our species, the history of our experiences, and the future of our evolution. What were the Neandertals to us? How did we emerge? Where are we going? All of these inquiries pivot on the role of language in our species’ social and technological success, from stone tools to the James Webb Telescope. It is all possible because we can process and produce utterances with symbolic resonance. The idea that a Neandertal shared in that special process is therefore an impactful one.
References
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