Neanderthals Listened to the World Much Like Us
A reconstructed Neanderthal ear adds a new piece to the puzzle of whether the early humans could speak.
To begin to figure out whether Neanderthals could talk, researchers studied fossilized ear bones, to reconstruct how and what our early ancestors heard.Credit.The Natural History Museum, London/Science Source
By Sabrina Imbler
March 1, 2021
If you were somehow able to travel back in time some 130,000 years and chance upon a Neanderthal, you might find yourself telling them about some of humanity’s greatest inventions, such as spanakopita and TikTok. The Neanderthal would have no idea what you were saying, much less talking about, but they might be able to hear you perfectly, picking up on the voiceless consonants “t,” “k” and “s” that appear in many modern human languages.