18 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Researchers Say that Neanderthals Had the Same Hearing Capacity as Humans

Virtual reconstructions of Neanderthal ears show that had the same physical capacity for hearing as modern humans, and by inference could also make the same sounds we can – although whether they actually spoke a language is still unknown.

Mercedes Conde Valverde of the University of Alcala in Spain said: “We don’t know if they have a language, but at least they have all the anatomical parts they need.” “It’s not that they speak the same language, not English, It’s not Spanish. There is no language like this. But if we can hear them, we will recognize that they are human.”

Conde-Valverde and her colleagues used medical imaging software to create a virtual reconstruction of the Neanderthal’s outer ear and middle ear cavity based on a CT scan of the skull. Using these models, they can determine the range of sounds that Neanderthals can hear, and therefore may produce speech. The technology has previously been used to study the speech and hearing of other ancient humans and chimpanzees.

The team did the same for a group of fossils known as the hominins from Sima de Los Huesos, which are believed to be the direct ancestors of the Neanderthals. The results showed that, unlike these ancestors, Neanderthals had the same hearing ability as modern humans.

Comte-Valverde said that Neanderthals’ hearing was optimized to produce consonants commonly found in modern human languages, such as “s”, “k”, “t” and “th”.

Although we don’t know whether this means that they have the intelligence to develop languages, Comte Valverde said that recent archaeological evidence, including the use of stone tools, jewelry making, and artwork, suggests that Neanderthals’ complex behavior may be Show that they have language skills.

“It’s getting harder and harder to dismiss the fact that they probably had some kind of speech,” says Dan Dediu of the Lumière de Lyon 2 University in France. It was probably very similar to ours, but not identical, he says.

Nature Ecology and Evolution

Related Articles

A Medieval Necropolis Discovered During Excavations at the site of the Future Bus Station in Sozopol, Bulgaria

4 April 2024

4 April 2024

A medieval necropolis was discovered during excavations at the construction site of a bus station in the old seaside town...

Queen of Seas Who Challenged Rome: ‘Queen Teuta’

31 October 2023

31 October 2023

Illyrian Queen Teuta is one of the most extraordinary figures of Illyrian antiquity and of Albanian heritage. She was also...

A 3,300-year-old tablet found at Büklükale from Hittite Empire describes catastrophic invasion of four cities

11 March 2024

11 March 2024

Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,300-year-old clay tablet depicting a catastrophic foreign invasion of the Hittite Empire in Büklükale, about 100...

Croatian Team Finds a Way to Effectively and Permanently Preserve Stuka Aircraft Wreck Under the Sea

11 December 2024

11 December 2024

 The ICUA Zadar team of conservators and archaeologists carried out in situ underwater conservation of the wreckage of the Junkers...

A Rare Bilingual Inscription Discovered in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk Province

28 June 2024

28 June 2024

Saudi Arabia’s Heritage Commission announced the discovery of a rare bilingual inscription in the village of Alqan in the Tabuk...

Mosaics found in Türkiye’s Sinop belong to dining room of a wealthy family

24 June 2023

24 June 2023

The pebble mosaics unearthed during the excavation of a building complex in the province of Sinop on Turkey’s Black Sea...

Archaeologists Uncover lost Indigenous Settlement of Sarabay, Florida

9 June 2021

9 June 2021

The University of North Florida archaeological team is now quite sure that they have uncovered Sarabay, a lost Indigenous northeast...

Roman-era chambers and clay offering vessels found in Antiocheia Ancient City, in southern Turkey

24 October 2022

24 October 2022

During excavations in southern Turkey’s ancient city of Antiocheia, archaeologists discovered late Roman-era chambers and clay offering vessels. Antakya, better...

Denisovans or Homo Sapiens: Who Were the First to Settle Permanently on the Tibetan Plateau?

8 December 2021

8 December 2021

The Tibetan Plateau has long been considered one of the last places to be populated by people in their migration...

Advanced imaging techniques reveal secrets of sealed ancient Egyptian animal coffins

21 April 2023

21 April 2023

Researchers from the British Museum have gained valuable insight into the contents of six sealed ancient Egyptian animal coffins using...

Dominican mission discovers 1,305-meter Greco-Roman ancient rock-cut tunnel in Alexandria

4 November 2022

4 November 2022

A Greco-Roman tunnel measuring 1,305 meters in length was discovered beneath Tapuziris Magna, an Ancient Egyptian city, by an Egyptian-Dominican...

Archaeologists have unearthed a stone chest containing the ritual deposit of 15 anthropomorphic figurines

1 September 2023

1 September 2023

Archaeologists have unearthed a stone chest containing the ritual deposit of 15 anthropomorphic figurines that were placed as votive offerings...

3,000-Year-Old leather Shoe discovered On A Beach In Kent, UK

26 February 2023

26 February 2023

A Bronze Age relic found on a Kent beach is believed to be the oldest shoe ever found in the...

A gilded silver Anglo-Saxon object “made by someone with a real eye for loveliness” has the experts baffled

2 January 2024

2 January 2024

An enigmatic Anglo-Saxon object has been unearthed in a captivating discovery near Langham, Norfolk, East of England. This gilded silver...

The longest inscription in Saudi Arabia turned out to belong to the last king of Babylon

25 July 2021

25 July 2021

The Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage has announced the discovery of a 2,550-year-old inscription etched on basalt stone...