Neanderthal Comedians? It’s Called a Possibility

Forget notions of Neanderthal man as a giant hairy brute who stumbled about, managing utterances no more sophisticated than an occasional “ugh” or “duh.”

Neanderthal man could talk, researchers say. He could not pronounce the letters “e” or “i,” and he probably sounded a bit nasal and hard to understand, but he could communicate.

Neanderthals even may have spun yarns, whispered gossip and told a few one-liners, says Terrence Deacon, assistant professor of anthropology at Harvard University.

What’s more, they may have talked with early humans, and if they did, remnants of Neanderthal language could be found in modern speech, Deacon said.

About 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals living in Europe and Israel were invaded by a race of smaller folk--modern humans--who had migrated from Africa. For thousands of years the two cultures mingled and quite possibly communicated before Neanderthals died out 35,000 years ago, Deacon said.

Neanderthals “had every bit of the intellectual and linguistic capability” that our direct ancestors did, Deacon said. “They could have conversed with modern humans.”

Deacon bases this contention on his studies of monkey and human brains. His research showed that an area called the ventral prefontal cortex, which grew dramatically in modern human brains, serves as a link between speech centers controlling so-called automatic vocalizations--laughter and crying--and those areas controlling more sophisticated speech.

The development of this large cortex distinguished humans from primates, which use automatic vocalizations like shrieks and hoots to communicate. Since Neanderthal brains also had a large ventral prefrontal cortex, it is reasonable to assume they could talk, Deacon said.

Neanderthal man was a big guy, to be sure. He had larger bones and muscles, a sloping forehead and more menacing jaws and teeth than today’s average human, but his brain was much like ours. There is no reason he would not have the gift of gab, Deacon said.

He could not utter some of the vowels we do, though, because his larynx was higher in his throat than ours. So he could not “ooh” if he spied a beautiful full moon, for example.

Philip Lieberman, professor of cognitive and linguistic sciences at Brown University, agreed with some of Deacon’s argument.

But Lieberman said that although he would “be astonished if they didn’t talk . . . whether they spoke anything like humans is an unsettled issue.”

“The difference in the vocal tract means the Neanderthal couldn’t close his nose off,” Lieberman said, noting this would make Neanderthal speech very nasal, which added errors to any language.

Lieberman added that Neanderthal speech would also be hampered by not being able to say “e” or “i,” the most common sounds found in modern languages.

Deacon said much of what an anthropologist believes about Neanderthal man’s capacities depend upon what is considered crucial to speech.

“It all comes down to what you think is more important for speech--the brain or the larynx,” Deacon said. “I believe it is the brain.”

Deacon’s argument may have gained strength recently with the discovery of a human-like hyoid bone, from which the larynx is suspended, in the 60,000-year-old skeleton of a Neanderthal on Mt. Carmel in Israel.

If Neanderthals and modern humans talked, there also may be some aspects of Neanderthal speech left in modern languages, Deacon said.

“It’s an open question, but it’s not impossible that our language was affected,” Deacon said.

So what did Neanderthals talk about? They were hunters and gatherers, much like the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Africa, so they probably talked about the animals they hunted and the berries they gathered for food.

But not all Neanderthal communication was shop talk.

“They didn’t just talk about their jobs,” Deacon said. “I think they could have told jokes. And there were issues of family, shelter, disease and aging that they might have discussed. And of course, there was the play of children.

“It’s a disservice to the complexity of their society to think of Neanderthals as dumb brutes,” he said.