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March 16, 2005
Neanderthals May Have Sung Like Sopranos; But Could They Dance?
Before we get too deep in this, I am not convinced by what I've seen so far, but its not quite April fool's day so I guess I should pay some attention. News in Science, Discoverychannel.com and likely others are reporting a study by Stephen Mithen, a professor of archaeology at the University of Reading that claims that Neanderthals "had the physical ability to communicate with pitch and melody" in a form "that was half spoken and half sung."
Others have doubts. As Jeffrey Laitman said,
No Neanderthal larynx exists because the tissue does not fossilise. We have to reconstruct it.
Even if we had a complete Neanderthal larynx that would not tell us how they used it. These is a lot more to oral communication than the detailed structure of the larynx. Just ask anyone who has a damaged Broca's area or a damaged Wernicke's area and see what he or she says. Although it is not actually a language gene, FOXP2 should come up in the discussion at some point.
The article, based on a University College London seminar paper that will be published in Mithen's forth-coming book, The Singing Neanderthal: the Origin of Language, Music, Body and Mind. More on this in June when the book comes out or when I learn something new.
Posted by Duane Smith at March 16, 2005 8:58 AM | Read more on Paleoanthropology |
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