Neandertals Probably Perceived Speech Quite Well - Scientific American
"Conde-Valverde and her team made 3-D scans using computerized tomography to construct digital models of the structures of the inner ears of five Neandertals. They then compared the sound transmissions within the simulated organs with those of the ears of modern humans, older hominins and chimpanzees. This analysis enabled the Spanish researchers to deduce which pitches each ear was best attuned to. The wider the frequency band that can be detected, the more acoustic signals can be contained within it, enabling the transmission of a distinguishable signal in a short interval. The results from this work is clear: the frequency bandwidth of modern human and Neandertal ears do not differ significantly.
Neandertals could therefore hear language just as well as we do—with an acoustic sensorium that is optimally tuned to the frequencies that are particularly relevant for understanding human speech. In contrast to ears of H. heidelbergensis individuals from Spain’s Sima de los Huesos cave, which were analyzed for comparison, Neandertals could hear better at frequencies of four to five kilohertz, an acoustic capacity comparable to that of modern humans. The band of frequencies Neandertals could perceive was also as wide as that of humans."
"Conde-Valverde and her team made 3-D scans using computerized tomography to construct digital models of the structures of the inner ears of five Neandertals. They then compared the sound transmissions within the simulated organs with those of the ears of modern humans, older hominins and chimpanzees. This analysis enabled the Spanish researchers to deduce which pitches each ear was best attuned to. The wider the frequency band that can be detected, the more acoustic signals can be contained within it, enabling the transmission of a distinguishable signal in a short interval. The results from this work is clear: the frequency bandwidth of modern human and Neandertal ears do not differ significantly.
Neandertals could therefore hear language just as well as we do—with an acoustic sensorium that is optimally tuned to the frequencies that are particularly relevant for understanding human speech. In contrast to ears of H. heidelbergensis individuals from Spain’s Sima de los Huesos cave, which were analyzed for comparison, Neandertals could hear better at frequencies of four to five kilohertz, an acoustic capacity comparable to that of modern humans. The band of frequencies Neandertals could perceive was also as wide as that of humans."