Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Neanderthals Speak Out After 30,000 Years
New Scientist ^ | 4-15-2008 | Ewen Callaway

Posted on 04/15/2008 6:35:51 PM PDT by blam

Neanderthals speak out after 30,000 years

15:00 15 April 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Ewen Callaway

Reconstruction of a Neanderthal child's face (Image: Anthropological Institute, University of Zürich)

Talk about a long silence – no one has heard their voices for 30,000 years. Now the long-extinct Neanderthals are speaking up – or at least a computer synthesiser is doing so on their behalf.

Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton has used new reconstructions of Neanderthal vocal tracts to simulate the voice. He says the ancient human's speech lacked the "quantal vowel" sounds that underlie modern speech.

Quantal vowels provide cues that help speakers with different size vocal tracts understand one another, says McCarthy, who was talking at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Columbus, Ohio, on April 11.

"They would have spoken a bit differently. They wouldn't have been able to produce these quantal vowels that form the basis of spoken language," he says.

Talking heads

In the 1970s, linguist Phil Lieberman, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, inferred the dimensions of the larynx of a Neanderthal based on its skull. His team concluded that Neanderthal speech did not have the subtlety of modern human speech.

Some researchers have criticised this finding, citing archaeological evidence of an oral culture and even errors in Lieberman's original vocal tract reconstruction.

Undeterred, the linguist teamed with McCarthy to simulate Neanderthal speech based on new reconstructions of three Neanderthal vocal tracts. The 50,000-year old fossils all came from France.

By modelling the sounds the Neanderthal pipes would have made, McCarthy's team engineered the sound of a Neanderthal saying "E". He plans to eventually simulate an entire Neanderthal sentence. Listen to McCarthy's simulation of a Neanderthal voice

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 30000; godsgravesglyphs; neanderthals; speak
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-59 next last
To: blam

My teenager still uses these grunting sounds whenever he stirs from his cave!

Mel


21 posted on 04/15/2008 6:53:11 PM PDT by melsec (A Proud Aussie)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

“Some researchers have criticised this finding, citing archaeological evidence of an oral culture and even errors in Lieberman’s original vocal tract reconstruction.

Undeterred, the linguist teamed with McCarthy to simulate Neanderthal speech based on new reconstructions of three Neanderthal vocal tracts. The 50,000-year old fossils all came from France. “

Ah.....criticism of scientific conclusions??? by other scientists??? about the neanderthal “voice” ?????

How could that be! Those critics must be looney, right wing creationist wackos.

Yet the headline stands.....so the “fame” is generated for this “researcher” who ignores the criticism from his peers

Garbage.


22 posted on 04/15/2008 6:54:37 PM PDT by Freedom'sWorthIt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

... and the first words uttered by Neanderthal man was ...

“Stop global warming.”


23 posted on 04/15/2008 6:56:29 PM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

“E”? I thought Neanderthals said things like “I am Lothar, of the Hill People.”


24 posted on 04/15/2008 6:56:47 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: who_would_fardels_bear
Web Hubble?
I thought her dad died in Fort Marcy park.
25 posted on 04/15/2008 6:59:47 PM PDT by #1CTYankee (That's right, I have no proof. So what of it??)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: End_Clintonism_Now

Now what exactly does that have to do with the Blair Witch Project? ;-D


26 posted on 04/15/2008 7:02:26 PM PDT by #1CTYankee (That's right, I have no proof. So what of it??)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Viking2002

Maybe the Neanderthals died out because they couldn’t get laid either.


27 posted on 04/15/2008 7:04:31 PM PDT by occu77
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: occu77
Some of them must have - a few of the posters over there were actually bragging about having Neanderthal DNA. (Ya know - that stuff that makes up what they accuse us 'unenlightened' types of being?)


28 posted on 04/15/2008 7:15:01 PM PDT by Viking2002 (I hope the AG pounds the Mann Act up Spitzer's ass with a sharp stick.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: blam

That kid lives right down the road, moved here from up Nawth!


29 posted on 04/15/2008 7:16:22 PM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER (THE SECOND AMENDMENT, A MATTER OF FACT, NOT A MATTER OF OPINION)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: humblegunner

The child has appeared to be the most intelligent person in every picture.

Has that ever been said about you?

;<)


30 posted on 04/15/2008 7:16:31 PM PDT by Eaker (Well, it just seemed wrong to cheat on an ethics test. -- Calvin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: geo40xyz

Lol.....took me a minute to see the looter guy in that photo.


31 posted on 04/15/2008 7:18:05 PM PDT by Godebert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: ottbmare

“Here’s a question I have never seen asked, much less answered: when did white people come into existence?”

And as far as that goes I’d like to know why whites who go to live in Africa don’t become black again after a few generations. I think I can say the same thing about Jews who retire in Florida and maybe even ex-Nazis summering in Buenos Aires. Why don’t they darken, like double quick, and just stay that way?

But to answer your question I think whites first appeared when the potatoes named after them began to be cultivated and about the same time that whiskey was invented. No, excuse me, I somehow confused white people with the Irish. My bad.

I give up, when did they first appear? If it was during the last Ice Age then I wonder why the Indians and the Asians didn’t lighten up too so as to better camouflage themselves in the snow. That would make hunting mammoths a whole lot easier because then they couldn’t see you sneaking up on them across the tundra.

Speaking of which why don’t polar bears become grizzlies when they’re moved to live in the San Francisco zoo? Nevermind, I think I just answered my own question.

Okay, your turn...

Make it count.


32 posted on 04/15/2008 7:25:47 PM PDT by occu77
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Viking2002

“Some of them must have...”

Well, there’s no accounting for taste, is there?


33 posted on 04/15/2008 7:33:21 PM PDT by occu77
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: HoosierHawk
"A fair-skinned, light-haired Neaderthal? I thought that look came much later, but I'm not a student of evolution."

That Image came from a skeleton that many think is a Neanderthal/Modern Human Hybrid. The original image and story is at the link below.

The Neanderthal Theory


34 posted on 04/15/2008 7:35:32 PM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: occu77
"Okay, your turn..."

Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin

Your turn again.

35 posted on 04/15/2008 7:39:51 PM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: PetroniusMaximus

It seems that the Clinton’s have been in politics much long than we had thought.

I’m not going to get any sleep tonight...that’s just spooky!


36 posted on 04/15/2008 7:40:23 PM PDT by Gator113 (Hey Democrats, "I drink your milkshake.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: blam


Interesting thread blam. Thanks for posting.
37 posted on 04/15/2008 7:43:55 PM PDT by Liberty Valance (Keep a simple manner for a happy life)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

And in a related development, a team of University translators studying an ancient neanderthal cave graphic have concluded the meaning to be roughly equivalent to “Can you loan me ten dollars?”


38 posted on 04/15/2008 7:45:49 PM PDT by Thudd (Go sell stupid somewhere else - we're full up here.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Viking2002

“How the hell did you come to that conclusion, Jim Eagle Feather? It could just as easily have been true that they were in fact littering, alcoholic kitty beating bastards.”

My favorite so far. :)


39 posted on 04/15/2008 7:54:28 PM PDT by sig226 (Real power is not the ability to destroy an enemy. It is the willingness to do it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: geo40xyz

I hope so. I frown on Al, Jesse, and The Magic Negroe.

Photobucket>

40 posted on 04/15/2008 8:09:33 PM PDT by Cobra64 (www.BulletBras.net)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-59 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson