High notes of the singing Neanderthals

[indigobusiness]

The Sunday Times - Britain
January 30, 2005

High notes of the singing Neanderthals



NEANDERTHALS have been misunderstood. The early humanoids traditionally characterised as ape-like brutes were deeply emotional beings with high-pitched voices. They may even have sung to each other, writes Jonathan Leake.
The new image has emerged from two studies of the vocal apparatus and anatomy of the creatures that occupied Europe between 200,000 and 35,000 years ago.

Neanderthal voices were loud, womanly and probably highly melodic — not the roars and grunts previously assumed by most researchers. Stephen Mithen, professor of archeology at Reading University and author of one of the studies, said: “What is emerging is a picture of an intelligent and emotionally complex creature whose most likely form of communication would have been part language and part song.”

Mithen is giving a seminar on his findings at University College London next week and will publish a book, The Singing Neanderthal: The Origin of Language, Music, Body and Mind, in June.

He studied the Neanderthal voice box and compared it with those of modern humans, monkeys and apes to work out what noises they might have made. “They must have been able to communicate complex ideas and even spirituality. Their anatomy suggests that pitch and melody would have played a key role,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2087-1462226%2C00.html


Neanderthals were a lot more intelligent than they looked
By Roger Dobson
06 January 2002


Neanderthals were not dumb, lumbering idiots after all. New evidence suggests that they had considerable technical and intellectual skills, as well as ingenuity, to put them on a par with modern humans.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=113056

[Taverner]

1. Cool...but how come they didnt give us an mp3

Of how theyre voice *might* have sounded?

That would have been really kewl

[indigobusiness]

6. Really. I f they can sharpen the theory to this point.

They should have audio examples.

[burythehatchet]

2. that thoery completely resonates with me.

Hell, they were artists.

[oneighty]

3. I recall reading long ago

that the Neanderthal were thought to have a 'Breathing tube' separate from the 'Eating tube' which would have allowed them to eat and breath comfortably at the same time without choking. I also understood it was thought they could not 'Talk' at all.

Curious.

180

[Botany]

4. I bet they sounded better than John Ashcroft

Where the eagles soar ......


:wow:

Still I think the guy is reaching in his paper ....... the Neanderthal might or might
not have had a lot of those traits but proving it will be hard. Spirituality ??????
They have to be more advanced then Fallwell.

[indigobusiness]

7. Burial practices tell a lot

about spirituality.

[roguevalley]

5. they had hyoidal bones in their throats same as you and I. I believe

they talked, sang, whatever. There is so much old thinking with these people it frustrates me. Some people believe they didn't
leave a lot of things behind because they used degradable materials,
ie, painted on hides, wore their decoration, etc. It should be noted and remembered that 100 to 150,000 years before our ancestors emerged as moderns, these people were beginning to bury their dead in graves with tenderness and symbolism. They cared for their injured, often for their lifetimes. They had a concept of the hear after and the divine long before us. I love them. I find them fascinating.

[indigobusiness]

8. I love them, too.

They are eminently fascinating. And so much more civilized than some i know.

[oneighty]

9. Kick

For an interested reader

[JitterbugPerfume]

10. thank you

this is fascinating stuff!!!

[DireStrike]

11. Elves?

:shrug: