We've been aware of the species Homo neanderthalensis, commonly known as Neanderthals, since the first bones were found in Germany's Neander Valley in 1854.
Our image of Neanderthals has undergone a massive makeover in the last 50 years, from cave-dwelling brutes to intelligent cousins of modern humans. This image makeover includes the relatively recent discovery that, like humans, Neanderthals had a sophisticated language.
At one time, it was believed that Neanderthals uttered only guttural sounds and barks, along with hand gestures, which would have been extremely limiting for communication. But the recent discovery of a specific part of the human genome that guides and controls the brain's language centers — Neanderthals share the same sequences — has upended that notion. It's now believed that, under certain conditions, Neanderthals and modern humans could have conversed.
A new study published in Science Advances identified the genetic sequences that play such a large role in the development of our language skills.
“What we’re seeing is how a very small part of the genome can have an outsized influence, not just on who we were as a species, but on who we are as individuals,” study author Jacob Michaelson of the University of Iowa said in a statement. “These aren’t genes we’re talking about. They’re regulatory regions that act like the volume knob on genes.”
The segments of the human genome, known as Human Ancestor Quickly Evolved Regions (HAQERs), represent less than 0.1% of the human genome but are responsible for the neural “hardware” for language.
The HAQERs also interact with another vital speech gene: FOXP2. Identified in 1998, FOXP2 is a transcription factor active in the development of the neural circuitry of language use, and mutations in the gene can cause speech problems. “So, if the HAQERs are like volume knobs that can be turned, FOXP2 is one of the hands that is turning these volume knobs,” Michaelson said.
The accelerated evolution of these “volume knobs” predates the split between modern humans and Neanderthals, which means they were also present in our distant cousins. Intriguingly, they may have been cranked up even higher in Neanderthals than they are in humans. In other words, it’s highly likely Neanderthals had a similar—or better—cognitive capacity for language.
The biggest difference between Neanderthal language and modern human language is Neanderthals' inability to use metaphors and abstract words. This would be a huge handicap in modern humans' ability to make a Neanderthal understand complex ideas relating to social constructs and other ideas modern humans grasp intuitively. Some words can be used in either a literal or a metaphorical sense, such as descriptions of people. "She's as pretty as a daisy" might impart information about her looks, but the Neanderthal wouldn't grasp the metaphorical concept. He wouldn't see any resemblance between the girl and the flower and would be very confused.
Neanderthals would have been handicapped by brains not developed to store words the way humans do throughout their brains. Part of the reason was the different internal structure of their brains.
Anthropology, neuroscience and genomics have converged on the view that Neanderthals’ brains had a different internal structure than ours. More of their brain matter was devoted to visual processing, restricting what was available for other tasks, such as language. They also had a smaller and differently shaped cerebellum, a brain structure that contributes to language processing, production and fluency. Moreover, several of the genetic changes that occurred in the H sapiens lineage after our split from the Neanderthals influenced our neural networks. These likely became more extensive, connecting what had previously been specialised and relatively isolated areas, to deliver what archaeologists have termed ‘cognitive fluidity’ and psychologists a ‘global workspace’.
The absence of cognitive fluidity solves the Neanderthal puzzle: they struggled to connect the different semantic clusters of words within their brains, such as those relating to animals, people and tools.
So even a conversation about the weather would have been difficult.
"Try explaining love to someone without using not only what is evidently a metaphor but also what we can call ‘dead metaphors’ – those for which the original imagery has been forgotten," suggests Psyche. "'Attraction’, for instance, is a word for objects being drawn together, something unrelated to emotions, although we use it for that purpose."
The scope of any potential conversation between modern humans and Neanderthals would be extremely narrow. Broad concepts about cooperative hunting might have been exchanged, and specific information about prey, including what animal, where it might be found, and perhaps even how best to kill it, would have been the limit of the Neanderthal's understanding.
Curiously, Neanderthal intelligence barely evolved over the 600,000 years they lived. Their tools didn't improve much, and they never developed art. Their hunting skills probably improved, but critically, their ability to adapt to the changing climate, to competition from modern humans, and their dwindling numbers sealed their fate. By 35,000 years ago, no trace of them remained.
