Showing posts with label hyoid bone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hyoid bone. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 December 2013

Neanderthals could speak like modern humans, study suggests

An analysis of a Neanderthal's fossilised hyoid bone - a horseshoe-shaped structure in the neck - suggests the species had the ability to speak.

This has been suspected since the 1989 discovery of a Neanderthal hyoid that looks just like a modern human's.

But now computer modelling of how it works has shown this bone was also used in a very similar way.

Writing in journal Plos One, scientists say its study is "highly suggestive" of complex speech in Neanderthals.

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