60,000-year-old skeleton shows primitive man could talk

60,000-year-old skeleton shows primitive man could talk 

TEL AVIV- Archaeologists in Israel have unearthed a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal skeleton that indicates, for the first time, that the primitive hominids were anatomically able to talk. 

Elsewhere in Israel, other scientists have turned up the skeleton of a more advanced hominid who was anatomlcally identical to present-day humans but who, paradoxicaliy, lived 30,00 years before the Neanderthal. 

Thls find seems to confirm a similar discovery last year whose validity and meaning have been questioned. 

Together, the two most recent discoveries appear to answer some questions about human origins while raising others. 

Among the tantalising possibilities is that Neanderthal man and the more advanced, anatomically modern human could talk to each other. 

The latest Neanderthal discovery, made at Kebara cave in Israel by Israeli and French scientists, is that of a skeleton containing a hyoid bone, which les between the chin and lагупх. 

The small, U-shaped bone anchors the muscles that move the tongue, lower jaw and larynx. 

Never before had a Neanderthal skeleton been found with this key bone in place, said Dr Baruch Arensburg of the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University.

Dr Arensburg is the chief author of a paper describing the discovery in Thursday's issue of the British journal, Nature. 

In shape, size and position, he said, the Neanderthal hyoid bone is identical to that of modern humans and indicates that the anatomy of speech was the same in both, and that they could speak in the same way. 

Whether they actually did is still unknown, Dr Arensburg and other scientists say, because it is unknown whether the Neanderthal brain 🧠 could handle speech.- NYT.

Hyoid bone

Horseshoe-shaped bone situated in the anterior midline of the neck between the chin and the thyroid cartilage

The hyoid bone, also known as the lingual bone or the tongue-bone, is a horseshoe-shaped bone situated in the anterior midline of the neck between the chin and the thyroid cartilage. At rest, it lies between the base of the mandible and the third cervical vertebra. Unlike other bones, the hyoid is only distantly articulated to other bones by muscles or ligaments