Neanderthals: Did They Have Language?

Oct. 18, 2007 — They may not be known for their intellectual might, but Neanderthals were actually among the first individuals on Earth to bury their dead and express themselves artistically, new research shows.

A new study of Neanderthal DNA published, in the latest issue of Current Biology, suggests Neanderthals also had the ability to create language.

The finding hinges upon a single, yet critical, gene called FOXP2, which prior studies have linked to language and speech. Most birds, mammals and even fish retain a version of this gene, but only humans and Neanderthals share a variant form of it that is believed to enable language.

"So from the point of this gene," lead author Johannes Krause told Discovery News, "there is no reason to think that Neanderthals did not have language as we do."

He added that the find also represents "the first time a specific nuclear gene (has been) retrieved from Neanderthals."

Krause, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and his colleagues extracted DNA from two 38,000-year-old Neanderthals collected from El Sidron Cave in Asturias, Spain.

To avoid contamination with human DNA, the researchers took extraordinary precautions, such as wearing masks, lab coats and sterile gloves, as well as freezing the Neanderthal bodies before transporting them out of Spain.

The Neanderthals appear to have been cannibalized after their death, which may have actually helped preserve their DNA over the millenia.

"The defleshing might (have) minimized the decay of the bones and their endogenous DNA," Krause explained.

Before this study, it was thought that modern humans evolved the special language version of the gene after we split from Neanderthals more than 300,000 years ago. Before that time, we shared a common ancestor, perhaps the big-brained Homo heidelbergensis, aka "Heidelberg Man."