Soru

For decades, paleoanthropologists debated whether Neandertals possessed the anatomical capacity for complex spoken language. Early mid-twentieth-century reconstructions of Neandertal vocal tracts, based on incomplete skeletal remains and flawed comparisons with infant chimpanzees, suggested an inability to produce the full range of human vowel sounds. However, recent high-resolution micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scans of fossilized middle-ear ossicles—the malleus, incus, and stapes—from several Neandertal specimens have challenged this long-standing assumption. The physical dimensions and spatial orientation of these tiny bones determine the auditory frequency tuning of the middle ear. Biomechanical modeling demonstrates that Neandertal middle ears were tuned to sound frequencies between 3.5 and 5.0 kilohertz, a band optimal for consonant perception in modern human speech, whereas chimpanzee ears exhibit marked sensitivity primarily to lower frequencies. Because speech perception and speech production co-evolve to maximize communicative efficiency within a species, this auditory alignment suggests that Neandertals operated within a vocal-acoustic channel remarkably similar to our own, even if their precise phonetic repertoire differed slightly from modern humans.

Based on the passage, which of the following can be inferred regarding the early mid-twentieth-century vocal tract reconstructions of Neandertals?