1
00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,960
Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren

2
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:11,559
Speaker 1: vogel Bomb here with another classic episode for you. In

3
00:00:11,600 --> 00:00:14,360
Speaker 1: this one, we look into a curious question about our

4
00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:21,200
Speaker 1: hominid cousins, the Neanderthals. Could they laugh? Hey brain Stuff,

5
00:00:21,280 --> 00:00:25,160
Speaker 1: Lauren vogel Bomb here For millennia, humans and Neanderthals or

6
00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:29,360
Speaker 1: Neanderthals if you prefer coexisted in Europe and Eurasia. You've

7
00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:32,400
Speaker 1: probably heard about it because apparently they all had sex,

8
00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:35,040
Speaker 1: and now you might have around two percent Neanderthal DNA

9
00:00:35,159 --> 00:00:38,519
Speaker 1: in your genome. It's a whole thing. So we know

10
00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:41,680
Speaker 1: there might have been some Neanderthal slash modern human romance.

11
00:00:41,720 --> 00:00:45,760
Speaker 1: But did they have any laughs together? Well, that mostly

12
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:49,840
Speaker 1: depends on whether Neanderthals could laugh. It's a tricky question, though,

13
00:00:49,880 --> 00:00:53,440
Speaker 1: because what would Neanderthals have laughed at. We modern humans

14
00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:55,880
Speaker 1: laugh at all sorts of things. Depending on who you are.

15
00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:58,760
Speaker 1: It's equally possible to go fall at kittens playing as

16
00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:01,520
Speaker 1: it is to giggle over an about chemical engineering, if

17
00:01:01,560 --> 00:01:04,600
Speaker 1: that's what you're into. We know even less about Neanderthal

18
00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:07,480
Speaker 1: theory of mind than we do about our own, but

19
00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:10,720
Speaker 1: there's evidence that the idea that they were intellectually inferior

20
00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:14,440
Speaker 1: to modern humans is bogus, and though we don't rightly

21
00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:16,920
Speaker 1: know what would have tickled them, a research on the

22
00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:20,360
Speaker 1: evolution of laughter supports the idea that Neanderthals were most

23
00:01:20,520 --> 00:01:24,560
Speaker 1: likely air to a glorious legacy of chuckles. That's because

24
00:01:24,600 --> 00:01:28,039
Speaker 1: other great apes laugh. In fact, laughter in our phylogenetic

25
00:01:28,080 --> 00:01:30,679
Speaker 1: corner of the world is estimated to have evolved between

26
00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:34,640
Speaker 1: ten and sixteen million years ago. It most likely evolved

27
00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:37,360
Speaker 1: from the labored breathing that happens when you're playing or

28
00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:41,520
Speaker 1: being tickled. Spontaneous laughter is something we all do within

29
00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:44,080
Speaker 1: the first couple months of life, even in babies born

30
00:01:44,120 --> 00:01:47,200
Speaker 1: deaf or blind. The main goal of laughter seems to

31
00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:51,240
Speaker 1: be to create and maintain social bonds. We know Neanderthals

32
00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:54,160
Speaker 1: lived in small family groups, so although they might not

33
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:56,360
Speaker 1: have needed to have the social smarts to yucket up

34
00:01:56,360 --> 00:01:59,680
Speaker 1: at a comedy club, given their lifestyle, laughter probably would

35
00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:01,880
Speaker 1: have been beneficial to them, just as it is to

36
00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:05,639
Speaker 1: us or a chimpanzee. But a lot goes into laughter,

37
00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:08,399
Speaker 1: and the question of whether or not Neanderthals could laugh

38
00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:10,920
Speaker 1: has two parts, the first having to do with the

39
00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:13,960
Speaker 1: ability of the Neanderthal voice to produce the sound, and

40
00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:16,480
Speaker 1: the second with whether or not they have the cognitive

41
00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:20,440
Speaker 1: ability to find things funny. According to doctor Philip Lieberman,

42
00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:24,160
Speaker 1: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological

43
00:02:24,160 --> 00:02:28,280
Speaker 1: Sciences at Brown College, Neanderthals definitely had all the vocal

44
00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:33,000
Speaker 1: equipment required to laugh. Neanderthals had a vocal setup very

45
00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,680
Speaker 1: similar to humans, a larynx or voice box, supported by

46
00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:41,280
Speaker 1: a delicate horseshoe shaped bone called the hyoid. Lieberman explained,

47
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:45,120
Speaker 1: the larynx produces acoustic energy that causes the vocal chords

48
00:02:45,160 --> 00:02:47,880
Speaker 1: of the larynx to open and close, and the super

49
00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:51,079
Speaker 1: laryngeal vocal tract. The space between the lips and the larynx,

50
00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:53,680
Speaker 1: changes shape with movement in the lips, tongue, and jaw

51
00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:56,919
Speaker 1: to make a kind of malleable organ pipe that helps

52
00:02:56,960 --> 00:03:00,520
Speaker 1: us make vowel and constant sounds. We share all this

53
00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:03,520
Speaker 1: vocal equipment with Neanderthals, so it stands to reason that

54
00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:05,799
Speaker 1: their laugh would be similar to our own. The only

55
00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:08,920
Speaker 1: difference of opinion among researchers here centers around whether the

56
00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:11,760
Speaker 1: Neanderthal's speaking voice was lower or higher than that of

57
00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:15,840
Speaker 1: a modern human. So with that settled, the next big

58
00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:18,800
Speaker 1: question is whether Neanderthals had the ability to find things

59
00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:22,280
Speaker 1: funny enough to laugh at them. According to Lieberman and

60
00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:27,280
Speaker 1: some recent research, it's very likely, he said. Epigenetic evidence

61
00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:31,120
Speaker 1: now shows that Neanderthal brains could execute complex motor acts.

62
00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:34,760
Speaker 1: This means that Neanderthals could talk and had language. As

63
00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:37,400
Speaker 1: long as their brains could control the complex gestures that

64
00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:47,760
Speaker 1: human speech entails, they definitely could have laughed. Today's episode

65
00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:50,480
Speaker 1: is based on the article Yes Neanderthals could laugh on

66
00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:53,800
Speaker 1: how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff

67
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:56,320
Speaker 1: is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks

68
00:03:56,360 --> 00:03:59,160
Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler Laying. For more

69
00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:03,040
Speaker 1: podcasts heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

70
00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:04,840
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.