Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren
Speaker 1: vogel Bomb here with another classic episode for you. In
Speaker 1: this one, we look into a curious question about our
Speaker 1: hominid cousins, the Neanderthals. Could they laugh? Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogel Bomb here For millennia, humans and Neanderthals or
Speaker 1: Neanderthals if you prefer coexisted in Europe and Eurasia. You've
Speaker 1: probably heard about it because apparently they all had sex,
Speaker 1: and now you might have around two percent Neanderthal DNA
Speaker 1: in your genome. It's a whole thing. So we know
Speaker 1: there might have been some Neanderthal slash modern human romance.
Speaker 1: But did they have any laughs together? Well, that mostly
Speaker 1: depends on whether Neanderthals could laugh. It's a tricky question, though,
Speaker 1: because what would Neanderthals have laughed at. We modern humans
Speaker 1: laugh at all sorts of things. Depending on who you are.
Speaker 1: It's equally possible to go fall at kittens playing as
Speaker 1: it is to giggle over an about chemical engineering, if
Speaker 1: that's what you're into. We know even less about Neanderthal
Speaker 1: theory of mind than we do about our own, but
Speaker 1: there's evidence that the idea that they were intellectually inferior
Speaker 1: to modern humans is bogus, and though we don't rightly
Speaker 1: know what would have tickled them, a research on the
Speaker 1: evolution of laughter supports the idea that Neanderthals were most
Speaker 1: likely air to a glorious legacy of chuckles. That's because
Speaker 1: other great apes laugh. In fact, laughter in our phylogenetic
Speaker 1: corner of the world is estimated to have evolved between
Speaker 1: ten and sixteen million years ago. It most likely evolved
Speaker 1: from the labored breathing that happens when you're playing or
Speaker 1: being tickled. Spontaneous laughter is something we all do within
Speaker 1: the first couple months of life, even in babies born
Speaker 1: deaf or blind. The main goal of laughter seems to
Speaker 1: be to create and maintain social bonds. We know Neanderthals
Speaker 1: lived in small family groups, so although they might not
Speaker 1: have needed to have the social smarts to yucket up
Speaker 1: at a comedy club, given their lifestyle, laughter probably would
Speaker 1: have been beneficial to them, just as it is to
Speaker 1: us or a chimpanzee. But a lot goes into laughter,
Speaker 1: and the question of whether or not Neanderthals could laugh
Speaker 1: has two parts, the first having to do with the
Speaker 1: ability of the Neanderthal voice to produce the sound, and
Speaker 1: the second with whether or not they have the cognitive
Speaker 1: ability to find things funny. According to doctor Philip Lieberman,
Speaker 1: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological
Speaker 1: Sciences at Brown College, Neanderthals definitely had all the vocal
Speaker 1: equipment required to laugh. Neanderthals had a vocal setup very
Speaker 1: similar to humans, a larynx or voice box, supported by
Speaker 1: a delicate horseshoe shaped bone called the hyoid. Lieberman explained,
Speaker 1: the larynx produces acoustic energy that causes the vocal chords
Speaker 1: of the larynx to open and close, and the super
Speaker 1: laryngeal vocal tract. The space between the lips and the larynx,
Speaker 1: changes shape with movement in the lips, tongue, and jaw
Speaker 1: to make a kind of malleable organ pipe that helps
Speaker 1: us make vowel and constant sounds. We share all this
Speaker 1: vocal equipment with Neanderthals, so it stands to reason that
Speaker 1: their laugh would be similar to our own. The only
Speaker 1: difference of opinion among researchers here centers around whether the
Speaker 1: Neanderthal's speaking voice was lower or higher than that of
Speaker 1: a modern human. So with that settled, the next big
Speaker 1: question is whether Neanderthals had the ability to find things
Speaker 1: funny enough to laugh at them. According to Lieberman and
Speaker 1: some recent research, it's very likely, he said. Epigenetic evidence
Speaker 1: now shows that Neanderthal brains could execute complex motor acts.
Speaker 1: This means that Neanderthals could talk and had language. As
Speaker 1: long as their brains could control the complex gestures that
Speaker 1: human speech entails, they definitely could have laughed. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is based on the article Yes Neanderthals could laugh on
Speaker 1: how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler Laying. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.