The vocal tract as a time machine: inferences about past speech and language from the anatomy of the speech organs.

While speech and language do not fossilize, they still leave traces that can be extracted and interpreted. Here, we suggest that the shape of the hard structures of the vocal tract may also allow inferences about the speech of long-gone humans. These build on recent experimental and modelling studies, showing that there is extensive variation between individuals in the precise shape of the vocal tract, and that this variation affects speech and language.

A virtual assessment of the suprainiac depressions on the Eyasi I (Tanzania) and Aduma ADU-VP-1/3 (Ethiopia) Pleistocene hominin crania.

Despite a steady increase in our understanding of the phenotypic variation of Pleistocene Homo, debate continues over phylogenetically informative features. One such trait is the suprainiac fossa, a depression on the occipital bone above inion that is commonly considered an autapomorphy of the Neanderthal lineage. Challenging this convention, depressions in the suprainiac region have also been described for two Pleistocene hominin crania from sub-Saharan Africa: Eyasi I (Tanzania) and ADU-VP-1/3 (Ethiopia).

Apidima Cave fossils provide earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Eurasia.

Two fossilized human crania (Apidima 1 and Apidima 2) from Apidima Cave, southern Greece, were discovered in the late 1970s but have remained enigmatic owing to their incomplete nature, taphonomic distortion and lack of archaeological context and chronology. Here we virtually reconstruct both crania, provide detailed comparative descriptions and analyses, and date them using U-series radiometric methods. Apidima 2 dates to more than 170 thousand years ago and has a Neanderthal-like morphological pattern.

A virtual assessment of the proposed suprainiac fossa on the early modern European calvaria from Cioclovina, Romania.

Objectives: The calvaria from Cioclovina (Romania) has been argued to possess some traits commonly ascribed to individuals belonging to the Neanderthal lineage, including a suprainiac fossa. However, its supranuchal morphology has only been evaluated with a qualitative analysis of the ectocranial surface. We evaluate whether the morphology of the supranuchal area of this specimen is homologous to the Neanderthal condition.