If only bones could speak.Language is one trait that separates people from other animals. Words give us the power to communicate complicated ideas, and this skill has taken us far. No one knows exactly when our ancestors Our Ancestors (Italian: I Nostri Antenati) is the name of Italo Calvino's "heraldic trilogy" that comprises The Cloven Viscount (1952), The Baron in the Trees (1957), and The Nonexistent Knight (1959). started talking, but new evidence suggests that it might have happened a long, long, long time ago. A set of bones found last year in central Asia shows that human ancestors living 1.8 million years ago were capable of speaking to one another. The fossils, which include several types of spine bones (or vertebrae Vertebrae Bones in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions of the body that make up the vertebral column. Vertebrae have a central foramen (hole), and their superposition makes up the vertebral canal that encloses the spinal cord. ), were found at a site called Dmanisi in the country of Georgia. They belonged to a human ancestor known as Homo erectus Homo erectus (hō`mō ērĕk`təs), extinct hominid living between 1.6 million and 250,000 years ago. Homo erectus is thought to have evolved in Africa from H. habilis, the first member of the genus Homo. . Anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania (body, education) University of Pennsylvania - The home of ENIAC and Machiavelli. http://upenn.edu/. Address: Philadelphia, PA, USA. in Philadelphia and the Georgian State Museum in Tbilisi compared the fossil bones with more than 2,200 vertebrae from people, chimpanzees, and gorillas. The structure of the ancient human's spine, they found, could have supported the muscles and nerves needed for speech. It's impossible to prove that our ancient ancestors did in fact talk, but there was nothing that would have stopped them physically from discussing the weather. The new finding counters previous interpretations of a 1.6-million-year-old skeleton found in Kenya in 1984. The backbone, which belonged to a 16-year-old boy, appeared too small to support the structures necessary for speech. Now, some scientists say that the boy had simply not grown correctly. With better nutrition, his spine would probably have been bigger. Still, the final verdict isn't in. Some scientists say that speech began only about 50,000 years ago, roughly 150,000 years after our species, Homo sapiens Homo sapiens (Latin; “wise man”) Species to which all modern human beings belong. The oldest known fossil remains date to c. 120,000 years ago—or much earlier (c. , emerged on Earth. Before then, they argue, neck bones were too short to allow a full range of speech sounds from the vocal tract vocal tract n. The airway used in the production of speech, especially the passage above the larynx, including the pharynx, mouth, and nasal cavities. . However, many populations today, including Australian aborigines Australian aborigines, native people of Australia who probably came from somewhere in Asia more than 40,000 years ago. In 2001 the population of aborigines and Torres Straits Islanders was 366,429, 1. , have similarly short neck vertebrae, but that doesn't keep these people from talking, say the authors of the new study. If only the bones could speak! http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060510/Note2.asp From Science News for Kids May 10, 2006. Copyright [C] 2006 Science Service. All rights reserved. |
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