BrainStuff Classics: Could Neanderthals Laugh?

Neanderthals if you prefer coexisted in Europe and Eurasia. You've probably heard about it because apparently they all had sex, and now you might have around two percent Neanderthal DNA in your genome. It's a whole thing. So we know there might have been some Neanderthal slash modern human romance. But did they have any laughs together? Well, that mostly depends on whether Neanderthals could laugh. It's a tricky question, though, because what would Neanderthals have laughed at. We modern humans

laugh at all sorts of things. Depending on who you are. It's equally possible to go fall at kittens playing as it is to giggle over an about chemical engineering, if

that's what you're into. We know even less about Neanderthal theory of mind than we do about our own, but there's evidence that the idea that they were intellectually inferior to modern humans is bogus, and though we don't rightly know what would have tickled them, a research on the evolution of laughter supports the idea that Neanderthals were most likely air to a glorious legacy of chuckles. That's because

other great apes laugh. In fact, laughter in our phylogenetic corner of the world is estimated to have evolved between ten and sixteen million years ago. It most likely evolved from the labored breathing that happens when you're playing or being tickled. Spontaneous laughter is something we all do within the first couple months of life, even in babies born deaf or blind. The main goal of laughter seems to

be to create and maintain social bonds. We know Neanderthals lived in small family groups, so although they might not have needed to have the social smarts to yucket up at a comedy club, given their lifestyle, laughter probably would have been beneficial to them, just as it is to

us or a chimpanzee. But a lot goes into laughter, and the question of whether or not Neanderthals could laugh has two parts, the first having to do with the ability of the Neanderthal voice to produce the sound, and the second with whether or not they have the cognitive ability to find things funny. According to doctor Philip Lieberman, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences at Brown College, Neanderthals definitely had all the vocal

equipment required to laugh. Neanderthals had a vocal setup very similar to humans, a larynx or voice box, supported by a delicate horseshoe shaped bone called the hyoid. Lieberman explained, the larynx produces acoustic energy that causes the vocal chords of the larynx to open and close, and the super laryngeal vocal tract. The space between the lips and the larynx, changes shape with movement in the lips, tongue, and jaw to make a kind of malleable organ pipe that helps

us make vowel and constant sounds. We share all this vocal equipment with Neanderthals, so it stands to reason that their laugh would be similar to our own. The only difference of opinion among researchers here centers around whether the Neanderthal's speaking voice was lower or higher than that of a modern human. So with that settled, the next big question is whether Neanderthals had the ability to find things funny enough to laugh at them. According to Lieberman and

some recent research, it's very likely, he said. Epigenetic evidence now shows that Neanderthal brains could execute complex motor acts. This means that Neanderthals could talk and had language. As long as their brains could control the complex gestures that human speech entails, they definitely could have laughed. Today's episode is based on the article Yes Neanderthals could laugh on

how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Laying. For more podcasts heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.