“The linguistic differences will probably have been greater than we can imagine, given the long period that the species have differentiated, and they would have been much greater than the differences between modern languages,” Stringer said.
The language barrier may have been exacerbated by the individual characteristics of the two species: comparisons between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens indicate that the brain and vocal organs of the species were different.
Neanderthal genomes also show that nearly 600 genes are expressed differently in their species and ours, particularly the genes associated with the face and voice.
Another notable difference would have been the forehead: Neanderthals had a protruding brow arch that could have been used for social communication.
The signals these bows were trying to send may have escaped our ancestors. Some studies suggest that the eyebrow arches are reduced A wise man allowed instead to use the eyebrows to produce a series of more subtle and temporary signals.
In any case, these early encounters eventually led to crosses between the two species. Exactly how this happened remains a mystery for now.
