The Origins of Music: Preface - Preface

dimensions of the oral chamber must be estimated and correlations

made with intact anatomy.Here we use maximum palate length and

internal palate breadth.These measurements are taken from standard-

ized points on the hard palate and are fully comparable among various

species.Chimpanzees are used to represent the primitive condition

where modern speech sounds,especially consonants,are lacking.The

human sample includes a large collection of European specimens

ranging from modern Homo sapiensto fossils dating around 400,000

years before the present.We also included early Homoand Australop-

ithecusspecimens from Africa as examples of what must have been the

hominid ancestral condition.

Figures 14.6 and 14.7 review the relative palate dimensions at the first

and third molars.In both positions,average chimpanzee dimensions

show that the length of the palate is about twice the breadth,whereas in

humans the length is just slightly greater than the breadth.Chimpanzees

and humans have means that are significantly different,and overall dif-

ferences are so great that ranges do not overlap.As in Duchin’s study,

these plots show that apes have consistently longer,narrower palates

than modern humans.

For the hominid fossil record,all Neanderthals fall totally within the

human range,whereas most earlier fossils from Europe and Africa have

much narrower,longer palates,often falling completely outside the

229 Fossil Evidence for the Origin of Speech Sounds

Figure 14.5

Palatal views of a chimpanzee (left) and early Homo(right,cast of WT-15,000,the

Nariokotome boy).Typically,upper jaws of chimpanzees are more rectangular,whereas

humans have more square palates.

Fig.14.5