Correlates of Vocal Tract Evolution in Late Pliocene and Pleistocene Hominins

Abstract

Despite decades of research on the emergence of human speech capacities, an integrative account consistent with hominin evolution remains lacking. We review paleoanthropological and archaeological findings in search of a timeline for the emergence of modern human articulatory morphological features. Our synthesis shows that several behavioral innovations coincide with morphological changes to the would-be speech articulators. We find that significant reductions of the mandible and masticatory muscles and vocal tract anatomy coincide in the hominin fossil record with the incorporation of processed and (ultimately) cooked food, the appearance and development of rudimentary stone tools, increases in brain size, and likely changes to social life and organization. Many changes are likely mutually reinforcing; for example, gracilization of the hominin mandible may have been maintainable in the lineage because food processing had already been outsourced to the hands and stone tools, reducing selection pressures for robust mandibles in the process. We highlight correlates of the evolution of craniofacial and vocal tract features in the hominin lineage and outline a timeline by which our ancestors became 'pre-adapted' for the evolution of fully modern human speech.

Keywords: Articulatory phonetics; Biological anthropology; Cognitive evolution; Cooking hypothesis; Evolution of speech; Paleoanthropology.

Fig. 1

IPA Vowel chart. The front-to-back and close-to-open dimensions denote stereotyped tongue position and degree of stricture, respectively

Fig. 2

Articulatory configurations (left), and filter functions (right) for vowel tokens /i e a o u/ as produced by an adult male German speaker