Computers Allow Scientists To Hear Cavemen

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Someone please explain to me, slowly, how a computer can simulate what cavemen sounded like. Call me a skeptic but there aren’t any cavemen around to prove / disprove this guy's claim.

Talk about a long silence – no one has heard their voices for 30,000 years. Now the long-extinct Neanderthals are speaking up – or at least a computer synthesiser is doing so on their behalf.
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Steve said:
Call me a skeptic but there aren’t any cavemen around to prove / disprove this guy's claim.
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So Steve, I guess if a tree fails in a forest, and no human is around to hear it, no sound is made, right?:rolleyes:
 
qdemn7 said:
So Steve, I guess if a tree fails in a forest, and no human is around to hear it, no sound is made, right?:rolleyes:
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What does a tree falling have anything to do with prehistoric species who lived thousands of years ago and the only recollection we have of them is a pile of bones to which we put some false skin to to make look like what it's supposed to be? and then we come and say exactly what they sounded like?

Call me a skeptic too, I'm with Steve on this.
 
qdemn7 said:
So Steve, I guess if a tree fails in a forest, and no human is around to hear it, no sound is made, right?:rolleyes:
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But we have heard trees fall...

I am with you on this one Steve. The fact is this guy is just guessing what a caveman might have sounded like. It is a moot point anyway because I hear cavemen all the time on those Geico commercials.
 
That's bullshit though. People of all sizes have different voices.

Either way, it got me thinking. How the fuck do we know what a dinosaur looks like. They could be pink and shit for all we know.
 
mdameron said:
That's bullshit though. People of all sizes have different voices.

Either way, it got me thinking. How the fuck do we know what a dinosaur looks like. They could be pink and shit for all we know.
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They could be, but I would imagine scientists use skin types and colors of majority of today's lizards and apply them to lizards of old.
 
Well, if I had to guess, I'd say they would render a 3-D model from a Neandertal's skeletal remains so they could visualize the pharynx, sinuses, and mouth. From that computerized model, they could simulate how utterances from that model would sound. Obviously they wouldn't know what the hominds would say, but they could know how it would sound.
 
They have found mumified dinosaurs with skin on em ;)

Cavemen on the other hand, none of them have been found living.
 
The key to understanding this kind of thing is that it's not an absolute, it's a good approximation based on measurements, modeling, physical production of sounds, etc...
 
MJCfromCT said:
They are able to estimate what they sounded like by the dimensions of their bones. They did it with the mona lisa (although they used the dimensions from the painting).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13065968/
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Mona Lisa was considered a human and they used human characteristics based on the assumptions that she has the same characteristics as other humans.

People of the same size can have VERY different sound production.

You will be accurate within some sort of scope, but it's a very big scope and no one would be able to prove otherwise.
 
jcollett said:
Well, if I had to guess, I'd say they would render a 3-D model from a Neandertal's skeletal remains so they could visualize the pharynx, sinuses, and mouth. From that computerized model, they could simulate how utterances from that model would sound.
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Yep. One could essentially place a virtual speaker at the position where the larynx might be and use wave tracing techniques to approximate how the structure and resonance of the various cavities contributes to the harmonic structure of the voice.

Not exactly revolutionary.
 
Yeah waste of time they should find out if a dinosaur can spell or not.
 
lies!

we all know dinosaurs are PURPLE

...i like you, you like me, we're a happy family.....
 
We speak through a combination of bones, pieces of cartilage, and muscles all working in conjunction to make a sound. As long as scientist have the bone structure, they can essentially recreate the remaining pieces that fit together?

Why?

You have to realize that bones aren't just smooth pieces of, well, bone, that just structurally support us. Bones and living things! Yes, as crazy as that sounds, everything inside of you is alive. But as mentioned before, bones aren't smooth like many people believe. They are, in fact, covered with hundreds of stress points where muscles attach. This is how scientists can reasonably piece together the muscle structure of a dead dinosaur that's been sitting in a big pit for the last couple million years. No, it's not always 100% accurate because not all muscles attach to bones, but you can reasonably put together a muscle structure based on bone information to give you a very good idea of what something looks like and how they move.

Now, with the cave man, as long as scientists can measure the bone structure, you can reasonably figure out the length of the vocal cord, and you can piece together the muscles that attached to the voice box and how they would affect breathing. This will give you a pretty reasonably accurate sound, through computers, of how something sounds.

Point being, bones can provide you with A LOT of information about something.
 
So what is the big deal here? We have known that caveman speak like "Oogah oogah boogah" for years now.
 
Why don't we just get some caveman DNA and clone them. We could make an amusement park, or something.
 
Didn't we find some caveman ice pops at some point, i know we found some in bogs and tar pits and such, that along with bone structure is enough to recreate an approximation of what they would have sounded like.

though some of you are in fact right, voices can differ pretty drastically.

however they are probably going for an average.
 
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