Modern humans and Neanderthals obviously got along well enough to mate with one another, although the level of conversation that preceded these inter-hominid romances remains a matter of great uncertainty.

Given that fossils are unable to talk and Neanderthals disappeared long before the invention of recording equipment, archaeologists have no way of knowing whether our extinct cousins possessed sophisticated language skills - although the author of an as-yet unpublished study has had a crack at analyzing Neanderthal lingo.

“Neanderthals almost certainly spoke languages that were quite like our languages, but seemingly less structurally complex and less functionally flexible,” writes study author Antonio Benítez-Burraco, a linguist from the University of Seville. This conclusion is the upshot of a multidisciplinary analysis of the ancient humans’ speech capabilities, combining anatomical, social-cultural, cognitive, environmental, and genetic evidence.