Prehistoric action grammar 
Diagnosing knapping skill 
Understanding action recognition 
Action learning in macaques 
Neuroimaging of human tool use 
Vocal tract reconstructions 
Neanderthal speech modelling 
Primate cranial nerves Work package 3: Vocal tract reconstructions
Vocal tract reconstructions
Dr James Steele, Institute of Archaeology, University College London 
Dr Anna Barney, ISVR, University of Southampton
Dr Sandra Martelli, Institute of Archaeology, University College London
Start 01/ 10/2006 End 30/09/2008
Objective
To carry out a comparative anatomical study to enable estimation of parameters for the vocal tracts of extinct hominins (to constrain software models of articulatory capacity and articulatory output). The predicted vocal tract dimensions will act as the input data for a separate modelling study in WP4.
Activities
To define hard tissue markers of vocal tract dimensions in humans and great apes, and to apply these markers to predict vocal tract dimensions in fossil hominins.