Scientists have used ancient human ear fossils to gain new insights into when modern humans developed our hearing pattern over the course of evolution.

In a study lead by paleoanthropologist Rolf Quam from Binghamton University and published in Science Advances on Friday, researchers analyzed 2-million-year-old ear fossils, which revealed that early hominins had hearing abilities similar to a chimpanzee as they evolved in the direction of humans.

The fossils from hominins, which are the ancestors of the modern human race, were excavated at the sites in South Africa and represented the species Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, reports NYC Today. The scientists used the ancient fossils to reconstruct the internal anatomy of the ear of our early ancestors.

This revealed that the two species had better hearing than either chimps or people. Each species had a mixture of both ape-like and human-like anatomical traits, while at the same time, their hearing patterns were beginning to resemble modern humans.

"It turns out that this auditory pattern may have been particularly favorable for living on the savanna. In more open environments, sound waves don't travel as far as in the rainforest canopy, so short-range communication is favored on the savanna," Quam said, according to Reuters.

Quam said that human lineage split from chimps about 5 to 7 million years ago, which is when our ancestors' hearing abilities began to adapt to lifestyle changes.

"I want to be clear that we are not arguing that these early humans had language, which implies a symbolic content," Quam said. "Certainly they could communicate vocally. All primates do. But human language emerged during our evolutionary history at some time after the existence of these early humans."

According to paleontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga of Spain's Universidad Complutense de Madrid, their hearing abilities indicate their voices "would sound strange, half chimp-like, half human, to us. Or in other terms, not completely human."

"We're not arguing that. They certainly could communicate vocally. All primates do, but we're not saying they had fully developed human language, which implies a symbolic content," added Quam, reports Modvive.

"We feel our research line does have considerable potential to provide new insights into when the human hearing pattern emerged and, by extension, when we developed language," he said.