There was a funny comment by Friedemann Schrenk in a recent radio duo podcast [link to br online] that the human head sits with a wrong orientation on the human body as the pipelines for food and air cross over.
Let`s forget about the cervical spinal cord that is not crossing. But why is the air tube not ending somewhere at the larynx?
First of all, the voice of Anna Netrebko would sound like Donald Duck without the dual use of the pharynx. Second, cough speed of >100 km/h could not be stopped in a gentle way. Possibly these are not convincing arguments for a palaeoanthropologist but I have a third one: There would be no set of teeth to defend the airway entry.
Does anybody still believe that that the human head has the wrong orientation on the body?