Neandertal
Etymology and pronunciation
The Neandertal is a small valley of the river Düssel in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, located about 12 km (7.5 mi) east of Düsseldorf, the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia. The valley belongs to the area of the towns Erkrath and Mettmann. In 1856, the area became famous for the discovery of Neanderthal 1, the first specimen of Homo neanderthalensis to be found.
The Neandertal was originally a limestone canyon widely known for its rugged scenery, waterfalls and caves. However, industrial mining during the 19th and 20th centuries removed almost all of the limestone and dramatically changed the shape of the valley. It was during such a mining operation that the bones of the original Neanderthal man were found in a cave. Neither the cave nor the cliff in which it was located exists anymore.
During the 19th century the valley was called Neandershöhle (Neander's Hollow), and after 1850 Neanderthal (Neander Valley). It was named after Joachim Neander, a 17th-century German pastor. Neander is the Greek translation of his family name Neumann — both names meaning "new man".
Classification
For some time, scientists have debated whether Neanderthals should be classified as Homo neanderthalensis or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the latter placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of Homo sapiens. Some morphological studies support that Homo neanderthalensis is a separate species and not a subspecies. Others, for example University of Cambridge Professor Paul Mellars, say "no evidence has been found of cultural interaction" and evidence from mitochondrial DNA studies have been interpreted as evidence Neanderthals were not a subspecies of H. sapiens.
The current state of sequence analysis of the Neanderthal genome suggest there was no recent genetic exchange between Neanderthals and humans, previous results which showed some similarities have now been conclusively shown as contamination and improper phylogenetic assumptions. Consequently, Homo neanderthalensis at present appears to be the correct nomenclature.
Habitat and range
Early Neanderthals lived in the Last Glacial age for a span of about 100,000 years. Because of the damaging effects which the glacial period had on the Neanderthal sites, not much is known about the early species. Countries where their remains are known include Portugal, Ukraine, Gibraltar, France, Spain, Britain, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Iran, Romania and Russia.
Neanderthal fossils have to date not been found in Africa, but rather close to Africa, found in the area of modern Israel. At some sites in the Holy Land region, Neanderthal remains in fact date after the same sites were vacated by Homo sapiens. Mammal fossils of the same time period show that cold-adapted animals were present alongside these Neanderthals in this region of the Eastern Mediterranean. This implies Neanderthals were better adapted biologically to cold weather than H. sap. and at times displaced H. sap. in parts of the Middle East when the climate got cold enough. Homo sapiens appears to have been the only human type in the Nile River Valley during these periods, and Neanderthals are not known to have ever lived southwest of modern Israel. When further climate change caused warmer temperatures, the Neanderthal range likewise retreated to the north along with the cold-adapted species of mammals. Apparently these weather-induced population shifts took place before "modern" people secured competitive advantages over the Neanderthal, as these shifts in range took place well over ten thousand years before "moderns" totally replaced Neanderthals.
There were separate developments in the human line, in other regions such as Southern Africa, that somewhat resembled the European and Western/Central Asian Neanderthals, but these people were not actually Neanderthals. One such example is Rhodesian Man (Homo rhodesiensis) who existed long before any classic European Neanderthals, but had a more modern set of teeth, and arguably some H. Rhodesiensis populations were on the road to modern Homo sapiens sapiens.
Classic Neanderthal fossils have been found over a large area, from northern Germany to Israel and Mediterranean countries like Spain and Italy in the south and from England and Portugal in the west to Uzbekistan in the east. This area probably was not occupied all at the same time; the northern border of their range in particular would have contracted frequently with the onset of cold periods. On the other hand, the northern border of their range as represented by fossils may not be the real northern border of the area they occupied, since Middle-Palaeolithic looking artifacts have been found even further north, up to 60° N, on the Russian plain. Recent evidence has extended the Neanderthal range by about 1,250 miles (2,010 km) east into southern Siberia's Altay Mountains.
Discovery
Neanderthal skulls were first discovered in Engis, Belgium (1829) by Philippe-Charles Schmerling and in Forbes' Quarry, Gibraltar (1848), both prior to the "original" discovery in a limestone quarry of the Neander Valley in Erkrath near Düsseldorf in August, 1856, three years before Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published.
The type specimen, dubbed Neanderthal 1, consisted of a skull cap, two femora, three bones from the right arm, two from the left arm, part of the left ilium, fragments of a scapula, and ribs. The workers who recovered this material originally thought it to be the remains of a bear. They gave the material to amateur naturalist Johann Carl Fuhlrott, who turned the fossils over to anatomist Hermann Schaaffhausen. The discovery was jointly announced in 1857.
The original Neanderthal discovery is now considered the beginning of paleoanthropology. These and other discoveries led to the idea that these remains were from ancient Europeans who had played an important role in modern human origins. The bones of over 400 Neanderthals have been found since.
Specimens
La Ferrassie 1: A fossilized skull discovered in La Ferrassie, France by R. Capitan in 1909. It is estimated to be 70,000 years old. Its characteristics include a large occipital bun, low-vaulted cranium and heavily worn teeth.
Shanidar 1: Found in the Zagros Mountains in northern Iraq; a total of nine skeletons found believed to have lived in the Middle Paleolithic. One of the nine remains was missing part of its right arm; theorized to have been broken off or amputated. The find is also significant because it shows that stone tools were present among this tribe's culture. One was buried with flowers, showing that some type of burial ceremony may have occurred.
La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1: Called the Old Man, a fossilized skull discovered in La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France by A. and J. Bouyssonie, and L. Bardon in 1908. Characteristics include a low vaulted cranium and large browridge typical of Neanderthals. Estimated to be about 60,000 years old, the specimen was severely arthritic and had lost all his teeth, with evidence of healing. For him to have lived on would have required that someone process his food for him, one of the earliest examples of Neanderthal altruism (similar to Shanidar I.)
Le Moustier: A fossilized skull, discovered in 1909, at the archaeological site in Peyzac-le-Moustier, Dordogne, France. The Mousterian tool culture is named after Le Moustier. The skull, estimated to be less than 45,000 years old, includes a large nasal cavity and a somewhat less developed brow ridge and occipital bun as might be expected in a juvenile.
Neanderthal 1: Initial Neanderthal specimen found during an archaeological dig in August 1856. Discovered in a limestone quarry at the Feldhofer grotto in Neanderthal, Germany. The find consisted of a skull cap, two femora, the three right arm bones, two of the left arm bones, ilium, and fragments of a scapula and ribs.
Anatomy
Neanderthals were generally only 12-14 cm (5-6 in) shorter than modern humans, contrary to a common view of them as "very short" or "just over 5 feet". Based on 45 long bones from (at most) 14 males and 7 females, Neanderthal males averaged 164-168 cm (65-66 in) and females 152-156 cm (60-61 in) tall. Compared to Europeans some 20,000 years ago, it is nearly identical, perhaps slightly taller. Considering the body build of Neanderthals, new body weight estimates show they are only slightly above the cm/weight or the body mass index of modern Americans or Canadians.
Neanderthals had more robust build and distinctive morphological features, especially of the cranium, which gradually accumulated more derived aspects, particularly in certain relatively isolated geographic regions. Evidence suggests they were much stronger than modern humans; their relatively robust stature is thought to be an adaptation to the cold climate of Europe during the Pleistocene epoch.
A 2007 study suggested some Neanderthals may have had red hair and pale skin colors.
Childhood
Neanderthal children may have grown faster than modern human children. Modern humans have the slowest body growth of any mammal during childhood (the period between infancy and puberty) with lack of growth during this period being made up later in an adolescent growth spurt. The possibility that Neanderthal childhood growth was different was first raised in 1928 by the excavators of the Mousterian rock-shelter of a Neanderthal juvenile. Arthur Keith in 1931 wrote, "Apparently Neanderthal children assumed the appearances of maturity at an earlier age than modern children." The earliness of body maturation can be inferred from the maturity of a juvenile's fossile remains and estimated age of death.
The age at which juveniles die can be indirectly inferred from their tooth morphology, development and emergence. This has been argued to both support and question the existence of a maturation difference between Neanderthals and modern humans. Since 2007 tooth age can be directly calculated using the noninvasive imaging of growth patterns in tooth enamel by means of x-ray synchrotron microtomography
Tools
Neanderthal and Middle Paleolithic archaeological sites show a smaller and different toolkit than those which have been found in Upper Paleolithic sites, which were perhaps occupied by modern humans which superseded them. Fossil evidence indicating who may have made the tools found in Early Upper Paleolithic sites is still missing.
Neanderthals are thought to have used tools of the Mousterian class, which were often produced using soft hammer percussion, with hammers made of materials like bones, antlers, and wood, rather than hard hammer percussion, using stone hammers. A result of this is that their bone industry was relatively simple. However, there is good evidence that they routinely constructed a variety of stone implements. Neanderthal (Mousterian) tools most often consisted of sophisticated stone-flakes, task-specific hand axes, and spears. Many of these tools were very sharp. There is also good evidence that they used a lot of wood, objects which are unlikely to have been preserved until today.
There is some evidence for interpersonal violence among Neandertals. A 36,000-year-old Neadertal skull found near St. Césaire has a healed fracture in its cranial vault that was most likely caused by the impact of a sharp implement. The location of the wound suggests interpersonal violence rather than an accident. Because the wound healed, we know that the individual survived the attack.
They had spears, made of long wooden shafts with spearheads firmly attached, but they are thought by some to have been thrusting spears. Generally, projectile weapons are more commonly associated with H. sapiens. The lack of projectile weaponry is an indication of different sustenance methods, rather than inferior technology or abilities.
Neanderthals also performed many sophisticated tasks which are normally associated only with humans. For example, it is known that they controlled fire, constructed complex shelters, and skinned animals. A trap excavated at La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey gives testament to their intelligence and success as hunters.
Extinction
According to the Out of Africa theory, modern humans (Homo sapiens) began replacing Neanderthals around 45,000 years ago, as the Cro-Magnon people appeared in Europe, pushing populations of Neanderthals into regional pockets, such as modern-day Croatia, Iberia and the Crimean peninsula, where they held on for thousands of years. The last traces of Mousterian culture (without human specimens) have been found in Gorham's Cave on the remote south-facing coast of Gibraltar, dated 30,000 to 24,500 years ago. Proponents of this model believe that modern humans and Neanderthals were separate species that were not inter-fertile. They cite the following evidence:
The Neanderthals and modern humans were contemporaneous species. The two species maintained distinct morphologies over hundreds of thousands of years. On a number of occasions the habitats of modern humans and the Neanderthals overlapped. However, despite this overlap, the respective morphologies remained distinct based on the available fossil record.
For example, remains associated with modern human anatomy have been found at Qafzeh in Israel dating to 90,000 years ago. These remains predate Neanderthal remains such as those at Kebara Cave, also in Israel, by about 30,000 years. Since Neanderthals appear after modern humans, it is unlikely that these modern humans evolved from the Neanderthals.
No incontrovertible fossils that demonstrate intermediate characteristics between modern humans and Neanderthals have been found.
Jordan is of the opinion that the Neanderthal mind was sufficiently different from that of Homo sapiens to have been "alien" in the sense of thinking differently from that of modern humans, despite the obvious fact that Neanderthals were highly intelligent, with a brain as large or larger than our own. This theory is supported by what Neanderthals possessed, and just as importantly, by what they lacked, in cultural attributes and manufactured artifacts. Essentially, the Neanderthals lost out because their behaviors and tools eventually became second-rate.
There once was a time when both human types shared essentially the same Mousterian tool kit and neither human type had a definite competitive advantage, as evidenced by the shifting Homo sapiens/Neanderthal borderland in the Middle East. But finally Homo sapiens started to attain behavioral or cultural adaptations that allowed "moderns" an advantage. There are early glimmers of this from Zaire where in the area of Katanda bone harpoon points have been found of fine workmanship, dating to perhaps 80,000 years ago. These featured backwards-pointing barbs and lateral grooves so they could be easily installed on a wooden shaft, used to harpoon local fish. These appear to have been made by modern humans and make for a more sophisticated spear than any that Neanderthals are known to have made. Jordan admits some of these innovations were "flash in the pan" local affairs that faded away for awhile, but there does not seem much question that Homo sapiens in Africa was taking steps toward better tools and a more complex social life, while the Neanderthal ways and technology remained the same.
Summary
It is noted that fishing was never much of a Neanderthal accomplishment (they did eat fish on occasion) but is more a behavior of modern human types. There is an example of a barbed point made from bone, evidently made by a Neanderthal, but such finds are very rare. Per Jordan the Neanderthals made wooden and stone artifacts, but bone and ivory ones were not common, implying that the Neanderthal mind tended to be rather resistant to learning new methods or materials.
Neanderthal people mastered complex tasks such as the making of fire, shelters with post holes, and stone tools. In their later career Neanderthals appear to have sometimes buried their dead and their placement of Cave Bear bones in order shows some sort of reverence or perhaps religion toward this animal. Yet there were many Cro-Magnon tools and behaviors that the Neanderthals seem to have never developed: organized fishing, using fish hooks and fish nets; headgear or hats, shoes, sewn clothing, needle-and-thread, and long-distance trade. It is still debated whether Neanderthals had significant art or music.
Other researchers think that the Neanderthals had little sexual division of labor, with Neanderthal women alongside the men hunting big game. Such a lifestyle was not as energy efficient as that of modern humans, whose hunter-gatherer lifestyle secured supplemental food of a much greater variety, including plant materials such as tubers or wild grains, fish, edible fungi, and small edible animals secured by women, young boys/girls and elderly men, while males in the prime of life could hunt big mammals. Since the Neanderthals were mostly carnivorous and targeting big mammals, a shortage of large mammals meant possible bouts of starvation or malnutrition, which affected Cro-Magnon people less. The Neanderthals appear to have stored food against lean times much less than Cro-Magnon people did. Neanderthals got food in a haphazard, catch-as-catch-can manner. In addition, the Cro-Magnon sites show a lot of animal remains of small creatures best hunted with traps and snares, such as squirrels and rabbits, whereas Neanderthal sites show few such fossils. In short, inferior methods shut Neanderthals out of many food sources that Cro-Magnons exploited.
Neanderthals appear to have never used boats or rafts, as evidenced by the lack of Neanderthal fossils from North Africa, yet in stark contrast Homo erectus, their more primitive ancestor, appears to have used rafts or some other sort of boat on occasion. Homo erectus, or some other hominid, used such craft to reach the island of Flores as evidenced by the discovery of Homo floresiensis in 2003. Flores and some other places Homo erectus reached have always been surrounded by very deep water, proving the use of watercraft of some sort.
Additionally, Neanderthals evidently had little long-term planning when securing food. French caves show almost no salmon bones during Neanderthal occupancy but large numbers during Cro-Magnon occupancy. In contrast, Cro-Magnons planned for salmon runs months ahead of time, getting enough people together at just the right time and place to catch a lot of fish. Neanderthals appear to have had little to no social organization beyond the immediate family unit. Why Neanderthal psychology was different from the modern humans that they coexisted with for millennia is not known.
Due to the paucity of symbolism that Neanderthal artifacts show, Neanderthal language probably did not deal much with a verbal future tense, again restricting Neanderthal exploitation of resources. Cro-Magnon people had a much better standard of living than the hardscrabble existence available to Neanderthals. With better language skills and bigger social groups, a better psychological repertoire, and better planning,