neanderthals

A detailed Summary of neanderthals

About 150,000 or 200,000 years ago, Europe and western Asia witnessed the emergence of a distinctive new kind of human. The group is known informally as the Neanderthals, after the German site in the valley of the Neander River that in 1857. The earliest probable Neanderthal fossil is a broken braincase from Ehringsdorf, in germany, dated to 200,000 years ago or perhaps even earlier. However the reconstruction of this specimin is disputed and for better evidence we have to move up to about 150,000 years ago.

The Neanderthal people were named after the Neander Valley near near Dusseldorf, Germany, through which the river Dussel flows. In1856 workers were quarrying lime, and they invetigated a cave about 20 yards up a cliff like slope in the narrow steep valley. Inside they found a collection of fossil bones in the deep mud of the cave floor. Not recognising their importance, the quarrymen excavated them but left them jumpled with other debris.

A local teacher became interested in the find and he retrieved part of the top of the skull, along with some of the limb bones. He passed them to the professor of Anatomy at the university of Bonn, Hermann Schaaffhausen ,who concluded

Estimates of brain size for the Neanderthal people are mostly above 1,300 millimlitres and up to 1,700 millilitlres in some large males. This is in the same broard range as for humans of today and up to 10 percent bigger when taking into account the ratio of size of brain today.

Another proposal centres on extinction from disease. Assuming the Cro-Magnon people came to Europe from elsewhere they may have brought with them diseases to which the Neanderthals had no resistance. Similar events have occurred during recorded history. When Europeans travelled to America in the 16th century they introduced influenza and whooping cough small pox measels to a largely non resistant inhabitants. Historians estimate that tens of millions of native Americans died as a result.

Evidence from tools is also inconclusive. The typical neanderthal tool culture is Mousterian while the main culture of the early Cro-Magons in Europe is the considerably more sophisticated Aurignacian. However at Saint Cazaure some of the tools associated Mounsterian and more advanced features. Conversely at Jabel Qafzeh and Skhul the fossilized human skulls of the modern type are associated with basically Mounsterian tools.

Neanderthal remains from Kebara cave on mount Carmel are much younger about 60,000 years of age.

Yet another version is that displacement was not passive but active. The Cro-Magnons killed off the Neanderthal people.

There are various proposals concerning the disappearance of the Neanderthal people. One is that they did not in fact die out but they evolved with great rapidity into the Cro-Magons. This proposal has come in and out of favour over the years. It is supported by some Neanderthal fossil that supposedly show modern features and a few Cro-Mognon type remains that display certain Neanderthal characteristics. But the picture is not so simple. In the locality of Saint Cezaire, the later Neanderthal inhabitants were contemporaries of

Some common words found in the essay are:
Swanscombe Steinheim, Assuming Cro-Magnon, Tabun Neanderthal, Dusseldorf Germany, Jabel Qafzeh, Neander River, Hermann Schaaffhausen, Bonn February, Chaise Lazaret, France Wales, neanderthal people, brow ridges, 200000 ago, lower rear skull, ago ice, saint cezaire, modern type, powerful muscles, mount carmel, lower rear, age neanderthal,

Approximate Word count = 1309
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Science