Although we know more about so-called Neanderthal men than about any other early population, their exact relation to present-day human beings remains unclear. Long considered sub-human, Neanderthals are now known to have been fully human. They walked erect, used fire, and made a variety of tools. They lived partly in the open and partly in caves. The Neanderthals are even thought to have been the first humans to bury their dead, a practice which has been interpreted as demonstrating the capacity for religious and abstract thought.
The first monograph on Neanderthal anatomy, published by Marcelling Boule in 1913, presented a somewhat misleading picture. Boule took the Neanderthals lowvaulted cranium and prominent brow ridges, their heavy musculature, and the apparent overdevelopment of certain joints as evidence of a prehuman physical appearance. In postulating for the Neanderthal such "primitive" characteristics as a stooping, bent-kneed posture, a rolling gait, and a forward-hanging head,
Boule was a victim of the rudimentary state of anatomical science. Modern anthropologists recognize the Neanderthal bone structure as that of a creature whose bodily orientation and capacities were very similar to those of present-day human beings. The differences in the size and shape of the limbs, shoulder blades, and other body parts are simply adaptations which were necessary to handle the Neanderthals far more massive musculature. Current taxonomy considers the
Neanderthals to have been fully human and thus designates them not as a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis, but as a subspecies of Homo sapiens:
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.
The rise of the Neanderthals occurred over some 100,000 years a sufficient period to account for evolution of the specifically Neanderthal characteristics through free interbreeding over a broad geographical range. Fossil evidence suggests that the Neanderthals inhabited a vast area from Europe through the Middle
East and into Central Asia from approximately 100,000 years ago until 35,000 years ago. Then, within a brief period of five to ten thousand years, they disappeared. Modern human, not found in Europe prior to about 33,000 years ago, thenceforth became the sole inhabitants of the region. Anthropologists do not believe that the Neanderthals evolved into modern human beings. Despite the similarities between Neanderthal and modern human anatomy, the differences are great enough that, among a population as broad-ranging as the Neanderthals, such an evolution could not have taken place in a period of only ten thousand years. Furthermore, no fossils of types intermediate between Neanderthals and moderns have been found.
A major alternative hypothesis, advanced by E. Trinkaus and W.W. Howells, is that of localized evolution. Within a geographically concentrated population, free interbreeding could have produced far more pronounced genetic effects within a shorter time. Thus modern human could have evolved relatively quickly, either from Neanderthals or from some other ancestral type, in isolation from the main Neanderthal population. These humans may have migrated throughout the
Neanderthal areas, where they displaced or absorbed the original inhabitants. One hypothesis suggests that these "modern" humans immigrated to Europe from the Middle East.
No satisfactory explanation of why modern human beings replaced the Neanderthals has yet been found. Some have speculated that the modern humans wiped out the Neanderthals in warfare; however, there exists no archeological evidence of a hostile encounter. It has also been suggested that the Neanderthals failed to adapt to the onset of the last Ice Age; yet their thick bodies should have been heat-conserving and thus well-adapted to extreme cold. Finally, it is possible that the improved tools and hunting implements of the late Neanderthal period made the powerful Neanderthal physique less of an advantage than it had been previously.
At the same time, the Neanderthals need for a heavy diet to sustain this physique put them at a disadvantage compared to the less massive moderns. If this was the case, then it was improvements in human culture including some introduced by the Neanderthals themselves that made the Neanderthal obsolete.
Boule considered all of the following to be evidence that Neanderthals were sub-human EXCEPT their:
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