Gibraltar woman and Neanderthal Man

Abstract

Forbes' Quarry, on the Rock of Gibraltar, yielded a human skull in 1848, one of the earliest Neanderthal skeletal remains known to science. Fragments of a second Gibraltar skull, that of a child, were described from Devil's Tower rock shelter in 1928 and have recently been reconstructed and reinterpreted to emphasize the distinction of Homo neanderthalensis from H. sapiens. Neanderthal skeletal remains are confined to Europe, the Middle East and central Asia, their most recent occurrence arguably a refugium in southern Iberia. The race seemingly became extinct about 30 000 years Before Present, for reasons as yet unknown, but a programme of excavations in Gorham's and Vanguard caves on Gibraltar is in progress to elucidate palaeoenvironmental and behavioural changes as some of the last Neanderthals were succeeded stratigraphically by anatomically modern humans with an Upper Palaeolithic culture.