Neanderthals and Their Contemporaries

Abstract

Neanderthals are the group of fossil humans that inhabited Western Eurasia from the mid-Middle Pleistocene until ca. 40 Ka ago, when they disappeared from the fossil record, only a few millennia after the first modern humans appear in Europe. They are characterized by a suite of morphological features that in combination produce a uniquemorphotype. They are commonly associated with theMousterian lithic industry, although toward the end of their tenure they are sometimes found with assemblages resembling those produced by early modern humans. Although there is still discussion over their taxonomic status and relationship with modern humans, it is now commonly recognized that they represent a distinct, Eurasian evolutionary lineage sharing a common ancestor with modern humans in the Middle Pleistocene. This lineage is thought to have been isolated from the rest of the Old World, probably due to the climatic conditions of the glacial cycles. Glacial climate conditions are often thought to have been at least in part responsible for the evolution of some of the distinctive Neanderthal morphology, although genetic drift was probably also very important. The causes of the Neanderthal extinction are not well understood. Worsening climate and competition with modern humans are implicated. The Discovery of Neanderthals: Historical Background Although the first Neanderthal remains were discovered in the early nineteenth century (Engis child in 1830, Forbes Quarry adult in 1848), it was not until the discovery of the skeleton from the Neander Valley in 1856, roughly coinciding with the publication of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” in 1859, that the existence of an extinct kind of archaic humans was recognized. It is this locality that lends its name to the group, and it is there that the debate surrounding the relationship of Neanderthals with modern humans began. The antiquity of the Neanderthal skeleton and its status as an archaic human was not immediately accepted. Instead, its peculiar anatomical attributes were considered the result of various pathologies, including rickets. Its antiquity was only firmly established with the eventual discovery of additional skeletons of similar morphology associated with lithic artifacts and extinct fauna. Neanderthals were assigned to the species H. neanderthalensis as early as 1864 (King 1864). However, once their status as archaic predecessors of modern humans was accepted, their relationship with modern humans, and particularly modern Europeans, began to be intensely debated. The predominant view in the 1910s and 1920s was represented by scientists like Marcellin Boule and Sir Arthur Keith, who were among the most influential scholars of their day. They placed Neanderthals in their own species and rejected any ancestral role for them in the evolution of modern people, pointing out their “primitiveness” and presumed inferiority (Boule 1911/1913; Boule and Vallois 1957). 2244 K. Harvati