The Relationships between Neanderthal Man and Homo Sapiens

Abstract

fundamental to the comprehension of human evolution as a whole. During the past generation this problem has been discussed in numerous papers and sections of monographs. None of the discussions known to me, however, has taken systematic account of certain major geographic features of the Old World nor of what we know about Pleistocene climatic fluctuations, both of which must have been important factors in the spread and differentiation of early hominids. Neither has the current state of knowledge about Lower Paleolithic cultures been fully integrated into any of the competing theories of Neanderthal-Homo sapiens relationships. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest that a consideration of all these factors supports the hypothesis that Homo sapiens and Neanderthal, after a presumed common origin, evolved independently in almost complete geographic isolation from one another for a long time prior to the third interglacial, and that the progressive Neanderthals of that time were hybrids between these two forms of man. This general thesis has been advanced in varying forms by several scholars: Leakey (1935), Coon (1939), Paterson (1940), and Hooton (1946), to mention a few. It is opposed to the theory that both classic Neanderthal of Wiirm I in Europe and Homo sapiens evolved rapidly during Wtirm I from the progressive form of Neanderthal. This position was enunciated by McCown and Keith (1939) and has recently been supported by Howell (1951). Ashley Montagu, reviewing the McCown-Keith work (1940:520-21), made a telling genetic point against their position and adopted the general hypothesis here advocated. Weidenreich's position (1940, 1943, 1946), which is grossly oversimplified but not violated when it is described as assuming that a semiclassic form of Neanderthal (Mt. Carmel) was ancestral to the Eurasian group of Homo sapiens, is also at variance with my thesis at this and several other points. Howells' position (1942), that modern racial differences are the result of evolutionary radiation of Homo sapiens over a long period of time, appears to be a biologically more likely explanation of these differences than Weidenreich's conception of the convergence of very diverse forms of man into a nearly common mold. In fact, integral to the development of the thesis here advanced, is an explanation of the climatic factors that set the stage for the differentiation of Homo sapiens into races prior to the Upper Pleistocene. Hrdli'ka also took the position, long ago and in a much simpler form than Weidenreich, that Homo sapiens evolved through a Neanderthal phase (1926, 1928-29).