Homo neanderthalensis has become a highly underestimated character in human evolution. A face without a chin, a sloping forehead, protruding brow ridges … A pitiful, ugly caricature of a man, wandering in gloomy silence among European valleys and in the mountains of the Middle East - this is how several generations of scientists portrayed the Neanderthal.
This is how he was imprinted in our consciousness, embodying in himself everything that is crude and ignorant that we carry beyond the concept of “culture”.
The "classic" Neanderthal lived 120-30 thousand years ago, having adapted to the climate of the Ice Age. On average, he was smaller than today's European. His height was only 1.50-1.60 m. But his skeleton was more massive than the skeleton of a modern man, therefore the muscles of the Neanderthal (for example, on the shoulders and neck) were more conspicuous. The volume of the skull reached 1300-1700 cubic meters. cm.
His relationship with Homo sapiens is still a mystery. Are they relatives, or do their relationships fit into the "executioner and victim" scheme, where Homo sapiens is assigned an unseemly role?
The news that came in 1988 from Israel became a sensation: in the Middle East for 50-60 thousand years, Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens lived next door to each other (maybe even mixed?). Fifty thousand years of peaceful coexistence? Somehow it does not fit with the verdict "immediately ousted"! After all, history proves that a socially and culturally backward population cannot coexist with a superior population for such a long time.
Numerous recent finds testified in defense of the "pathetic caricature". No, Neanderthal is something other than a dead-end branch of the human race. What new have we learned about him in recent years?
The Neanderthal was in no way inferior to the Cro-Magnon in hunting skills and in building houses. The disadvantages include, perhaps, the rougher finishing of the stone tools of the Neanderthal, for example, hand choppers or scrapers.
Promotional video:
Neanderthals took care of the sick and old. This is proved by the skeleton of a man found in the Shanidar cave in northern Iraq. This man suffered from a number of severe ailments. Apparently he was blind in his left eye; he suffered from paralysis of the shoulder, arthrosis of the joints of the legs and knees.
But despite these terrible - for the Stone Age - diseases, he managed to live up to forty years. He would certainly have died if his relatives had not helped him. During the nomads, they took the cripple with them, fed him, looked after him.
There is no doubt that the Neanderthals were the first among hominids to bury their dead in lavish ceremonies.
A burial found in Shanidar Cave proves that the Neanderthals had their own religious beliefs. The people buried here were showered with flowers: lilies, roses and carnations. The survivors made sure that the deceased, transferred to another world, felt good. It is clear from these efforts that the thought of immortality dawned on not only us, the "rational and modern".
34 thousand years ago in the town of Arsy-sur-Cure to the southeast of Auxerre (France) lived Neanderthals, endowed with a sense of grace. They adorned themselves with ivory rings and wore necklaces of teeth and animal bones. So far, anthropologists do not understand who exactly made these trinkets: either the Neanderthal dandies adopted the craft skills from their neighbors, the Cro-Magnons, or traded with them, getting their favorite jewelry.
Neanderthals may well have talked to each other.
American anthropologists have compared the size of the hypoglossal canal found in the skull of modern humans with the size of similar canals in the skulls of our prehistoric ancestors, as well as the great apes. Through this canal - a hole that resembles a tube - a nerve approaches the base of the skull, communicating any movements of the tongue to the brain. Scientists have found that in Neanderthals, the dimensions of the hypoglossal canal were about the same as in modern humans.
But in monkeys, the size of this hole is significantly smaller, as in Australopithecus. The ability of a living creature to articulate speech depends on the size of the hypoglossal channel. Consequently, Neanderthals were endowed with this ability. Previously, scientists believed that people learned to speak only 40 thousand years ago.
