The Neandertal is a small valley of the river Düssel in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located about 12 km (7.5 mi) east of Düsseldorf, the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia. The valley lies within the limits of the towns of Erkrath and Mettmann. In August, 1856, the area became famous for the discovery of Neanderthal 1, one of the first specimens of Homo neanderthalensis to be found.
Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000 years ago. This timing, based on research published in Nature in 2014, is much earlier than previous estimates, and derives from improved radiocarbon-dating methods analyzing 40 sites from Spain to Russia. Evidence for continued Neanderthal presence in the Iberian Peninsula 37,000 years ago was published in 2017.
Feldhofer 1, or Neanderthal 1 is the scientific name of the 40,000-year-old type specimen fossil of the species Homo neanderthalensis, found in August 1856 in a German cave, the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte in the Neandertal valley, 13 km (8.1 mi) east of Düsseldorf. In 1864 the fossil's description was first published in a scientific magazine and officially named.
Jebel Irhoud is an archaeological site located just north of the locality known as Tlet Ighoud, approximately 50 km (30 mi) south-east of the city of Safi in Morocco. It is noted for the hominin fossils that have been found there since the discovery of the site in 1960. Originally thought to be Neanderthals, the specimens have since been assigned to Homo sapiens or Homo helmei and, as reported in 2017, have been dated to roughly 300,000 years ago.
Kleine Feldhofer Grotte was a karstic limestone cave and a paleoanthropologic site in the Neander Valley in western Germany. In August 1856, the Neanderthal type specimen was unearthed from the cave. Miners uncovered a skull cap and a number of skeletal bones to be labeled Neanderthal. The bones belong to at least three distinct individuals.
The Sidrón Cave is a non-carboniferous limestone karst cave system located in the Piloña municipality of Asturias, northwestern Spain, where Paleolithic rock art and the fossils of more than a dozen Neanderthals were found. Declared a "Partial Natural Reserve" in 1995, the site also serves as a retreat for five species of bats and is the place of discovery of two species of Coleoptera (beetles).
The multiregional hypothesis, multiregional evolution (MRE), or polycentric hypothesis is a scientific model that provides an alternative explanation to the more widely accepted "Out of Africa" model of monogenesis for the pattern of human evolution.
Neanderthals are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the cause of their extinction remains “highly contested,” demographic factors like small population size, inbreeding, and random fluctuations are considered likely factors. Other scholars have proposed competitive replacement, assimilation into the modern human genome, great climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors.
Neanderthal anatomy differed from modern humans in that they had a more robust build and distinctive morphological features, especially on the cranium, which gradually accumulated more derived aspects, particularly in certain isolated geographic regions.
Almost everything about Neanderthal behaviour remains controversial. From their physiology, Neanderthals are presumed to have been omnivores, but animal protein formed the majority of their dietary protein, showing them to have been carnivorous apex predators and not scavengers. Although very little is known of their social organization, it appears patrilines would make up the nucleus of the tribe, and women would seek out partners in neighbouring tribes once reaching adolescence, presumably to avoid inbreeding. The men would pass knowledge and customs down from fathers to sons. Neanderthal women appear to heavily skew physically impressive neanderthal men, hinting that neanderthal men would compete with each other and polyamorous relationships would emerge.
Gibraltar 1 is the specimen name of a Neanderthal skull, also known as the Gibraltar Skull found at Forbes' Quarry in Gibraltar and presented to the Gibraltar Scientific Society by its secretary, Lieutenant Edmund Henry Réné Flint on 3 March 1848. Its discovery predates that of the Neanderthal type specimen.
Gibraltar 2, also known as Devil's Tower Child, represented five skull fragments of a male Neanderthal child discovered in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The discovery of the fossils at the Devil's Tower Mousterian rock shelter was made by archaeologist Dorothy Garrod in 1926. It represented the second excavation of a Neanderthal skull in Gibraltar, after Gibraltar 1, the second Neanderthal skull ever found. In the early twenty-first century, Gibraltar 2 underwent reconstruction.
The Gibraltar Nature Reserve is a protected nature reserve in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar that covers over 40% of the country's land area. It was established as the Upper Rock Nature Reserve in 1993 under the International Union for Conservation of Nature's category Ia and was last extended in 2013. It is known for its semi-wild population of Barbary macaques, and is an important resting point for migrating birds.
Devil's Tower Cave is a cave in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Archaeologist Dorothy Garrod found a Neanderthal skull in the cave which, together with other evidence found in this cave, shows it was used as a rock shelter by the Neanderthals of Gibraltar.
The Neanderthals in Gibraltar were among the first to be discovered by modern scientists and have been among the most well studied of their species according to a number of extinction studies which emphasize regional differences, usually claiming the Iberian Peninsula partially acted as a “refuge” for the shrinking Neanderthal populations and the Gibraltar population of Neanderthals as having been one of many dwindling populations of archaic human populations, existing just until around 42,000 years ago. Many other Neanderthal populations went extinct around the same time.
Manot Cave is a cave in Western Galilee, Israel, discovered in 2008. It is notable for the discovery of a skull that belongs to a modern human, called Manot 1, which is estimated to be 54,700 years old. The partial skull was discovered at the beginning of the cave's exploration in 2008. Its significance was realised after detailed scientific analysis, and was first published in an online edition of Nature on 28 January 2015. This age implies that the specimen is the oldest known human outside Africa, and is evidence that modern humans lived side-by-side with Neanderthals. The cave is also noted for its "impressive archaeological record of flint and bone artefacts". Geologically, it is an "active stalactite cave".
Engis 2 refers to part of an assemblage, discovered in 1829 by Dutch physician and naturalist Philippe-Charles Schmerling in the lower of the Schmerling Caves. The pieces that make up Engis 2 are a partially preserved calvaria (cranium) and associated fragments of an upper and a lower jaw, a maxillary bone and an upper incisor tooth of a two to three year old Neanderthal child. The Schmerling Caves are situated just north of the Belgian municipality Engis, whence the name of this group. In 1833 Schmerling described and publicized the find, which included animal bones and stone tools. Recognizing their old age, he associated them with the "Ethiopian Type" of the diluvial period. Although it was not recognized as such until 1936, the publication represents the first scientific description of a Neanderthal fossil.
Amud 1 is a nearly complete but poorly preserved adult Southwest Asian Neanderthal skeleton thought to be about 55,000 years old. It was discovered at Amud in Israel by Hisashi Suzuki in July 1961, who described it as male. With an estimated height of 1.78 m, it is considerably taller than any other known Neanderthal, and its skull has by far the largest cranial capacity of any archaic hominin skull ever found. Making it, according to Ralph Holloway, one of the most famous specimens of Neanderthal skulls.
Cueva Antón is a paleoanthropological and archeological site in the Region of Murcia of southeast Spain. The cave is located about 60 kilometers from the Mediterranean port city of Cartagena inland in the territory of the municipality of Mula. It was eroded by the Río Mula and served as a cave in the Middle Palaeolithic inhabited by Neanderthals. The cave became internationally known in 2010, after a shell at least 43,000 years old with adhering orange pigment was discovered there. The pigment found was interpreted as evidence that the shell was used "in an aesthetic and probably symbolic" way. The find from the Cueva Antón was published together with similar finds from the Cave of Los Aviones; they were named as the first such Neanderthal jewelry found in Europe. The colonization of the Iberian Peninsula by modern man took place only several thousand years after the creation of the jewelry from the Cueva Antón. This site is the last known place where Neanderthal people resided.
The Apidima Cave is a complex of four small caves located on the western shore of Mani Peninsula in Southern Greece. A systematic investigation of the cave has yielded Neanderthal and Homo sapiens fossils from the Palaeolithic era.
