Neanderthal Man 215 



of severe cold and frequent floods. There was compe- 

 tition for suitable caves which could be warmed with 

 fires. How severe the cold was we can judge from the 

 thick coat of hair on the mammoth, and from the ex- 

 tension of northern and Alpine animals, such as rein- 

 deer and musk-ox, ibex and chamois, into the low 

 grounds of Central and Southern Europe. 



The primitive men who lived in those hard times 

 have been named Neanderthal Men because one of 

 the early, though not earliest, discoveries of their 

 remains was made in a grotto in the valley called 

 Neanderthal, through which the river Dussel flows 

 into the Rhine. But many other remains have been 

 found in widely separated places — at Gibraltar, at 

 Spy in Belgium, at Krapina in Croatia, at La Cha- 

 pelle-aux- Saints in France, and elsewhere. About fif- 

 teen good sets of skeletal specimens are accessible, 

 and they are homogeneous and distinctive. As Pro- 

 fessor Boule says in his Fossil Man (Translation by 

 Dr. and Mrs. Ritchie, 1923), the Neanderthal type 

 is better known than many living types. 



Can we form any picture of this primitive man, 

 who was once the highest of created beings, but did 

 not enter into the promises? He was a man of small 

 stature, perhaps 5 feet 1 inch on an average, and he 

 slouched forwards. Stature is a composite character, 

 with diverse elements (for neck, back, loins, and so 

 forth) which may be separately inherited; and it 

 should be noted that Neanderthal Man was very 

 short in the legs. But he was thick-set, almost massive, 

 and very strong. Professor Lull speaks of him as "a 



