218 Neanderthal Man Extinct Species 



made that Neanderthal Man buried his dead rever- 

 ently, and gave them not only food for their journey, 

 but ornaments which could not have been relinquished 

 without a pang. 



Huxley regarded Neanderthal Man as an extreme 

 variant of Homo sapiens, the Modern Man type, but 

 Professor William King, a quiet worker at Queen's 

 College, Galway, challenged this conclusion in 1864?, 

 and maintained that it is necessary to recognize a 

 distinct species, Homo neanderthalensis. This is the 

 view generally accepted to-day. Neanderthal Man 

 differs from modern man of any race much more 

 than modern races differ among themselves. Pro- 

 fessor Boule writes: "The Neanderthal type clearly 

 represents a species different from Homo sapiens, 

 taken collectively, existing or fossil, because it pre- 

 sents a certain number of constant characters which 

 are not met with, normally and in association, in any 

 human race or species existing at the present day." 



But this is not all. The facts are entirely against 

 the view that Neanderthal Man was any ancestor of 

 ours. He represents a collateral line that came to an 

 end. But the noteworthy fact is that our ancestors — 

 that is to say, representatives of the Homo sapiens 

 species — were living synchronously with Neander- 

 thal Man in the later millennia of his species-life. He 

 was older and he had his innings, but he dwindled 

 into extinction, while the progressive newcomers be- 

 came dominant. The two species doubtless sprang 

 from a common stock, and they must have diverged 

 long before the last Glacial Epoch. But, as has 



