242 INTRODUCTION TO EVOLUTION 



Homo sapiens of modern type. Classification of such transitional forms is 

 difficult. Those most closely resembling Homo sapiens are sometimes 

 called "presapiens" (cf. Vallois, 1954) but there is no clear indication that 

 they constituted populations actually differentiated from their "pre- 

 Neanderthal" contemporaries. In fact, as noted above, some individuals 

 seem to have combined characteristics of both Neanderthal man and typi- 

 cal Homo sapiens. Sometimes these early peoples not clearly differentiated 

 as either Neanderthal or Homo sapiens are called "early Neanderthals" 



FIG. 11.13. The Ehringsdorf skull. Approximately one- 

 third natural size. (From Le Gros Clark, The Fossil Evi- 

 dence for Human Evolution, University of Chicago Press, 

 1955, p. 68; by courtesy of the British Museum [Natural 

 History].) 



and are represented as ancestral to both later or "classic" Neanderthals 

 and to Homo sapiens (Howell, 1957). But it would seem as logical to 

 call them "early Homo sapiens" and to represent them as ancestral to 

 classic Neanderthals and to later Homo sapiens (essentially the view of 

 Le Gros Clark, 1955). 



In sum, these transitional forms seem best left unclassified. Like the 

 australopithecines and like Pithecanthropus they exhibited great variabil- 

 ity. Apparently wide variation in structure has always characterized man. 

 From this varied assemblage of people two fairly distinct types emerged: 

 Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens of modern type. 



Neanderthal Man 



During the first portions of the fourth or last glaciation, distinctive 

 groups of people collectively known as Neanderthal man lived in Europe. 



