498 



THE CHANGING GENERATIONS 



True Neanderthal man has not yet been found in Asia or Africa and may 

 not have occurred in those regions. 



Typical Neanderthalers (Figs. 30.8 to 10 and 13B) were stocky, barrel- 

 chested, brutish men of short stature. They averaged about 5 feet 3 

 inches in height and stood less erect than we do. The spine had almost no 

 lumbar curvature, and the knees were slightly bent. The head jutted 

 forward from a short, massive neck and heavy, hunched shoulders. The 

 skull and brain were as large as or larger than ours but differently shaped. 

 The cranium was long and low, angulately projecting behind, and with 

 scarcely any forehead. The eyes were deep set under heavy bony brow 



ridges, and the large, strong jaws 

 protruded muzzlelike, without 

 much chin. 



Not all Neanderthalers were 

 alike. Those that lived in European 

 caves during the fourth glacial 

 age, and some of the earlier ones, 

 were of the sort just described. 

 Others that lived during the last 

 interglacial age differed in various 

 ways. A group that was smaller 

 brained and more slender was found 

 at Krapina in Croatia. An early 

 Neanderthal skull from Weimar in 

 Germany has a rather high dome. 

 The oldest known Neanderthal skull 

 was found at Steinheim, Germany, in 1933, and is sometimes called 

 Steinheim man 1 ; it has a brain capacity not much greater than that of 

 Java man, but a much less snoutlike face and more rounded cranium 

 than in the typical Neanderthalers. This skull dates from somewhere 

 between the end of the great interglacial and the beginning of the last 

 interglacial ages. 



The people who lived in the Mount Carmel caves in Galilee were pecul- 

 iarly variable. Some were quite typical Neanderthalers, but others 

 possessed in varying degree features more like those of Homo sapiens— 

 greater height, smaller face, rounder skull, interrupted brow ridges, 

 moderately full forehead, and more rounded and less projecting occiput. 

 Some investigators think this Palestinian group was evolving into modern 

 man. Others believe the variation was caused by hybridization between 

 Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens. 



Two other Neanderthaloids deserve brief mention. Solo man is known 

 from several skulls found in Java not far from the place where Java man 

 1 Homo steinheimensis — probably only a form of Homo nmnderthalensis. 



Fig. 30.9. A Neanderthal skull, Homo 

 neanderthalensis . {Redrawn from Howells, 

 Mankind So Far, by permission Doubleday 

 & Company, Inc.) 



