needed the endurance to hold on no 
matter how violent the motions of the 
prey. To loosen his hold would have 
jeopardized his life, as well as that 
of his companion or companions. 
If great strength, agility, and pre- 
cision and speed of bodily movements 
were required for such a hunting tech- 
nique, those parts of the brain con- 
trolling motor functions in the hunter 
had to be greatly developed. Nean- 
derthal possessed a massive cerebel- 
lum and motor cortex compared to 
modern humans. This pulled the brain 
case rearward, creating an occiput 
that reached farther rearward than 
in modern humans, explaining, in part, 
the large, long, low brain case and 
bun-shaped occiput of the Neander- 
thals. Experimental evidence shows 
that, phenotypically, brain size is a 
function of the diversity of well-mas- 
tered motor patterns, as well as a result 
of good nutrition. The build and con- 
dition of the bones of Neanderthals 
speak for exceedingly good nutrition 
and a great deal of exercise. (This 
also applies to females, who were, as 
in modern humans, somewhat smaller 
than males. They, too, were apparently 
well-muscled.) I submit that the brain 
size and shape of these people fit with 
the demands of close-quarter confron- 
tation hunting. 
Given all of the preceding conjec- 
tures, Neanderthal hunters would 
have done best to focus on large mam- 
mals with long hair, allowing for a 
solid handgrip. Mammoths, woolly rhi- 
nos, steppe wisent, and horses were 
such animals. Compared with us, Ne- 
anderthal’s hand not only covered a 
great span but the long, broad-tipped 
fingers offered a greater surface area 
with which to hold hair. Neanderthal 
man’s powerful adductor muscles, 
great ability to spread his fingers, and 
big, fleshy fingertips now have a logi- 
cal explanation. So do his massive 
arms and “brachiating” shoulder gir- 
dle. 
Examination of kill patterns shows 
that Neanderthals rarely killed 
aurochs ( Bos primigenius), the ances- 
tor of domestic cattle, and moose. Cat- 
tle have a short-haired smooth surface, 
difficult to grasp and to hold on to. 
Also, their ability to spin around in 
a tiny space, buck effectively, and at- 
tack can be attested to by anybody 
visiting a rodeo. Moose hair breaks 
or pulls out. But both moose and cattle 
could be killed by hunters using throw- 
ing spears, and Upper Paleolithic 
hunters killed these two species reg- 
ularly. Thus the paucity of cattle and 
moose kills in the Mousterian (Ne- 
anderthal) layers in Ukrainian and 
Russian sites may be explained as a 
consequence of the postulated hunting 
methods of Neanderthal. There is no 
reason to suspect that aurochs and 
moose were rare in Neanderthal’s time 
and common in the Upper Paleolithic. 
For killing rapidly at close quarters, 
as indicated earlier, a thin-bladed 
throwing spear may not only be in- 
effective but also dangerous. Ideally, 
a hafted blade on a thrusting spear 
should be as wide as the strength of 
the hunter permits him to thrust it 
through a thick hide, muscles, and 
fat. The boar spear from medieval Eu- 
rope shows the solution to the problem 
of quickly killing a big, violent, tough 
creature. The blade is thick, some 
three inches across the edge, with a 
rounded point — very similar to the 
big, thick, massive Mousterian points. 
We know that Neanderthals worked 
in wood, sufficient reason for us to 
suspect that they could make hand- 
made thrusting spears. Refined work- 
manship would add nothing to the ef- 
fectiveness of the blade. We also know 
that Neanderthal people made hand 
axes, which they embedded partially 
into mastic, a material made from clay 
and tree resins. Without the mastic 
cap, the hand axes would, of course, 
have cut the hand. These axes must 
have been used with great force. Such 
an ax could be used to crush the lum- 
bar vertebrae of a steppe wisent or 
horse with one blow, slash open a chest 
cavity, or cut the tendon on a hindleg 
of the prey. Thus Neanderthal’s weap- 
ons, morphology, and kill patterns fall 
logically within a close-quarter con- 
frontation hunting strategy. 
The dentition of Neanderthal peo- 
ple and their peculiar hearths are 
linked to some consequence of killing 
game with primitive weapons in cold 
climates. Large mammals killed in 
winter had to be dismembered quickly 
before they froze. After the cut meat 
froze, the chunks had to be carried 
to a convenient shelter. The chunks 
of frozen meat were most likely 
thawed and roasted by placing them 
directly into a bed of coals in a large 
hearth. This had several consequences. 
First, the meat came in contact with 
ashes, sand, and bone grit. Eating such 
meat would have caused tooth abra- 
sion. The open-rooted and possibly 
continually growing cheek teeth of Ne- 
anderthal are the logical correlate to 
such abrasive food. Singed and 
charred meat had to be forcefully re- 
moved from layers that were still raw 
and frozen. This meant that either 
the meat was somehow cut off or that 
the person bit directly into the joint 
and worried off a piece of meat. The 
latter requires powerful incisors and 
a sawing motion of the jaw amenable 
to severing tough, fibrous meat. The 
jaw anatomy indicates that a back- 
ward and forward movement of the 
jaw existed — admirably suited for 
grinding incisors against one another. 
Thus Neanderthal’s projecting jaws 
and large incisors would function ad- 
mirably for working free amounts of 
tough meat from joints. Such use of 
the front teeth should not only lead 
to heavy wear but also to noticeable 
wear on the front of the incisors. The 
fossil evidence verifies this. 
Another consequence of bringing 
crudely severed joints to a fire was 
an accumulation of bones. To leave 
bones about a campsite would attract 
bears or other carnivores. Burning all 
bones not only removed the attraction, 
but would also result in large hearths 
filled with bone ash so typical of Ne- 
anderthal hearths. 
To understand their demise, one 
must go a little further in unraveling 
the way Neanderthals lived. There is 
no evidence for Neanderthals, as there 
is for Upper Paleolithic people, having 
killed much in excess and preserved 
the surplus meat. Neanderthals prob- 
ably lived from kill to kill. In winter, 
without a reliable surplus of stored 
food to fall back on, they could not 
afford to stay where the occurrence 
of game was unpredictable. They 
could only survive in winter by living 
in areas with a high density and di- 
versity of large mammals. They must, 
therefore, have been confined to the 
most productive localities. This im- 
plies that under comparable condi- 
tions Neanderthals would have had 
a more restricted geographical distri- 
bution than Upper Paleolithic people. 
Further, without the practice of 
storing surplus food or boiling bones 
to extract the protein, Neanderthals 
were less likely to be as efficient in 
utilizing carcasses as were people from 
the Upper Paleolithic. Since there is 
no evidence for sophisticated clothing 
or shelters, we may assume that Ne- 
anderthal people — like people living 
in the high Andes — kept warm by eat- 
ing more food. Compared with the 
Upper Paleolithic people, Neander- 
thal people would have had to hunt 
more. They must have been very sen- 
34 
