Homo neanderthalensisA bigger brain than ours
Eugene M. McCarthy, Ph.D.
Much of the original specimen was lost because the quarry workers failed to recognize the importance of what they had found. Fuhlrott himself did not inspect the site until two weeks later. By then, the remaining bones were buried deep in a great heap of clay. As a result, the only portions of the skeleton recovered were the skullcap, two femurs, several arm bones, part of the left ilium, fragments of a scapula, and some ribs (Schaafhausen 1888). Surprisingly, however, additional material from Neanderthal 1 has recently been located (see Note 3 below).
Notes: 1. In 1901 a spelling reform in Germany replaced th with t through out the language. Thus, words such as Thal and Thier became Tal and Tier. However, scientific names are unaffected by such changes; so Homo neanderthalensis retained its th. Some scientists have tried to change the English name of this hominid from Neanderthal to Neandertal, to bring it in line with modern German spelling, but this initiative seems to be losing steam due to the inertia of the long-established English spelling Neanderthal. 2. The Neander Valley is not named for the river, the Düssel, that runs through it. Rather it gained its epithet from the 17th century pastor and hymnist Joachim Neumann, whose last name was rendered in Greek as Neander. Neumann frequented the area and found inspiration for his hymns in the then rushing waters of the now obliterated gorge. 3. Remarkably, Ralf Schmitz and Jurgen Thissen, of Germany's Office for the Preservation of Archaeological Monuments, have recently managed to relocate the site where the other pieces of the original Neanderthal skeleton were dumped. In old paintings and maps of the cave, they were able to recognize a rock that still stands at the site. "They dug a couple of deep trenches nearby and began to sift through the rocks and debris at the bottom," says one of their colleagues, Barbel Auffermann, of the Neanderthal Museum. "Eventually, they found some bat teeth and pieces of stalactites. You only get those in caves." Then they set to work in earnest sorting through tons of earth. Eventually they found 20 additional pieces of bone. One actually fit the left knee joint of the original Neanderthal individual!
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