# Neanderthal Girl Image **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 5, 2008, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587 "2008-10-05T19:51:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2008, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/1 "2008-10-05T19:51:52Z")
This image– [http://www.ideofact.com/archives/2005%20Neanderthal.jpg](http://www.ideofact.com/archives/2005%20Neanderthal.jpg) has been circulating since at least 2005. Who created it? Why? Is it part of a larger Neanderthal image collection? Is it based on good science? ---
**Author:** ![puppygod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/2 "2008-10-05T19:56:07Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > This image– > > [http://www.ideofact.com/archives/2005%20Neanderthal.jpg](http://www.ideofact.com/archives/2005%20Neanderthal.jpg) > > has been circulating since at least 2005. > > Who created it? > Why? > Is it part of a larger Neanderthal image collection? > Is it based on good science? It’s reconstruction by multimedia lab team from University of Zurich. Check [this link](http://www.aim.uzh.ch/morpho/wiki/CAP/0) under “face reconstruction”. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2008, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/3 "2008-10-05T23:35:51Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Is it based on good science? I’ve wondered about the recent trend toward depicting Neanderthals as very similar in appearance to modern humans. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe, for example, they were covered with fur. Why do we assume they were naked apes like us? They had _other_ cold-weather adaptations: short limbs and thick torsos are presumed to have helped Neanderthals conserve heat. Wouldn’t furriness be another likely adaptation for colder climates? Neanderthal sites are notable for their lack of sewing implements. Maybe they weren’t making clothing because they didn’t _need_ it? ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2008, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/4 "2008-10-05T23:55:11Z")
I’ve also wondered why it’s become fashionable to depict them as redheads. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/5 "2008-10-06T00:10:42Z")
The [current issue](http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/10/table-of-contents) of National Geographic has another female Neanderthal reconstruction. She has red hair, fairish skin and greenish hazel eyes. [QUOTE=National Geographic] Genetic studies released before the Kennis brothers started work on their figure indicated that the hominids likely had red hair, so blue seemed a reasonable choice for her eye color Then after the figure’s completion, a study by Hans Ellberg and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen indicated that blue eyes first showed up as a single mutation 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, at least 18,000 years after the Neanderthals’ extinction. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/6 "2008-10-06T01:00:05Z")
Regarding being covered in hair, do we have some mummies or frozen examples of Neadertals that would have preserved hair? ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/7 "2008-10-06T02:05:59Z")
> [@chacoguy420](#): > > I’ve also wondered why it’s become fashionable to depict them as redheads. That’s because a couple of years ago, while parsing Neanderthal DNA, they found a specific gene that would have given that particular person red hair. It’s even a different mutation from the one that showed up among Cro Magnon about 10,000 years ago. Besides, redheads are always cool. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/8 "2008-10-06T02:13:55Z")
> [@sjc](#): > > Regarding being covered in hair, do we have some mummies or frozen examples of Neadertals that would have preserved hair? We don’t. The latest fossils we have are still around 28,000 years old. They’re skeletonized - no soft tissue remaining. As there have been indications that Neanderthals wore animal skins as clothing, I think it’s reasonable to assume that they didn’t have their own pelt. The likely progenitor of both Neanderthal and Cro Magnon evolved in Africa, and IIRC, most paleoanthropologists figure that hominins lost their fur about the time they started consistently started walking on two feet and gained such profligate sweat glands. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/9 "2008-10-06T02:24:22Z")
> [@sjc](#): > > Regarding being covered in hair, do we have some mummies or frozen examples of Neadertals that would have preserved hair? Well, we have ancient [bogmen](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D7143EF931A35755C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all) with hair intact, but their hair is thought to be discolored from acids from the peat that preserved them. Some [frozen mammoths](http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften_chemie/bericht-16268.html) have had their fur preserved too, so it probably would work on people as well. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/10 "2008-10-06T02:31:40Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Maybe, for example, they were covered with fur. Why do we assume they were naked apes like us? They had _other_ cold-weather adaptations: short limbs and thick torsos are presumed to have helped Neanderthals conserve heat. Wouldn’t furriness be another likely adaptation for colder climates? Neanderthals (or sometimes Neandertals, which some advocate as a spelling) are so close to Homo Sapiens that some scientists believed that they were able to interbreed. That alone makes furriness unlikely. We’re known to share 99% of DNA with Neanderthals but only 95% with chimpanzees. They are so recent a species that it’s extremely likely that the last ancestor species we’re both thought to have in common would also have been a “hairless ape.” There is essentially no chance that they would have re-evolved body hair. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/11 "2008-10-06T04:49:42Z")
I don’t think furriness can be ruled out. Even modern humans have rare furry mutations, and it would explain a lot. If early humans saw the Neanderthals as game animals rather than fellow people, hunting them to extinction seems like a real possibility. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Neanderthals (or sometimes Neandertals, which some advocate as a spelling) are so close to Homo Sapiens that some scientists believed that they were able to interbreed. That alone makes furriness unlikely. We’re known to share 99% of DNA with Neanderthals but only 95% with chimpanzees. > > They are so recent a species that it’s extremely likely that the last ancestor species we’re both thought to have in common would also have been a “hairless ape.” There is essentially no chance that they would have re-evolved body hair. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/12 "2008-10-06T04:59:08Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Neanderthals (or sometimes Neandertals, which some advocate as a spelling) are so close to Homo Sapiens that some scientists believed that they were able to interbreed. A belief that is hotly contested. As I understand it, the scientists who believe interbreeding occurred base that idea on a few morphologically ambiguous skulls. But an emerging consensus based on DNA analysis is that interbreeding did not occur. From [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#The_fate_of_the_Neanderthals): > [@](#): > > **On November 16, 2006, Science Daily published an interview that suggested that Neanderthals and ancient humans probably did not interbreed.** Edward M. Rubin, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), sequenced a fraction (0.00002) of genomic nuclear DNA (nDNA) from a 38,000-year-old Vindia Neanderthal femur bone. They calculated the common ancestor to be about 353,000 years ago, and a complete separation of the ancestors of the species about 188,000 years ago. Their results show the genomes of modern humans and Neanderthals are at least 99.5% identical, but despite this genetic similarity, and despite the two species having coexisted in the same geographic region for thousands of years, Rubin and his team did not find any evidence of any significant crossbreeding between the two. Rubin said, “While unable to definitively conclude that interbreeding between the two species of humans did not occur, analysis of the nuclear DNA from the Neanderthal suggests the low likelihood of it having occurred at any appreciable level.” > > A main proponent of the interbreeding hypothesis is Erik Trinkaus of Washington University. In a 2006 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Trinkaus and his co-authors report a possibility that Neanderthals and humans did interbreed. The study claims to settle the extinction controversy; according to researchers, the human and neanderthal populations blended together through sexual reproduction. Trinkaus states, “Extinction through absorption is a common phenomenon.”[37] and “From my perspective, the replacement vs. continuity debate that raged through the 1990s is now dead”.[38] > > Recently, Richard E. Green et al. from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology published the full sequence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and suggested that “Neandertals had a long-term effective population size smaller than that of modern humans.” **While reporting in Nature Journal about the same publication, James Morgan asserted that the mtDNA sequence contained clues that Neanderthals lived in “small and isolated populations, and probably did not interbreed with their human neighbours.”** [QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] [The possibiliy of interbreeding] alone makes furriness unlikely. [/QUOTE] No it doesn’t, even if we were to assume coupling occurred. Plenty of modern humans are pretty furry. And we also know that at least some modern shepherds aren’t particular about the furriness of the animals with which they’ll couple. > [@](#): > > We’re known to share 99% of DNA with Neanderthals but only 95% with chimpanzees. The percentage of DNA difference is pretty meaningless in the context of this discussion. There are obvious morphological differences between modern humans and Neanderthals. The aforementioned short arms and thick torsos. Brow ridges. Elongated skulls. Receeding foreheads. Rounded instead of pentagonal skull shape. Much larger noses. You can get an idea of the difference between a Neanderthal skull and a modern skull [here](http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~pgore/myphotos/skulls/neanderthal-vs-human.jpg) and [here](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Neandertal_vs_Sapiens.jpg/420px-Neandertal_vs_Sapiens.jpg). Hairiness seems like a very minor morphological difference by comparison- one that could easily have evolved with just a slight hormonal tweak. Neanderthals ancestors had been in Europe for perhaps as long as 600,000 years - plenty of time to evolve fur. By contrast, modern humans have only ventured into northern Europe in the past 30,000 to 50,000 years. And that’s assuming Neanderthals needed to _evolve_ fur. They might’ve already had it - like all of our more distant primate cousins today. > [@phouka](#): > > As there have been indications that Neanderthals wore animal skins as clothing… _Is_ there any such evidence? What sort of evidence? (I’m willing to be convinced.) The only thing I’ve seen along those lines is an _assumption_ that Neanderthals must have just draped themselves with skins rather than fashioning clothing, since no sewing tools have been found. (That assumption is mentioned in the current issue of _National Geographic_.) A better assumption in my view is that no sewing tools have been found because Neanderthals (_like other animals found in cold climates_) had evolved fur and didn’t _need_ clothing. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/13 "2008-10-06T05:18:04Z")
[Elephant](http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/animals/images/primary/african-elephant2.jpg) -----\> [Mammoth](http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/09/74609-004-4834C543.jpg) [Rhinoceros](http://www.animalimages.mobi/galleries/pet/rhinoceros_1.jpg) -----\> [Wooly Rhinoceros](http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/58/41258-004-F83472D2.jpg) [African cattle](http://d2117034.temp98.hostica.com/images/BORAN.jpg) -----\> [Scottish cattle](http://www.seldelaterrefarm.com/images/animals/mainhighland.jpg) A pattern emerges… ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/14 "2008-10-06T15:45:36Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > [Elephant](http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/animals/images/primary/african-elephant2.jpg) -----\> [Mammoth](http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/09/74609-004-4834C543.jpg) > > [Rhinoceros](http://www.animalimages.mobi/galleries/pet/rhinoceros_1.jpg) -----\> [Wooly Rhinoceros](http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/58/41258-004-F83472D2.jpg) > > [African cattle](http://d2117034.temp98.hostica.com/images/BORAN.jpg) -----\> [Scottish cattle](http://www.seldelaterrefarm.com/images/animals/mainhighland.jpg) > > A pattern emerges… Without any intended snarkiness, the pattern you see here is that you can twice match a modern warm-climate mammal with a related extinct mammal of a different genus within the same family that was adapted for Pleistocene cold climates (rhinos and probiscideans), along with a warm- and a cold-climate breed of a variable domestic species (cattle). If you’re shooting for “many warm-climate mammals had hairier cold-climate relatives,” that does not prove anything about humans – otherwise you’d be depicting the highly-hirsute Inuit and Saami alongside the hairless Tupinambi and Guamanians. And IIRC the degree of body hair is about even. Neandertals were cladistically our closest kin – it’s still debated among paleoanthropologists whether they were a subspecies of _Homo sapiens_ or a closely related separate species (_H. neanderthalensis_), with the second view seeming to be becoming more and more widely accepted. They **were** adapted to cool climates, but the adaptations were largely nasopharyngeal – nose and throat mods. for dealing with relatively frigid air. The degree of hirsuteness is of necessity conjectural, but would probably be little more than one might see on a “bears” porn website. The pale skin is highly likely – skin coloration factors in degree of exposure to solar UV (dark skin helps protect) with the need to produce Vitamin D (light skin fosters production – and environmental sources of the vitamin may be scarce in cooler climates). Essentially, light skin is an adapation to cool climate. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/15 "2008-10-06T16:02:01Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > The degree of hirsuteness is of necessity conjectural, but would probably be little more than one might see on a “bears” porn website. Why “probably”? It seems to me more probable that in the hundreds of thousands of years they and their ancestors were in northern climes they would have evolved fur … _just as other cold-weather mammals did_. As for why the Inuit haven’t evolved fur, they haven’t needed to: they have clothing, and therefore there’s no selection pressure to be furry. There is no evidence of which I’m aware (and none has been put forward in this thread) that Neanderthals made clothes. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/16 "2008-10-06T16:57:23Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > I don’t think furriness can be ruled out. Even modern humans have rare furry mutations, and it would explain a lot. Is there any paleontological evidence to support the conjecture that Neandertals used to dress in animal skins, gather in prehistoric hotels, and draw pictures of themselves with tails and cat ears? Seems like a huge reach to me. \ ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/17 "2008-10-06T17:44:53Z")
I don’t mean to hi-jack, but did they ever find out what happened to Neanderthals? Did we eat them all? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/18 "2008-10-06T17:45:51Z")
I don’t know of a single serious paleontologist who thinks the Neanderthals went around naked. All seem to agree that they worse animal skins, which could be cut and shaped to fit the body without sewing. There’s some evidence that Neanderthals developing sewing tools just before they went extinct. I suppose the interbreeders might use this as evidence for Sapiens genes. (I specifically said some scientists believe in interbreeding because I know it’s controversial. But if anyone though the two species were so far apart than one had hair, nobody would buy the interbreeding for a second. I myself think they didn’t interbreed, so all I’m saying is that there are known to have been so genetically close that a good case has been made.) The other problem is the assumption that the Neanderthals made this extreme adaptation because of the cold of an ice age. We simply don’t know exactly when the first Neanderthals appeared. Maybe 350,000 years ago, but that maybe is a huge trap. If you look at a [chart of temperatures over that period](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_ages) you see that the could have appeared either at the depth of an ice age or at the height of an interglacial. However they started they went through a complete cycle of warm and cold temperatures, just as Homo Sapiens did, in fact more than one. Any adaptations they did would have to be extremely quick and would have been counterproductive just a short time later. I know of absolutely no evidence that Neanderthals first appeared 600,000 years ago. Even proto-Neanderthal features are never dated before 500,000 years ago and the 350,000 figure is more cited. Complete Neanderthal structures are from about 200,000 years, which was an interglacial. It would help if you could provide some sites for your assertions. Give us cites for when true Neanderthals appeared, for the climate that occurred at the time, for their never wearing skins, for their genetic profile to have changed over time to allow for fur. Don’t make us disprove all of this. Provide some positive evidence to back you up. ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/19 "2008-10-06T18:04:30Z")
There is quite a bit of variation in body and facial hairiness just within _Homo sapiens_. I think that in the absence of direct fossil evidence one way or the other, the possibility that Neandertals were hairier than any _H. sapiens_ must at least be considered open. **Exapno Mapcase** , this possibility would not require Neandertals to have re-evolved body hair. _Homo sapiens_ still has body hair and so, presumably, did the common ancestor. It is only a question of degree. ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587/20 "2008-10-06T18:09:06Z")
[This site](http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_3.htm) mentions some evidence for Neandertals working with animal skins: > [@](#): > > Much can be inferred about Neandertal culture from the archaeological evidence. For instance, it is probable that in colder climates they wore some sort of protective clothing to keep warm. In all likelihood, they used animal skins for this purpose. There are two sources of indirect evidence for this. First, many Neandertal sites have stone awls or borers. These were flakes that had been shaped to produce a beak-like projection on one end or side. Awls are usually used to punch or drill holes in relatively soft materials such as wood and leather. The second source of evidence is anatomical. A Neandertal skull from the French site of La Ferrassie has a peculiar wear pattern on its incisor teeth. This same pattern was typical of older Inuit (or Eskimo) women in the subarctic of North America during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In their case, it usually resulted from a lifetime of chewing their husband’s boots every morning to soften them. It is likely that the La Ferrassie Neandertal also was softening leather in this manner. If Neandertals were making leather clothing of some sort, there is no evidence of what it might have looked like. The working of skins could also have been connected with making tents of some sort. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-girl-image/466587.md?page=2)