I have several questions about Neanderthal Man:
Just how different was he physically?
I’ve read that the cranial capacity was significantly larger that ours, would he have been smarter than us?
What caused him to die out?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that neanderthal remains could have been partially responsible for the Jötun myths in Scandinavia. Any truth here?
That’s all; thanks in advance.
I’d like to add a question to this list: when did the pronuciation change and why? It used to be ne-AN-der-thal, and now it’s ne-AN-der-tal.
Not all Neanderthals were men, but if they were, there’s the answer to 3. 
He was shorter, stockier, stronger, more hair, or so we think.
Intelligence is not rated on cranial capacity, otherwise whales would have figured out time travel by now. It’s on brain:spinal cord ratio, and no, although it is believed they did eventually develop tools and the like, these appeared about the same time as the Homo expansion into their territory.
A lot of scientists think competition by humans.
I know nothing of these myths.
I’ve always said Neandertal. I guess the fight against ignorance won. More people talking about it who knew how to say it, and the people who just pronounced it how they read it heard and corrected I guess.
It varies a lot just as modern humans vary from each other a lot. Classic Neanderthals were short, a male being around 5’5”, and heavily muscled. A slight Neanderthal would look like a college quaterback. The muscly ones were really solid. They had a highly distinctive facial structure in which the whole front of head sloped towards the nose. From the top of the head, the chin and the ears everything moved in a line towards the nose so the had no chin, a sloping forehead and a protruding upper lip. They also gad prominent brow ridges. You wouldn’t mistake a classic Neanderthal for a modern human even in bad light.
Simplistically speaking Classic Neanderthals are from north western areas of Europe and older than 40, 000 years. In contrast the later Levantine Neanderthals, from the middle-east, intergraded physically with their contemporary Homo sapiens. They were therefore far less alien looking and would pass as a modern human albeit an odd looking specimen.
We can’t tell. Their brains were larger in absolute terms and relative to body mass but they were also a different shape so it’s hard to judge what parts of their brains were develeoped to what extent. They probably would have been smarter than us in some ways. For example some researchers have suggested that the spatial manipulation sections of their brain were much larger than ours, giving Neandertahls an ability to construct perfect maps of the world within their heads.
Contrary to what GYBRFE says it is well established that nedanderthals had tools, not just believed. Contrary to what he says Neanderthals did not just develop tools about the same time as H. sapiens expanded into their territory. And contrary to what he implies Neandertajhls were also members of the genus Homo. All memebers of the genus Homo have developed tools ever since the firs member H. Habilis. It is ridiculous to suggest that Neandertahsl somehow lost this ability only to re-learn it form our species and indeed no scientsit does suggest such a thing.
We don’t know and we can’t know. The rate of extinction was very slow and almost certainbly wasn’t due to violent conflict with H. sapiens. However it does seem to be linked to H. sapiens incursion everywhere except the middle east wher the two species shared territory for 60 000 years quoite sustainably. Most likley the Neandthals just lost out in competetition for resources. With a very slightly lower reproductive rate the Neanderthals slowly vanished due to natural selection pressures.
In reality there is little evidence that he did die out rather than just interbreeding with H. sapiens. There is some genetic veidence form three individuals that might suggest that Neanderthals never left any descendants in the modern human population but that is a highly debatable conclusion for numerous reasons.
Possible but impossible to determine one way or the other.
Neanderthal or Neandertal?
The first such fossil was discovered in 1856 in the Neander Thal, or “Neander Valley” in German, and became known as “Neanderthal Man”. In 1904, German spelling was regularized to be more consistent with pronunciation, and “thal” became “tal”. In 1952 Henri Vallois proposed that it should be spelt as the Germans spell it, and the “-tal” spelling has become widely used since then. The “-thal” spelling persists most strongly in England.
However you spell it, it should always be pronounced with a ‘t’ and not a ‘th’ (German has no ‘th’ sound).
SHE I’m a she.
Tools… :wally: I meant jewellery and the like.
Forgive me for thinking history that predates photgraphic records was all just theory :rolleyes:
I was using homo instead of saying Cro Magnon Man. Thought the OP would find it easier to understand.
One of the main differences between humans and neanderthals living around the same time (30,000 y ago) was that the neanders did not have any music (except one odd find) or art associated with any of their sites. Thus, they seemd to have lacked some of the higher conciousness of humans?
I can’t remember the book title, so no cite, but I thought I read that Neanderthals did not bury their dead. The author of the book speculated that there was some evolutionary advantage to that kind of abstract, future-oriented thinking that allowed Cro-Magnon to slightly outbreed Neanderthal. And thus only we survived.
No idea if it is true or not.
Regards,
Shodan
I read that they found that Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers 
Actually we do have evidence that Neandertals buried their dead, there are Neandertal grave sites that are clearly not accidental burials. As GYBRFE mentioned the graves contained traces of red ochre and flower pollen.
Neandertals did indeed have larger cranial capacity than anatomically modern Homo sapiens. However, their brains were organized differently. The frontal lobes were smaller, the occipital lobes bigger. So they likely thought much differently than us, but of course we can’t say exactly how. We do know that Neandertal technology was extremely conservative, with almost no changes for 100,000 years, although some very late Neandertal sites appear to have adopted newer tool types. One explanation might be that those later Neandertals learned their different tech from nearby Homo sapiens sapiens. Or not. Hard to say. Given their brain structure Neandertals probably weren’t much for abstract thought and yer fancy book learnin’. But he might have done better than us at some tasks, although what those would be we don’t know.
Some people hypothesize that Neandertals had a much reduced capacity for language than modern humans, or that they were incapable of the fine throat, lip and larynx control needed for speech. Me, I’m unconvinced. However, no matter what their spoken language abilities were they might have used more sign language…there is some evidence that sign language is more deeply rooted than spoken language. I know my daughter was able to produce signs a few months before she could speak.
The biggest difference aside from brain shape was that Neandertals were much more robust…heavier, thicker and denser bones, heavy skulls, brow ridges, etc, with larger muscle insertions. All that muscle probably meant that a Neandertal needed more food than a typical H.s.s.
One theory is that the larger frontal lobes of modern humans made them much more adept at language and social organization than Neandertals, which gave them a technological and social edge. Or maybe it was that modern humans, being more gracile had smaller nutritional needs. Or that classic Neandertals were adapted for cold-climate conditions, and climate change at the end of the ice ages made them less competitive. We really don’t know how the two species interacted, or if there was hybridization between them. But it does seem like no Neandertal genes are present in any modern human population, so the hybrids might have been sterile, or they might have been extremely uncommon, or they might not have existed in the first place.
Where did they come from, and when, and by what route?
Neanderthals evolved from the native Erectus-like population in Europe, which are usually called Homo heidlebergensis.
Erectus migrated out of Africa sometime between 1 and 2 million years ago. There are Erectus-like fossils that have been found in (the former Soviet) Georgia that date to about 1.7M years ago.
DNA analysis indicates that the split in the Homo line that lead to Neanderthals and Sapiens occurred at least 500k years ago.
Somewhat speculative. The Shanidar Neanderthal burial was found to have a lot of pollen associated with it which lead to the hypothesis that flowers had been laid on the grave. No actual flower-petal fossils were found, though.
There is one burial in which this is attested. The entire skeleton was positively coated in flower pollen. IIRC, it was somewhere in the Middle East.
This site gives a nice graphic of a timeline of human evolution with the relationship between the various species. Keep in mind, though, that this is just one theory, and although it is fairly mainstream, it’s easy to find anthropologists who would draw things differently.
I am not aware that fossilized flowers have ever been found, anywhere. I did a major in anthro, and a Ph.D. physical anthropologist is among my dear friends. I think I’d have heard of it, if anyone had ever found something so permanent from something so fragile, because everyone would have been astounded.
I think it’s possible that someone might find a fossil flower in a peat bog somewhere - not likely, but just … barely … possible. Otherwise, they will decay. Pollen survives because it’s designed to do so.
Yes. I just wanted to make it clear that when someone says “Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers” that it was indirectly assumed to be so, and not that there were any actual flowers found.
I don’t have much to add to what other posters have said, but a really good series of Science Fiction books to read is Robert J. Sawyer’s Neanderthal Parallax trilogy (*Hominids, Humans, * and the final volume, Hybrids). Granted it’s science fiction, but he does have a section in his first book where he goes over the Neanderthal/Neandertal debate, and he gives a great list of resources of his research for the novels. I highly recommend these books.
critter42
I see two versions of the species names here, H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis vs. H. sapiens sapiens and H. sapiens neanderthalensis, and I’ve always wondered about that.
Are they considered distinct species these days, or variations on a single one? The two naming conventions don’t help. Is there any widespread agreement these days? For that matter, when did the naming controversy come up?
Blake and Lemur866 both say interbreeding seems unlikely because of genetic evidence. Is there a site that discusses this?