page_title: Neanderthals in popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: Neanderthals in popular culture
caption_attribution_description: Restoration of a Neanderthal man in profile. "Diorama of Neandertals in an American museum during the 1930's reflecting the misconception reinforced by Marcellin Boule's description of them as dull-witted, brutish, ape-like creatures." [1] Wellcome Images Keywords: Prehistory
context_page_description: Neanderthals have been portrayed in popular culture since the early 20th century. Early depictions were based on notions of the proverbially crude, low-browed caveman; since the latter part of the 20th century, some depictions were modeled on more sympathetic reconstructions of life in the Middle Paleolithic era.
  In popular idiom, the word "Neanderthal" is sometimes used as an insult, to suggest that a person combines a deficiency in intelligence and a tendency to use brute force. It may also imply that the person is old-fashioned or attached to outdated ideas, much in the same way as the terms "dinosaur" or "Yahoo" are also used.
  There are a number of sympathetic literary portrayals of Neanderthals, as in the novel The Inheritors by William Golding, Isaac Asimov's short story "The Ugly Little Boy", or the more serious treatment by Finnish palaeontologist Björn Kurtén, and British psychologist Stan Gooch in his hybrid-origin theory of humans.
context_section_description: Neanderthals have been portrayed  in popular culture since the early 20th century. Early depictions were based on notions of the proverbially crude, low-browed caveman; since the latter part of the 20th century, some depictions were modeled on more sympathetic reconstructions of life in the Middle Paleolithic era.
  In popular idiom, the word "Neanderthal" is sometimes used as an insult, to suggest that a person combines a deficiency in intelligence and a tendency to use  brute force. It may also imply that the person is old-fashioned or attached to outdated ideas, much in the same way as the terms "dinosaur" or "Yahoo" are also used.
  There are a number of sympathetic literary portrayals of Neanderthals, as in the novel The Inheritors by William Golding, Isaac Asimov's short story "The Ugly Little Boy", or the more serious treatment by Finnish palaeontologist Björn Kurtén (in several works including Dance of the Tiger), and British psychologist Stan Gooch in his hybrid-origin theory of humans.
caption: Wax model of a Neanderthal, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. 1929
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