page_title: Neanderthal 1
section_title: Subject of scholarly debate
hierarchical_section_title: Neanderthal 1 / Subject of scholarly debate
caption_attribution_description: William King, british geologist who named Homo neanderthalensis
context_page_description: Feldhofer 1, or Neanderthal 1 is the scientific name of the 40,000-year-old type specimen fossil of the species Homo neanderthalensis, found in August 1856 in a German cave, the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte in the Neandertal valley, 13 km east of Düsseldorf. In 1864 the fossil's description was first published in a scientific magazine and officially named.
  However, the find was not the first Neanderthal fossil discovery. Rather, the true nature and significance had not been recognized on any of the earlier fossils, and therefore no separate species' name was assigned.
  The discovery was made by limestone quarry miners. Neanderthal 1 consists of a skullcap, two femora, the three right arm bones, two of the left arm bones, ilium, and fragments of a scapula and ribs. The fossils were given to Johann Carl Fuhlrott, a local teacher and amateur naturalist. The first description of the remains was made by anatomist Hermann Schaaffhausen and the find was announced jointly in 1857.
  In 1997, the specimen was the first to yield Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA fragments.
context_section_description: The fossil of the Neanderthal was discovered in 1856, three years before the publication of Darwin's work On the Origin of Species. Yet the scientific debate over whether species are immutable or mutable had already been going on for a long time. Hermann Schaaffhausen considers in an 1853 treatise about the durability and transformation of species "...that species were not immortal, that they have just as the life of the individual being a beginning, a time of blooming and of demise, only in larger time intervals, and that the various life forms also vary greatly in life-span."  Schaaffhausen, who also had emphasized the close proximity of various anatomical and physiological characteristics of man and the anthropoid apes, concludes in his summary:"...the immutability of species which is considered a law of nature by most researchers, has not yet been proven".
  However, Hermann Schaaffhausen was not a scientific authority in mid 19th century Germany. Here biological sciences were at that time dominated by Rudolf Virchow, "...the father of modern Cell biology, who, for political reasons opposed evolutionary thought. Virchow advocated socialist ideals. He fought for a society in which not the origin, but the skills of the individual should decide on his future. The theory of evolution was an elitism to him, any inherent preference for a particular 'race' was incompatible with his ideals."
  Before Virchow had the opportunity to see the Neanderthal bones in person in 1872, he left them to Bonn anatomist and eye specialist August Franz Josef Karl Mayer, "a resolute supporter of the Christian belief of creation in its traditionalist form". Mayer had missed the first evaluation of the fossils during winter 1856/57 due to illness:
  "He confirmed the Neanderthaler's "rickety" changes in bone development[...]. Mayer argued, among other things, that the thigh and pelvic bones of the Neanderthal man were shaped like those of someone who had spent all his life on horseback. The broken right arm of the individual had only healed very badly and resulting permanent worry lines due to the pain were the reason for the distinguished brow ridges. The skeleton was, he speculated, that of a mounted Russian Cossack, who had roamed the region in 1813/14 during the turmoils of the wars of liberation from Napoleon."
  Mayer's interpretations, published in 1864 in the "Archive of Anatomy" disagreed with the then already known and generally accepted Symptoms of Rickets (weakened bones), since Neanderthal had extremely strong bone. Nevertheless, Virchow largely accepted the anatomical findings of Mayer. Virchow described the bones as a "remarkable individual phenomenon" and as "plausible individual formation", this being the reason why the characteristics of the Neandertal finds were seen as a form of pathological change in the skeleton of modern man in German-speaking countries for many years to come.
  Even the accurate assessment of geologist Charles Lyell did not change this, who as early as 1863 after a visit to Fuhlrott and the Neandertal had confirmed the antiquity of the find. Yet seen with the benefit of hindsight, the turning point towards the recognition of the find as not being pathologically had already occurred in 1863/64.
  In 1864 Irish geologist William King published a detailed description of the physique of the Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal, in which he - largely due to the absence of other comparative possibilities - emphasized the apelike characteristics of the fossil. At the very end of this essay, in one of his footnotes, King mentions that one year prior he had given a lecture of similar contents at the geological section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, yet by now he is even more convinced that the fossil, which he at that time had called "Homo Neanderthalensis", is generally distinct from man. This casual name, chosen by King for the Neandertal fossil in footnote 27 has become the official species name in accordance with the international rules for zoological nomenclature.
  In 1863 British paleontolo
caption: William King
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