Neanderthal

## Homo Neanderthalensis

**Neanderthal** (*Homo neanderthalensis* or *H. sapiens neanderthalensis*), also called **Neandertal**, commonly referred to as **Cavemen** is a genus of archaic human that lived in Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene. They were one of the successful human species that walked the earth due to their stocky built bodies and larger brains.

## Facts

### Era & Discovery

*Neanderthal* lived in Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene period from 300 to 40,000 years ago. They shared the landscape with other hominids like Cro-Magnons and other Ice Age animals such as Megaloceros, Woolly Rhinoceros, Cave Lions, Cave Hyenas, Arctotherium, Cave Bears, Elasmotherium, and even the mighty Woolly Mammoths. They were one of the most successful species in human history, but gradually they were squeezed and we were left as the only species to two legged ape on Earth.

The first record of *Neanderthal* originates in 1856, when the top of a skull, two femurs, and arm bones were found in the Neander Valley in Germany, by limestone quarry miners who gave them to school teacher Johann Carl Fuhlrott.

### Physical Attributes

Neanderthal was a species of human who stood 5.5 feet (1.65 m) tall, and weighed about 64.9 kilograms (143 Ibs.), making them 5½ shorter than us.

Neanderthals had evolved a trait characteristic of all animals that lived in their environment, and short limbs and extremities that helped valuable heat in their bodies. They also had another adaptation that helped them survive in their cold environment and came into it's own when Neanderthals were hard at work. It was their noses which was broad and bigger than ours and scientists think that they were designed not to help keep Neanderthals warm, but to cool them down. In the environment they lived in might have seemed odd, but the last thing that a Neanderthal wanted to do was overheat and sweat because sweat would have simply freezed. Their brains were also larger than ours, which made Neanderthals an intelligent species despite their physical appearance.

Rather than migrate south with other animals, Neanderthals stayed within the same valleys all year long, weathering out the worse of the winter in shallow caves they lived in. It was forchante for them as they were stronger and more heavily built than other hominid species they coexisted with, that meant that Neanderthals were capable of shrugging off incredible extremes, thing that we would have found unbearable.

For Neanderthals, animals migrating north were one of the most important times of a year and risked life and limb to hunt them. To take on big animals like Mammoths and Elasmotherium, they needed every advantage could get. Sometimes they waited until dusk when cliffs would become less visible to animals and could make effective use of Neanderthal's secret weapon: fire. Other times, they would narrow up to a steep ravine which was the perfect place for ambushing big animals that pass through. Unlike Cro-Magnons who could throw spears to attack an animal, Neanderthal used their spears to kill animals at close quarters and were unless for throwing.

#### Behavior & Traits

Neanderthals often lived in tribes and there was a lot about the way they were that is just like us such as their preasure at being reunited with members of their family, their contentment at being warm and well fed, perhaps even their amusement at someone's misfortune.

The way of life Neanderthals had during the Ice Age, made these hominids unimaginably tough. Also whilst they could plan an ambush or anticipate the birth of a new baby, flights of fancy, imaginative thinking that we do were simply beyond this human species and wouldn't have understood it.