Name: ______________________
Core:___________ Date:_______
Human, or Not? Neanderthals
In 1856, men were digging in a stone quarry in
Germany. While digging, they found some fossilized bones.
These bones looked like parts of a human body. The bones
looked human, but were different. These workers showed
the bones in the village. People agreed: these bones were
human-like, but different. When the mystery was shared, it
was discovered that bones like these were being found all
over Europe. Whose bones were these? Why were they
often found buried in very old caves? Where were the
descendents from these ancient people? The people of the
Neanderthal Valley, in Germany wanted to know.
La Ferrassie
La Ferrassie 1 is a fossilized skull of a male. It was
discovered in La Ferrassie, France in 1909. It is estimated to be
about 70,000 years old.
The La Ferrassie site has yielded
skeletons from eight individuals, including adults, children, and
infants.
Neanderthal skull
Shanidar
Shanidar is a cave site located in north-eastern Iraq. It was excavated
between 1957 and 1961 by a team from Columbia University. There was a total
of nine skeletons. All the remains of the find are kept at the Smithsonian
Museum, in Washington, D.C.. The fossils from Shanidar are thought to be
70,000 years old.
Over 400 examples of these types of humans
have been found. Scientists call them all by the name of
the valley where they were first found: Neanderthals.
Modern humans are finding more and more bones of the
Neanderthals, and still working on the mystery. Were
they the ancestors of modern humans? Were they
“cousins” that could not survive the environmental
changes of modern Earth?
Why did they all die out?
A modern human skull