Who were the Neanderthals?
Key Assessment Task information sheet
The Neanderthals
1
In 1848 a skull was discovered. This skull was similar to a
human skull, but also had brow ridges like an ape skull. Scientists
thought the skull had belonged to an early form of human. They
named it a Neanderthal – after the valley in Germany where it was
found. Since then, more Neanderthal skulls and skeletons have
been found right across Europe.
2
Neanderthal girl Anthropological
A Neanderthal’s skull is 20% larger than that of a modern
Institute, University of Zürich
human. This suggests that the brain of a Neanderthal was big. The
Neanderthal brain may have been as advanced as ours. In other words,
Neanderthals may have been capable of complex thought.
3
Many Neanderthal skeletons show clear signs of head and neck injuries.
These match the kinds of injuries seen in present-day rodeo riders. So
scientists have suggested that Neanderthals hunted large animals. They think
the hunters often got close to the animals to kill them with spears and the
animals would try to fight them off.
4
By dating the Neanderthal bones, scientists have showed that the
Neanderthals disappeared about 30,000 years ago. Suggested reasons for
this include:
• disease
• climate change which affected the vegetation and the animals they hunted
• competition for food, maybe with the modern humans
• warfare with the modern humans.
5
There is very little data surviving from 30,000 years ago. There is no data
from the bones we have that tells us which of these suggested reasons is
correct. In February 2009, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology published DNA sequences they had decoded for
about 60% of the Neanderthal DNA. The team did not find any clues to the
reason for the extinction. One of the scientists explained that they did not
think the Neanderthals disappeared because of something in their DNA, and
so the reason would not be something you could see in their DNA sequence.
© University of York and Nuffield Foundation 2009
C21 IaS3 KAT Neanderthals info sheet page 1