Neanderthal (lat. Homo neanderthalensis) is a species of human that inhabited Europe and western Asia from 230 thousand to 29 thousand years ago. The height of a Neanderthal was on average 165 centimeters. Neanderthals were well adapted to cold, were more muscular than modern weightlifters, and had a brain volume 10% larger than the average modern person. There is no information about their skin or hair color.

As it turned out in 1983, they could speak; their speech was higher and slower than that of modern people. The earliest known musical instrument, the 4-hole bone flute, belongs to Neanderthals. Neanderthals knew how to use homemade tools and weapons, but apparently they did not have any projectile weapons.

Neanderthals were engaged in gathering and hunting. They lived in small tribal communities of 2-4 families, in which there was a clear division of work based on age and gender. Neanderthals buried their dead. In the La Chapelle-aux-Saints grotto in France, a shallow burial was discovered with a skeleton in a fetal position, covered with a red cape. Tools, flowers, eggs and meat were left next to the body, which indicates a belief in an afterlife and the existence of religious and magical practices.

The Neanderthal skull was first found in 1856 in the Neanderthal Gorge near Düsseldorf.

Relationship with modern man

According to the most common point of view, Neanderthal died out because it could not withstand competition with modern man. It was possible to recognize a small part of Neanderthal DNA; it differs from the DNA of modern humans. This does not put an end to the research - data from the same analysis showed that the people whose DNA was included in the comparison had the same amount of differences from each other.

According to another point of view, many millennia ago the variability in human populations was much higher than it is now. Skeletons have been found that have mixed features of Neanderthal and modern humans. There are still not enough of them to draw any conclusions.

A critical assessment of these two opposing points of view is complicated by the fact that modern man considers himself the “king of nature” and is not going to descend from anyone. Only further research will answer all the questions.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki

NEANDERTHALS. ALMOST LIKE PEOPLE...

...This happened around 300,000 BC. Then the Neanderthals appeared.

It has already been said here that in the middle of the 19th century the remains of strange creatures were found. They were found in Germany's Neanderthal Valley (where the creatures' name comes from). Then similar remains were found throughout Eurasia and Africa. Those. in the habitats of Pithecanthropus. Pithecanthropus gave way to newcomers, finally disappearing around 200,000 BC. The Neanderthals, having occupied their lands, began to expand their possessions. They advanced to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, to the south of Siberia, the Far East, to Korea, and Japan. In the north, Neanderthals reached the Chusovaya River. In addition, high mountain areas and tropical forests have been developed.

Neanderthals (or paleoanthropes - “ancient people”, as they are often called) are difficult to distinguish from people. Their brain volume reaches 1500 cubic cm. - a little more than ours. Any local police officer would recognize any Neanderthal by its characteristic features - large teeth, a convex jaw, a low forehead and large brow ridges. Other special features are a low head position, a slightly different shape of the shoulder blades, and longer thumbs. The Neanderthals' facial expressions would seem ferocious to us, although it is unlikely that they were more ferocious creatures than us. In general, their similarity to humans is so great that some anthropologists classify Neanderthals as our own species, Homo sapiens.

Neanderthals made more advanced tools. Their carefully crafted axes seem like masterpieces compared to the axes of Pithecanthropus. In addition, Neanderthals learned to split flint into thin plates and make scrapers for skins, stone knives, burins, gimlets, etc. from them. - In total, archaeologists count at least 60 types of Neanderthal tools. New stone processing techniques make it possible to distinguish the times of the Neanderthals into a special era - the Middle Paleolithic (or Mousterian era).

New technologies are not limited to this. Neanderthals learned to use animal sinew to tie stone knives to long straight sticks. That. the result was spears - the first weapons consisting of more than one part. For us, there is nothing special about compound guns. But the one who first created them, without having ready-made samples in front of him, was certainly a genius. No later than 55,000 BC. Neanderthals also developed axes. The wooden handle of such an ax was a lever that increased the striking force of stone axes.

So, Neanderthals received improved equipment for successful hunting. Hunting tactics have also changed. Neanderthals began to specialize in one type of animal. Thanks to this, the hunters got to know the habits of the animals better. In the Mousterian era they also learned to set traps for animals. For example, they installed heavy logs on the animal trail. One of them was fixing a stone. As soon as it was moved a little, the entire structure collapsed, crushing the animal. Neanderthals also had other traps - the first machines of humanity.

New hunting methods provided more food, which contributed to population growth. According to E. Deevy's calculations, the population in the Mousterian era exceeded 1 million.

For Neanderthals, it was not a problem to light a fire and cook food on it. They learned to cook not only meat over fire, but also previously inedible things - cereal grains, for example. And from the skins they were already making real clothes, cut from separate pieces of skins fastened together.

Another important achievement of the Neanderthals was that they learned to build artificial dwellings. Of course, animals also know how to build homes - hives, nests, anthills and holes. But they do it instinctively. An ant cannot build a hive, and a bee cannot build an anthill. Among Neanderthals, the act of creating a home was conscious. The dwellings turned out to be varied, depending on the natural environment and available materials. The oldest dwelling was found in France, on the Cote d'Azur, near Nice. According to the reconstruction of archaeologists, it was an oval hut made of poles dug into the ground, tied together at the top and covered with animal skins. Inside the hut there was a fireplace made of flat stones. Such a dwelling was not long-term - it was used for only 10 days. Another type of dwelling was at the Molodovo-1 site near the Moldavian city of Soroca (the frame was made of mammoth bones).

Neanderthals still used caves. But here too we see a higher level of improvement. An example of this is the cave of Monte Circeo, Italy, in which the floor is lined with stones to avoid dampness.

Technological advances allowed Neanderthals to survive the Ris Ice Age (250,000 - 110,000 BC). It was the most severe cold snap in human history. Glaciers in Europe reached the Kyiv-Dresden-Amsterdam line, and in North America all of Canada was under ice. Then many heat-loving animals died out, others went south. But the Neanderthals, armed with fire, moved even further north.

Along with material achievements, Neanderthals also had spiritual ones. They had art and religion. If previous discoveries were necessary for survival, these were not vital. Why did they happen? There are different opinions on this matter. Believers believe that the ability to express themselves and faith were sent down to their ancestors from above. Rationalists have a different opinion - art has become a kind of outlet for psychic energy for creatures who have reached a certain level of intelligence.

Rationalists explain the emergence of religion as follows. Animals have an instinct for self-preservation, but they live in the moment, remembering danger only at the moment of danger. Neanderthals knew that they were mortal and that each of them would die. For any intelligent being, such a thought is very unpleasant (to say the least). And the Neanderthals found a way out of the situation into which their high intelligence led them. They developed transcendental (otherworldly) ideas, which gave them psychological stability before the inevitable end.

Let's not judge who is right - believers or rationalists. Still, no one knows how it really happened. Let's let the reader accept the view that is closer to him, and let's return to the facts.

The art of the Neanderthals was very primitive - repeating signs on stones, a very imperfect ornament (for example, in the Cave de L'Aze, France). The presence of religious beliefs is evidenced by the burial rituals that appeared among the Neanderthals. Thus, near the Shanidar Cave, in the mountains of Northern Iraq, the grave of a Neanderthal was found (60,000 BC), strewn with bouquets of flowers.

The emergence of religion is no less important than the emergence of new technology. Many of the signs of human civilization - art, politics, philosophical teachings, social and even technological achievements, one way or another, are associated with religion. It has always had no less importance for people than rational knowledge. (However, in ancient times both were inseparable.)

Initially, religion was expressed in the form of totemism - the worship of some animal. Most likely, the one that Neanderthals hunted. Such animals could be bears, deer, buffalos, mammoths, and lions. The cult of bears was especially widespread. This is evidenced by bear skulls found in many places, lined with stones or enclosed in limestone chambers (for example, in the Drachenlohn cave, Switzerland, or in the Ilyinka cave, Odessa region). Such structures are very reminiscent of places of worship. On many skulls, notches and primitive patterns are noticeable. Perhaps the hunters associated these animals with their clan, since they provided meat to people, while passing on their strength and their blood.

Totem animals became a symbol of the clan. Their skulls (possibly stuffed ones) were carried from site to site. The tradition of decorating state emblems with images of various animals may have its roots precisely in the times of the Neanderthals who professed totemism. With a high degree of confidence, we can say that the names of some constellations come from that time. So now the constellation Ursa Major does not look like a bear. It rather resembles a ladle. However, 90,000 years ago, the position of its constituent stars really resembled the pointed muzzle of a bear.

There are suggestions that Neanderthals also had ancestor worship and magic - the idea of ​​​​influencing people and objects through spells and manipulation. Although there is no evidence of the existence of magic among Neanderthals.

The creature from whom religion and art arose must have had speech close to human. If Australopithecines most likely made a set of sounds, like chimpanzees, and Pithecanthropus could exchange words on purely specific matters (so-called dialogue speech), then Neanderthals could already express themselves (that is, they had monologue speech).

Neanderthals were also characterized by the beginnings of humanism - they protected and preserved the lives of the elderly and disabled. In the already mentioned Shanidar cave, the remains of a one-armed Neanderthal (45,000 BC) were found, who, after losing his upper limb, lived for many more years, thanks to the care of his fellow tribesmen. In short, not only externally, but also spiritually, they were almost like people.

The increased complexity of life led to the Neanderthals developing different cultures. (This is what archaeologists call communities of archaeological monuments that are similar to each other, created at the same time and occupy a certain territory.) Differences can be found even among Pithecanthropus - in some places choppers predominated among them, in others handaxes. And not all of them knew fire (it appeared in Africa only 60,000 years ago). However, the differences were not very significant - hacks and choppers in China or Spain were no more different from each other than Coca-Cola, released in these countries. Among Neanderthals, differences in the processing of tools are striking. For the period 50,000 BC. There are at least 5 different archaeological cultures, and Mousterian (from which the entire period is named) is only one of them. At that time everyone already knew fire, but the techniques for making tools differed. Mousterian culture prevailed in Europe. She was the most advanced. But there were places where the technology still resembled the Acheulean or even more primitive.

We know something about the differences in the material culture of the Neanderthals, but nothing about the spiritual differences. However, we can assume that creatures with the rudiments of religion and a developed language could have different ethnic groups.

Neanderthals lived from 300,000 to 30,000 BC. Why did they, with all their abilities, not live to see our time? Much of what has already been said applies to the Neanderthals, who lived from 75,000 to 35,000 BC. They are called classical Neanderthals (before that there were early Neanderthals). However, over the next few thousand years, for some unknown reason, they began to shrink the frontal lobes of the brain, where the centers of inhibition are located. A person with damage to these centers exhibits inappropriate behavior and is extremely hot-tempered. For any reason, he may have an outburst of wild aggression. A society of such people cannot exist for very long. Perhaps the cause of the extinction of the Neanderthals was an unknown disease, such as AIDS. Or they were exterminated.

True, there is an opinion that Neanderthals survived to our time. And that they are hiding from people high in the mountains and in forest thickets. Supporters of this opinion believe that reports of the so-called “Bigfoot” are nothing more than a description of meetings between people and Neanderthals. However, there is no convincing evidence of the reality of these meetings. And the latest remains of Neanderthals are 33,150 years old. Be that as it may, the baton of reason was picked up by modern people. But that's a completely different story...

http://x-15.nm.ru/real-4-1.htm

It is no coincidence that the CRO-MANNON man is also unanimously called “modern man.” (Referring, of course, to the modern Caucasian.) The name “Cro-Magnon” is conventional: it comes from the site of Cro-Magnon in France, where the first such skeleton was found. There is no biological reason not to call a Cro-Magnon an early Caucasian - or you and I, a late Cro-Magnon. If the question about the direct origin of blacks from Neanderthals is not yet raised very confidently (more confidently about the origin of the Australoids from them; we are personally confident in both), then there is no doubt here. Every representative of European peoples and even some other (later) peoples can say: Cro-Magnon is my great-great-great-great-grandfather.

This was understood already at the dawn of anthropology. The prominent German anthropologist Alexander Ecker (1818-1887) in the 60s of the 19th century discovered skulls of the “northern type” in the graves of Southern Germany and established their identity with the skulls of modern Germans. Skulls of the pure “northern type” were also discovered throughout Scandinavia and Northern Germany by the leading Swedish anthropologist Anders Retzius (1796-1860). It was on the basis of these numerous craniological series that it was suggested that the modern “northern type” in its structure goes back to the Cro-Magnon type of Paleolithic Europe. The classic of the French anthropological school, Armand de Quatrefage (1810-1892), even called the ancient Cro-Magnon man blond in the modern sense of the word. Ideally upright, very tall (average height 187 cm) and large-headed (brain volume from 1600 to 1900 cm?), they, like us, had a straight forehead, a high cranial vault, and a sharply protruding chin. Over time, having discovered the fingerprints of ancient sculptors on clay figurines of the Paleolithic era, scientists established their complete racial identity with modern Caucasians.

Craniology data is a very serious argument, as much has already been said above. Therefore, scientific data on the distribution of the Cro-Magnon skull across the globe deserve not only trust, but also special attention and reflection.

As Eugen Fischer wrote in his work “Race and the Origin of Races in Man” (1927): “One of the most substantiated hypotheses is this: from the Cro-Magnon race came the Nordic race, the builders of megaliths, dolmen burials of Scandinavia, Denmark, etc. According to this hypothesis , the Nordic race arose as a result of modification of the Late Paleolithic race in the North as the currently inhabited places became free of ice. The Nordic race arose here, and then it acquired its typical qualities. This is the best explanation of the origin of the Nordic race." Let us leave in this passage the question of the place of Cro-Magnon ethnogenesis for further discussion (as it is still beyond the competence of anthropologists) and accept the main thing: Caucasians settled the North precisely as Cro-Magnon modifications.

Were they already divided into racial subtypes? Did the subtypes begin to develop linguistic isolation even then? There is no doubt that sooner or later this happened. Darwin's teachings state this quite convincingly: the consequence of natural selection is the divergence of characters. This means that one parent species can give rise to several new species. This is precisely what the waves of migrations from North to South, which were carried out by the Cro-Magnons periodically throughout the foreseeable historical and prehistoric retrospective, speak of. Figuratively speaking, Cro-Magnons, right up to the 20th century AD, were sprayed out in “quanta” to the South, East and West from their northern ecological niche as it overflowed.

But, of course, they did not call themselves Cro-Magnons. What were the names of the expansive “quanta”? They are called differently by different sources, and we will omit the names of many forgotten ones today. In the Middle Ages, New and Contemporary times, these were, for example, Germans, Spaniards, English, French, Dutch, Belgians, Russians. In more distant times - Franks, Vikings, Goths, Normans, Lombards. Before them - the Germans, Celts, Huns, Scythians, Slavs. Before them - the Etruscans, Proto-Hellenes, Proto-Italics. Before them, the Indo-Aryans, before them - the Proto-Iranians, before them - the Hittites... All of them spoke languages ​​of the Indo-European group, but during the time that elapsed from “quantum” to “quantum”, they managed to mutate to the point of complete impossibility of mutual understanding.

Always “from top to bottom,” always from North to South, waves of mass migrations (“invasions”) rolled one after another, represented by ever new descendants of the Cro-Magnon man. At the same time, the late wave often rolled onto the earlier one; A fratricidal war broke out, all the more terrible because the combatants no longer saw each other as brothers, because time and cross-breeding with opposing races and peoples sometimes changed their appearance and language beyond recognition. The brother did not recognize or understand his brother. One “quantum” spoke Hittite, another - in Sanskrit, a third in Zend and Avestan languages, a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh - in Greek, Latin, Finnish, Slavic... Language barriers have already become rigid, and racial subtypes are the result of miscegenation - already established: how was it possible to restore the relationship? In those days, no one had ever thought of measuring skulls to solve this problem!

The skulls were measured in modern times - and they gasped: the descendants of the Cro-Magnon man, it turns out (judging by the proto-Nordic skulls in burials), reached Central Africa, India, Oceania and Polynesia, not to mention Siberia, the Urals, Altai, Kazakhstan, China, Central Asia, Pamir and the entire Mediterranean, including North Africa and Western Asia. Etc.

Today these descendants have a variety of names, speak different languages, do not understand each other and are not considered related. But they all came out of the Great Northern Platform, they all have a common ancestor - the Cro-Magnon man.

WHERE DID THE NEANDERTHALS GO?

AS EVERYONE knows, Neanderthals once inhabited all of Europe, except Scandinavia and northern Russia: their remains are found in England, Germany, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, southern Russia (in Scythian mounds), etc. These are autochthons, old-timers of Europe. They were found in Central and Southeast Asia, and in Southern Siberia, in China, in the Crimea, in Palestine, in Africa (all the way to distant Rhodesia) and on the island of Java. Let's not touch on the question of how they got there or where they came from for now. Different experts date the age of the Neanderthal in different ways: according to some data, he is 50-100 thousand years old, according to others, less reliable, as much as 200, 250 and even 300 thousand years old. For now, it is enough for us to take note of the thesis: “Anthropologists have established the presence of three variants of fossil people in Europe during the mentioned period of anthropogenesis: 1) Neanderthals; 2) modern people; 3) intermediate forms,” clarifying that by modern man we mean a Cro-Magnon man, and by intermediate forms a hybrid of the first two, and by no means a “transitional link.”

The first Neanderthal was found near Düsseldorf in 1856. In 1997, researchers from the University of Munich analyzed the DNA of the remains of this very first Neanderthal. The age of the find was determined to be 50 thousand years. A study of 328 identified nucleotide chains led paleontologist S. Paabo to the conclusion: the differences in genes between Neanderthals and modern humans are too great to consider them relatives. This idea was confirmed by studies by M. Ponce de Leon and K. Zollikofer (University of Zurich), who compared the skulls of a two-year-old Neanderthal and an age-matched little Cro-Magnon. The conclusion was clear: these skulls were formed in completely different ways.

The appearance of the Neanderthals had features that were very different from the Cro-Magnon ones, but which are still characteristic of the Negroid and Australoid races today: a depressed chin, large brow ridges, very massive jaws. The Neanderthal man had a larger brain than the Cro-Magnon man, but a different configuration. The imperfection and small size of the frontal lobes of the brain were brightened up by the presence of convolutions, indicating a certain development of mental abilities. In the interspecies struggle, such a brain did not become an advantage compared to the Cro-Magnon brain, but there is hardly any reason to oppose Neanderthals to the homo sapiens species as a whole, since they undoubtedly had a mind. And the structure of their palate, lower jaw, and lower left frontal lobe of the brain (the speech area of ​​modern humans) is such that it allowed Neanderthals to speak, although not very phonetically rich, due to the absence of a chin protrusion. The average height of men was 1.65 m, women were 10 cm lower. At the same time, the men weighed about 90 kg due to very highly developed muscles and heavy, strong bones.

Whole corpses of Neanderthals (like the corpses of mammoths) were not preserved, since they were not found in permafrost soils. There are only skeletons. Therefore, today we cannot judge for sure the color of their skin. In popular pictures and school textbooks, Neanderthals are usually depicted as white-skinned, upright creatures covered with sparse hair. But this coloring is not based on anything. A number of scientists today have put forward a much more plausible hypothesis that Neanderthals were black. This is evidenced both by the geographical localization of the Neanderthals closest to us in time, who lived mainly in Central and Southern Africa and Java, and by the color of those modern races that are reasonably considered the descendants of Neanderthals: Negroids, Australoids, Dravidians, etc. Enough “ repaint the Neanderthal from the school table black - and before us will appear with all conviction a creature extremely similar in appearance to the named races. Not only the skin and appearance, but also much more, for example, the structure of the tibia and ankle bones (whose articular planes indicate the habit of squatting for a long time, which is not typical for Caucasians) makes Neanderthals similar to modern inhabitants of the South of the Earth. It is very characteristic that among the remains of Cro-Magnons found in the grottoes of Grimaldi (Italy), the so-called “Grimaldians,” there are two skeletons, characterized by some scientists as Negroid, by others as Neanderthal.

Neanderthals, like Cro-Magnons, were people, they were radically different from the animal world. Although biologically completely different people, much inferior to Cro-Magnon man. But nevertheless, the Neanderthals created their own culture, called Mousterian (Chelian and Acheulian): stone and bone axes, scrapers, pointed points, although not in such a wide range as the Cro-Magnons, who created a dozen stone and bone “devices”. Neanderthals also knew fire; already 40 thousand years ago they buried their dead with honor according to a primitive ritual, honored the afterlife, and practiced hunting magic. At the same time, they began to develop primitive jewelry: pendants made from animal teeth. Scientists believe, however, that they could have adopted the custom of decorating themselves from the Cro-Magnons. In any case, this is no longer characteristic of anyone in the animal kingdom. But the Neanderthals, unlike the Cro-Magnons, did not leave works of art (rock paintings, sculptures made of bone and baked clay).

The relationship between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons was not idyllic. At Neanderthal sites, carefully crushed and gnawed bones are found not only of large game, but also similarly processed bones of Cro-Magnons, that is, the ancestors of modern humans. And vice versa: crushed bones of Neanderthals were found at Cro-Magnon sites. The two protoraces waged an irreconcilable war among themselves, a war of destruction, “to be devoured,” as the Bible would put it. Which war was accompanied, as fossil skeletons irrefutably testify, by racial mixing, most likely violent.

For approximately ten thousand years, a brutal confrontation between two proto-races lasted on the same territory; but by the end of this period (about 40 thousand years ago), the Cro-Magnons displaced the Neanderthals from Europe almost completely. Thirty thousand years ago, their remains still survived in the Gibraltar region, in the Pyrenees and the Dalmatian mountains. But in general, the “race of the vanquished” rolled further south, to Western Asia and the Mediterranean, where the confrontation continued for many millennia.

As has already been quite reliably established, Cro-Magnons did not and could not descend from Neanderthals. But they could mix with them (we emphasize and confirm this once again) “improving the breed.” Moreover, both on their own initiative and in addition to it, depending on the outcome of a particular interracial skirmish. If men who were captured were in danger of being eaten, the fate of women could be completely different. A study of the Tasmanians, who were “stuck” in the Stone Age until their disappearance in the 19th century, showed that inter-tribal relations of Paleolithic people, in addition to diplomacy, trade and war, certainly included the abduction of women. The Neanderthal breed definitely improved during crossbreeding, the Cro-Magnon breed just as definitely worsened, but one way or another, the process was so intense, long-lasting and reciprocal that it led, as already mentioned, to the formation of new ethnic groups and even races of the second order.

A prominent domestic scientist, Yu. D. Benevolenskaya, in her article “The problem of identifying the sapient and Neanderthal lines in the early stages of evolution” (Courier of the Petrovskaya Kunstkamera. Issue 8-9, St. Petersburg, 1999) writes: “The hypothesis of the evolutionary transformation of Neanderthals into a neoanthrope is increasingly giving way to the idea of ​​the displacement of the first by modern people, which was accompanied by crossbreeding between them.”

Another outstanding Russian anthropologist A. A. Zubov in the article “Problems of intraspecific taxonomy of the genus homo in connection with modern ideas about the biological differentiation of mankind (Modern anthropology and genetics and the problem of races in humans. M., 1995) also points out: “We can talk about “net-like” nature of the evolution of the genus Homo at all stages of its evolution. It is important to note that the “network” could include different evolutionary “floors” that interacted with each other and made their genetic contribution to the general, unified fund of diversity of the evolving genus Homo.”

In other words, representatives of the “higher” human levels entered into sexual intercourse with representatives of the “lower”, Neanderthal, levels, as a result of which they gave birth to mestizos, then numerically isolated to the level of entire peoples and races, which gave rise to the general evolutionary diversity of the genus homo.

The famous American biologist Anthony Barnett in his book “The Human Race” (M., 1968) also testifies that “modern people appeared at about the same time, if not earlier, as Neanderthal man, and developed in parallel. Intermediate types between modern humans and Neanderthals could have been the result of either interbreeding or early phases of Neanderthal divergence from the lineage that led to modern humans."

In all likelihood, all territories, including Europe, where at one time or another both proto-races—Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons—lived simultaneously as a zone of crossbreeding. Hybrid forms then continued to exist there everywhere and produce offspring, interbreeding more and more with the dominant type - in Europe the Cro-Magnon became such already 40 thousand years ago. At the same time, according to Darwin's theory, the characteristics of mixed forms, as not provided for by natural selection (nature), in each generation were increasingly replaced by the dominant characteristics of the Caucasian, being perceived over time as an atavism. As a result, Neanderthal traits among white Caucasians, although still found today, are only rare. The closer to the south, the more frequent they are, and in the zone of Western Asia and the Mediterranean they either become dominant or appear in the form of hybrid ethnic groups, which can be considered, for example, Semites, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Maghrebians, etc. Crossbreeding is whimsically selective: if Ethiopians have black skin and Caucasian facial features, while Semites, on the contrary, often have Negroid (Neanderthaloid) facial features with white or olive (“mulatto”) skin, etc.

It is not surprising that entire hybrid peoples arose in this zone, because it was here that the finale of the Great Neanderthal War played out for at least ten thousand years, and the two protoraces, locked between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlas Mountains, continued to sort things out until then , until they completely dissolved into each other and broke up into bizarrely combined, but at the same time quite homogeneous secondary races and ethnic groups. (The dominant type disappeared as such and the possibility of returning to it - reversion - became generally excluded, although from time to time both initial types necessarily appear, but only sporadically and fragmentarily.)

This is, in particular, narrated by the finds of archaeologists D. Garrod and T. McCone, made at the beginning of the twentieth century in Palestine on Mount Carmel in the Goat (Skhul) and Pechnaya (Tabun) caves. The remains of ancient people were discovered there, separated in time by about ten thousand years: ancient ash in the Pechnaya Cave is 40 thousand years old, and in Kozya Cave - 30 thousand years old. Over these ten thousand years, enormous changes occurred with the population inhabiting this area: the purely Neanderthal appearance gradually accumulated an increasing number of characteristic Cro-Magnon features. The inhabitants of the Skhul cave closest to us in time have the greatest number of Cro-Magnon characteristics (including an average height of 175 cm), while still remaining a hybrid.

Later, the conclusions drawn from the study of the Skhul and Tabun caves were fully confirmed by new finds in the same geographical area and in the same temporary soil layers. Namely: in the 1930s. on Mount Kafeh near Nazareth, the remains of six Neanderthals were found with such characteristic Cro-Magnon differences as a high cranial vault, a rounded back of the head, etc. Similar finds were then made in the caves of Yabrud (Syria), Haoua Fteah (Libya), Jebel Irhoud (Morocco) , Shanidar (Iraq). In 1963, a Japanese expedition found in Israel the skeleton of an entire Neanderthal, but... the height of a Cro-Magnon man (170 cm). And so on.

As we already know for sure, the Cro-Magnon man did not descend from the Neanderthal man. He fought with him to the death, completely cleared Europe of him (partially mingling with the enemy, but then squeezing out his residual traits drop by drop for tens of thousands of years), but was unable to repeat this feat in Western Asia and the Mediterranean. Here, precisely in this region, the first “melting pot” in history arose, in which both the “south-sweeping” echelons of Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals who fled from them, but were unable to escape, found their death and new life.

Does this mean that today only hybrid, intermediate or secondary forms remain of the ancient Neanderthals, that they all completely dissolved into a stronger race of winners or simply died out, giving way to other races?

No, there is no reason for such pessimism.

The Atlas Mountains stopped the weary pursuers, who had found in the blessed climate of the Mediterranean their cherished ideal, bequeathed by genes and tribal legends: they had nowhere and no need to strive further. But the persecuted, fleeing for their lives, filtered through the mountain barrier and gradually populated all of Africa and not only it. As a result, each proto-race became entrenched in its own area: the Cro-Magnons, who became Caucasians, at home, mainly in Europe; Neanderthals, who became Negroids and Australoids, - at home, mainly in Africa, then in the south of India (where they were displaced in the 2nd millennium BC by the descendants of the Cro-Magnons, the so-called “Andronovians” - the future “Indo-Aryans”), in Australia, Tasmania etc.; and the world's first mixed race - at home, in Western Asia and the Mediterranean. This happened approximately 30 thousand years ago.

According to Darwin's theory, man has come a long way in his development - from ape to modernHomo sapiens. And since evolution is a very long process over time, “on the way” Homo sapiens underwent many changes: Australopithecus - the most ancient people - ancient people (Neanderthals), modern people (Cro-Magnons). And everything would be fine, but recent discoveries have shown that grandfather Darwin was not always right. For example, his theory does not fit the fact that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens inhabited the Earth simultaneously for a long time. This was 40 thousand years ago.

Scientists from Tel Aviv University, having examined the remains of both types of humans, came to the conclusion that there are many striking differences between them. And this, in turn, suggests that these species originated from different ancestors. Differences appear even in the external structure. Neanderthals, who ate exclusively meat, had larger livers (the small liver of Homo sapiens would not have digested that much protein). Accordingly, the kidneys, bladder and entire pelvic part of Neanderthals were noticeably larger. And their muscle mass was 30-40 percent greater than that of Homo sapiens.

The average height of a Neanderthal was, according to various scientists, from 165 to 180 centimeters. A person of this type had a large skull, prominent brow ridges that often merged into a ridge, and a very low forehead. Scientists note a very similar structure among modern Eskimos, who live in the very north of the continent.

Mexican paleontologist, Professor Eric Trinkaus and his colleagues found that the volume of the Neanderthal brain was approximately 1900 cm³, while in Homo sapiens it does not exceed 1300 cm³. However, scientists have proven that mental abilities are influenced not so much by the volume of the brain as by the characteristics of its development. Thus, researchers at the Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig found that in infancy, the brain sizes of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are practically indistinguishable. But as the individual grows older, the parietal and temporal parts of the head begin to actively increase in Homo sapiens, while this does not happen in the Neanderthal; his head increased in size proportionally.

Nevertheless, scientists believe that Neanderthals were quite highly developed. Thus, the tools found at their sites often even surpassed the quality of the tools of Homo sapiens. Moreover, skeletons of people found with traces of bone fractures showed that up to 70 percent of the fractures were skillfully treated. That is, the Neanderthals had their own skilled chiropractors. Eric Trinkaus, after a comparative analysis of the remains of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, claims that there is not a single piece of evidence that would indicate the primitiveness or backwardness of Neanderthals.

Everything is much more complicated with the structure of DNA. Until now, anthropologists from around the world are arguing whether Neanderthals crossed with Homo sapiens. Obviously, if this happened, then these were isolated cases: never before have remains in caves indicated that both of these human species lived there at the same time.

Neanderthals, who came from the north of Western Europe, were cannibals. This was not the case with those whom scientists call Homo sapiens. By the way, Homo sapiens came to Eurasia from Africa - a continent that, after several tens of thousands of years, it turned into a part of the world inhabited by tribes of cannibals.

Neanderthals and Homo sapiens had the beginnings of culture. But, according to German scientists, a “cultural explosion” occurred when, as a result of warming and the retreat of the great glaciers, both of these individuals met. Probably, they nevertheless recognized their equals in the two-legged creatures and began to try in every possible way to stand out: to somehow mark their sites, to separate themselves at least outwardly. It was then that rock paintings, jewelry in the form of beads, feathers, claws and everything that nature could present began to flourish. But scientists still cannot establish why the Neanderthals became extinct. And Homo sapiens got its name not because it was much smarter, but because it survived.

The first Neanderthal skull, which was recognized as belonging to a previously unstudied human species, was discovered in 1856 in the territory of modern Germany in the Neander Valley of the Dussel River, near the city of Dusseldorf.

One of the finds of the remains of a Neanderthal skull was made 15 km from the Netherlands at the bottom of the North Sea. The deceased lived in the late Pleistocene era (approximately 40 thousand BC), ate exclusively meat, as evidenced by bone analysis. Stone axes and animal bones were discovered alongside human remains. The shelf areas at that time were part of the land (flooded 6500 BC) and a favorable habitat for herbivorous animals.

Anatomy

The appearance of the Neanderthals had features that are still considered primitive today: a depressed chin, large brow ridges, very massive jaws. Their head was larger than that of a modern person, because it contained a much larger brain (from 1400 to 1700 cm 3). The average height of men was 1.65 m, women were 10 centimeters lower. But at the same time, the men weighed about 90 kg, their arms and legs were shorter. DNA analysis of Neanderthal bones suggests they may have been red-haired and fair-skinned.

Physiology

Neanderthals knew how to speak, their speech was higher and slower than that of modern people. It is believed that Neanderthals may have had more advanced abstract thinking. According to anthropologists, the average life expectancy of Neanderthals was 30-40 years.

Genetics

It has now been established that up to 4% of the genes of some modern people belong to Neanderthals. As genetic analysis has shown, Neanderthals participated in the formation of several modern peoples (French, Spaniards, Greeks and American Indians).

The period of greatest distribution of Neanderthals on the planet occurred during climate cooling. Approximately 30 thousand years BC. the last representatives of this species lived in the very south of Spain, in the Gibraltar region, in the Pyrenees. Material from the site

Neanderthal lifestyle

Neanderthals lived in small tribal communities consisting of 2-4 families. According to the reconstruction of archaeologists, the homes of the Neanderthals were oval huts made of poles dug into the ground, tied together at the top and covered with animal skins. Inside the hut there was a fireplace made of flat stones. Spears were used for hunting.

Customs

Neanderthals buried their dead. More than twenty cases of Neanderthal burials have been discovered. No human predecessors or relatives did this—only modern humans and Neanderthals.

Did Charles Darwin renounce his theory of human evolution at the end of his life? Did ancient people find dinosaurs? Is it true that Russia is the cradle of humanity, and who is the yeti - perhaps one of our ancestors, lost through the centuries? Although paleoanthropology - the science of human evolution - is booming, the origins of man are still surrounded by many myths. These are anti-evolutionist theories, and legends generated by mass culture, and pseudo-scientific ideas that exist among educated and well-read people. Do you want to know how everything “really” was? Alexander Sokolov, editor-in-chief of the portal ANTHROPOGENES.RU, collected a whole collection of similar myths and checked how valid they are.

And biologist Sergei Savelyev is even more categorical:

Neanderthals were powerful, strong, intelligent creatures who lived in very small families. They invented tools and in general may have been more intelligent than Homo sapiens. But the selection associated with maintaining conflict-free situations in groups did not affect them. And the Cro-Magnons seemed to be dull, limited, but their brains had gone through a greater path of socialization. Cruel selection adapted them to a social way of life. What was the result of the competition? When three beetles are attacked by a gang of ants, they are destroyed by her. The Cro-Magnons dealt with the Neanderthals in much the same way.

Savelyev S. We are losing our brains

A beautiful legend: once upon a time there lived kind and smart Neanderthals. Suddenly, out of nowhere, hordes of colonialists arrived from the south. And then - a dramatic finale... Do you believe it? After all, so many parallels can be drawn with our recent history - the conquest of America, the conquest of Australia, the extermination of the aborigines of Tasmania.

It is not surprising that the version of “Neanderthal genocide” was expressed more than 100 years ago.

But what do we know about the difficult fate of the Neanderthals? In fact? Are there any facts in favor of the idea that the meetings between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals were in the nature of hostile clashes “with the losing side eaten”?

Imagine: in the entire history of studying Neanderthals, such facts No. And this despite the fact that we are talking about dug-up Europe and Neanderthals - the most studied human fossil species! (We estimate that the remains of 600 individuals have been found.)

Once upon a time, they tried to present Krapina in Croatia as a possible “battlefield” between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, where about 900 fragments of ancient human bones were found. In this regard, the German anthropologist Hermann Klaatsch wrote in 1920: “This is the only place so far where the bones of both types of Ice Age people have been discovered, and the condition of these bones allows us to conclude that a battle for the possession of the cave took place here.”

However, later it became clear that all the human remains in Krapina belong to Neanderthals, so if there was a skirmish here, then the Neanderthals fought not with “adversaries”, but with their brothers. And the age of the Krapina Neanderthals - 130,000 years - is many tens of thousands of years older than the time when the Cro-Magnons first appeared in Europe.

Approximately the same can be said about all other finds of Neanderthals with traces of violent death: it is most likely that the conflicts were of an intraspecific nature. Neanderthals ate Neanderthals, Neanderthals beat Neanderthals with piercing objects... There is absolutely no point in dragging in evil Cro-Magnons.

By and large, we only know that our direct ancestors came to Europe about 40,000 (possibly 50,000) years ago. And Neanderthals disappeared (quite abruptly) between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago. Were there two types of hominids? They probably should have met. But how did such meetings end?

Not long ago we learned about the Neanderthal trace in our DNA. This means that Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon dates led not only to bloodshed, but also to incest? However, many anthropologists, long before the advent of paleogenetics, pointed to some “Neanderthal admixture” among the Cro-Magnons, and to the possible mixed origin of a number of finds attributed to Neanderthals and early sapiens. (Such, for example, are the Middle Eastern skeletons from Skhul and Qafzeh.) In addition, archaeo; logs trace continuity between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon cultures in several areas of Europe; Perhaps there was a cultural exchange here...

As for the reasons for the extinction of Neanderthals, there are countless hypotheses, but it is extremely difficult to prove any of them. If the Neanderthals lost to our ancestors in the competitive struggle, then in what way were they inferior to the Cro-Magnons? Have you hunted worse? Did they reproduce worse? Have you found it more difficult to adapt to climate change?

I didn’t collect statistics, but it seems that the authors of every second scientific article about Neanderthals at the end include a paragraph on the topic “We are cooler than them - we won!” For example:

Do Neanderthals not have as round a brain as sapiens? This means that the rounding of the brain gave our ancestors some additional cognitive abilities!

Did Neanderthals mature faster? This means they had less time to study!

Do Neanderthals have a shorter calcaneal tuberosity? This means that they, poor things, ran worse and were unable to escape from the Cro-Magnons...

Obviously, the victory of our ancestors over the harsh northern big men pleasantly tickles the pride of many modern sapiens.

There is, of course, a category of hypotheses in which “Cro-Magnons have nothing to do with it.” According to one of them, put forward in 2010 by St. Petersburg archaeologists L.V. Golovanova and V.B. Doronichev, Neanderthals died out as a result of an environmental disaster even before the arrival of the Cro-Magnons to Europe. Of course, many researchers disagree with this interpretation.

Or maybe they didn’t die out, but were, so to speak, assimilated? Cunning calculations carried out by the English archaeologist Paul Mellars in 2011 led him to the conclusion that there were 10 Cro-Magnons for every Neanderthal in Europe! This factor alone could predetermine the outcome of the competition between the aborigines and the “occupiers.” According to this version, Neanderthals are bezo; all sorts of armed conflicts, cannibalism and other passions simply “dissolved” (including genetically) among migrants from the south.

The end to the “Neanderthal question” has not yet been reached...

Summary

<<< Назад

Forward >>>