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Physical and Cultural Features of Neanderthals


Physical Features: Classical and Progressive Neanderthals 

  1. Increased Cranial capacity: The skull from Shanidar (Iraq) and Amud (Israel) have been estimated to upto 1700 to 1740 cc.
  2. Dolichocephalic skull - narrow and long 

  3. Skull wall and brow ridges thick
  4. Heavy jaw, chin receding backward
  5. Dentition is parabolic with no diastema 

  6. Sylurian fissure in brain signifies more developed brain with possibility of existence of language. However, pharynx is less developed.
  7. Some facial prognathism
  8. Strong femur with large head.
  9. Strong ribs, erect posture, foramen Magnum

Geographical Distribution of Neanderthals:



Cultural Characteristics of Neanderthals:
  1. Nousterian Culture: flake tools became more popular. The industry of these tools is found in Le Mouster, hence the name given to the culture, which is unique to Neanderthals. 

  2. Strong social organisation: otherwise La Chappelle Aux man, as also handicapped Shanidar man could not have survived in old age without social support.
  3. Rituals: first direct evidence of rituals as well as delicate burial. In Teshik-Teash (USSR), the burial of a young Neanderthal was surrounded by wild goat skulls with horns pointed towards the burial. At Shanidar too, the association of dead with arrangement of bear skulls as also the floral offerings indicate some form of primitive religious practice.
  4. Existence of Language: studies of brain, with the presence of sylurian fissure, point towards some form of language. Neanderthal hyoid bone also discovered in Kebara cave, Israel in 1989. 

  5. Hunting: big game hunting along with division of labour and better skills and coordination. Levallois technique: It is a technique of tool making in which the toolmaker takes an oblong, relatively flat flint stone and strikes flakes off the thinner side and then on the back. The same process goes on.

    It takes time, effort and skills to craft a levallois core. The degree of foresight and planning required to create a Levallois core is far greater and indicates an improvement in cognition and abstract thinking.
  6. Core art: carvings resembling criss-cross lines reported in Gorham's cave in Gibraltar 
  7. Social Structure: advancing and complex in 2016, lungs of stalagmites 0.17 million years old discovered 336 m inside Bruniquel cave in South France. Pesturina cave, Serbia, was inhabited by Neanderthals. 
                        Pesturina cave, Serbia





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