The Neanderthal Mystery

(2 of 2)

Apparently burdened by preconceptions and the prevailing bias against the notion of Neanderthal ancestors, Boule concluded that a Neanderthal had prehensile feet, could not fully extend his legs, and thrust his head awkwardly forward because his spine prevented him from standing upright. In his scientific papers, Boule described the "brutish appearance of this muscular and clumsy body." This almost simian image persisted largely unchallenged for decades. Indeed, vestiges of it remain today in such manifestations as textbook illustrations, the Alley Oop cartoon strip, and in the pejorative use of "Neanderthal."

But the image was wrong. In 1957 American and British researchers re- examined the skeleton that Boule had studied and concluded that Neanderthals stood upright; the stooped posture of Boule's specimen was attributable to arthritis. Also the feet were not prehensile, nor was the | spine curved. They further noted that the Neanderthal's brain was as large as that of early modern humans, a fact that Boule ignored in his publications.

In the past few decades, the perception of Neanderthals has undergone still more changes. Evidence from various digs has revealed that they wielded simple tools, wore body ornaments, had religious rites and ceremoniously buried their dead.

But for all the research into Neanderthals, the relationship between them and modern humans is still a topic for hot debate. Some textbooks classify Neanderthals as a subspecies within Homo sapiens; others list a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis. British paleontologist Christopher Stringer is convinced that Neanderthals evolved in Europe from Homo erectus and suddenly became extinct between 35,000 and 30,000 years ago, unable to compete effectively with Homo sapiens originating in Africa. "In my view," he says, "they are a dead end -- highly evolved in their own direction but not in the direction of modern humans."

Among the experts who agree is Yoel Rak, an anatomist at Tel Aviv University. He believes "Neanderthals have nothing to do with our history." They may well have become extinct, he says, because they were too highly specialized -- probably well adapted to survive the frigid temperatures of Ice Age Europe. But when such conditions change, he notes, "the highly specialized creatures are at a tremendous disadvantage."

Other scientists say Neanderthal genes survive today. Milford Wolpoff, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, points to Neanderthal features in early Europeans as evidence that considerable interbreeding took place between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, who coexisted for tens of thousands of years in some regions.

Ofer Bar-Yosef, a Harvard University anthropologist, believes the intermingling occurred when the advance of Ice Age glaciers forced Neanderthals to move south into Homo sapiens' regions and when retreating glaciers allowed early Homo sapiens to follow Neanderthals back into northern climes. Still others, citing anatomical changes in the most recent Neanderthals, think they evolved independently into early Europeans.Wolpoff suggests a Solomonic solution for resolving the Neanderthal debate: phrasing the question correctly. "We can't be asking, 'Are Neanderthals the ancestors of humans?' " he says. "We should be asking, 'Are some Neanderthals ancestral to some Europeans?' And the answer is yes."