The similarities between Neanderthals and Upper Palaeolithic people.

The similarities between Neanderthals and Upper Palaeolithic people.

"Neanderthalers were more primitive than we are (in some ways), they did live in cold climates (at times), they wore skins (often) and they lived in caves (much of the time). That is the way they were first pictured to us and that is the way they are remembered. Today nearly the reverse is true: Neanderthal man is accepted as our most immediate ancestor, and, by comparison with more distant ones, regarded as a model of evolutionary refinement." (Howell 1966:123). There is no doubt in my mind that Neanderthals and Upper Palaeolithic people were more alike than different. Of coarse there are some differences but "Neanderthal man's and modern man's ranges of variation overlap" (Howell 1966:124).

When one look at a Neanderthals appearance compared to modern humans we see allot of similarities. Neanderthals were shorter and had a more stocky build; they had a large cranial capacity, large brow ridges, low forehead, wide ribcage, wide pelvis and were very strong.

English: First reconstruction of Neanderthal man E...

mtDNA-based simulation of modern human expansion i...

Howell With David Collings

"Estimates of body size in male and female Neanderthals and early modern Homo sapiens show that the femoral length and relationship in structure and body weight are present. Like all estimates of body weight in fossil samples there is much room for error, but it is clear that the high level of body size dimorphism characteristics of early Australopithecus has disappeared." (Steele and Shennan: 1996). Neanderthals had similar jaws to Upper Palaeolithic people, "When muscles at the base and side of the skull work on the rear of the lower jaw, especially in skulls were the braincase is large as it is in Neanderthal and modern humans, the front of the jaw is put under constant pressure and needs to be reinforced." (Stringer and Gamble: 1996). There skulls and brains were a...