ABSTRACT
The Neanderthal. A German world star, a European “special model” of evolution, who, ever since the mid-nineteenth century, has given the science of paleoanthropology enough fossil fodder to research the origin of the human family. One who, after decades of false valuation as the dumb brute of the stone age, has been transformed into the clever hunter. It has taken a long time for the Neanderthals to become the best-researched archaic humans. That they have taught present-day humankind that there used to be other sorts of humans than those of the present appears revolutionary enough in itself. That the find that gave them their name still produces headlines 150 years after its discovery in the Neander Valley is astonishing, dealing as it does “only” with old bones. But these very old bones unlocked a secret in 1997, using the most modern technology, that for the first time ended the long debate about the relationship between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis: Neanderthals are not our ancestors. These, one and all, originated in Africa-whether pre-human, primitive human, early human, or modern human (Figure 18). We all have genetic material in our mortal remains that can still provide evidence after our death that we are descended from the family of the African primal Eve and the African primal Adam.
