Homo neanderthalensis

Neanderthals (UK: /ni-, neɪˈænd.ə.tɑːl, -θɔːl/; US: /niˈænd-, ˈɑːnd.ər.θɔːl, -tɔːl, -tɑːl/; German pronunciation: ; Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo, who lived within Eurasia from circa 400,000 until 40,000 years ago. Currently the earliest fossils of Neanderthals in Europe are dated between 450,000 and 430,000 years ago, and thereafter Neanderthals expanded into Southwest and Central Asia. They are known from numerous fossils, as well as stone tool assemblages. Almost all assemblages younger than 160,000 years are of the so-called Mousterian techno-complex, which is characterised by tools made out of stone flakes.The type specimen is Neanderthal 1, found in Neander Valley in the German Rhineland, in 1856. Compared to modern humans, Neanderthals were stockier, with shorter legs and bigger bodies. In conformance with Bergmann's rule, as well as Allen's rule, this was likely an adaptation to preserve heat in cold climates. Male and female Neanderthals had cranial capacities averaging 1,600 cm3 (98 cu in) and 1,300 cm3 (79 cu in), respectively,within the range of the values for anatomically modern humans.Average males stood around 164 to 168 cm (65 to 66 in) and females 152 to 156 cm (60 to 61 in) tall. There has been growing evidence for admixture between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans, reflected in the genomes of all modern non-African populations but not in the genomes of most sub-Saharan Africans. The proportion of Neanderthal-derived ancestry is estimated to be around 1–4% of the modern Eurasian genome. This suggests that some interbreeding between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans took place after the recent 'out of Africa' migration, around 70,000 years ago. Recent admixture analyses have added to the complexity, finding that Eastern Neanderthals derived up to 2% of their ancestry from an earlier wave of anatomically modern humans who left Africa some 100,000 years ago. Neanderthals are named after one of the first sites where their fossils were discovered in the mid-19th century in the Neander Valley, just east of Düsseldorf, at the time in the Rhine Province of the Kingdom of Prussia (now in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). The valley itself was named for Joachim Neander, Neander being the graecicized form of the surname Neumann ('new man').The German spelling of Thal 'Valley' was current in the 19th century (contemporary German Tal). Neanderthal 1 was known as the 'Neanderthal cranium' or 'Neanderthal skull' in anthropological literature, and the individual reconstructed on the basis of the skull was occasionally called 'the Neanderthal man'.The binomial name Homo neanderthalensis—extending the name 'Neanderthal man' from the individual type specimen to the entire group—was first proposed by the Anglo-Irish geologist William King in a paper read to the British Association in 1863, although in the following year he stated that the specimen was not human and rejected the name.King's name had priority over the proposal put forward in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, Homo stupidus.Popular English usage of 'Neanderthal' as shorthand for 'Neanderthal man', as in 'the Neanderthals' or 'a Neanderthal', emerged in the popular literature of the 1920s. Since the historical spelling -th- in German represents the phoneme /t/ or /tʰ/, not the fricative /θ/, standard British pronunciation of 'Neanderthal' is with /t/ (IPA: /niːˈændərtɑːl/).Because of the usual sound represented by the digraph ⟨th⟩ in English, 'Neanderthal' is also pronounced with the voiceless fricative /θ/ (as /niːˈændərθɔːl/). The spelling Neandertal is occasionally seen in English, even in scientific publications.Since 'Neanderthal', or 'Neandertal', is a common name, there is no authoritative prescription on its spelling, unlike the spelling of the binominal name H. neanderthalensis, which is predicated by King 1864.The common name in German is invariably Neandertaler (lit. 'of the valley of Neander'), not Neandertal,but the spelling of the name of the Neander Valley itself (Neandertal vs. Neanderthal) has been affected by thespecies name, the names of the Neanderthal Museum and of Neanderthal station persisting with pre-1900 orthography.