Science: Upgrading Neanderthal Man

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How did so sophisticated a creature acquire such an unwarranted reputation? For one thing, the first Neanderthal bones were dug just about the time that Darwin astonished the world with his announcement that man and ape were descended from a common ancestor. Neanderthal's apish image was further enforced by the writings early in this century of the respected French paleontologist Pierre Marcellin Boule. His portrait of Neanderthal as a stunted, beetle-browed creature who walked with bent knees and arms dangling in front of him served as the model for several generations of artists and cartoonists. While certain coarse features in Neanderthal man are undeniable, on physical considerations alone he deserves far better treatment. As the late Harvard anthropologist Earnest Hooton once commented: "You can, with equal facility, model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a philosopher."

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