The Neanderthal (Neandertal) is a small valley of the river Düssel in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, near the city of Mettmann. It is best known for the fact that in 1856, fossils of the Homo neanderthalensis were found there. The Düssel is a small right tributary of the River Rhine in North Rhine Westphalia. ... North Rhine-Westphalia (German: Nordrhein-Westfalen) is the largest in population (though only fourth in area) among Germanys 16 federal states. ... Mettmann is a North-Rhine-Westphalian (Germany) city and the seat of the District of Mettmann. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Binomial name Homo neanderthalensis King, 1864 The Neanderthal or Neandertal was a species of genus Homo (Homo neanderthalensis) that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 230,000 to 29,000 years ago (in the Middle Palaeolithic, early Stone Age). ...
In 1901 an orthographic reform in Germany changed the spelling of Thal (valley) to Tal. The scientific name Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis for Neandertal man are not affected by this change, because the laws of taxonomy retain the original spelling at the time of naming. 1901 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The orthography of a language is the set of rules of how to write correctly in the writing system of a language. ... Binomial name Homo neanderthalensis King, 1864 The Neanderthal or Neandertal was a species of genus Homo (Homo neanderthalensis) that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 230,000 to 29,000 years ago (in the Middle Palaeolithic, early Stone Age). ... Taxonomy (from Greek ταξινομία (taxinomia) from the words taxis = order and nomos = law) may refer to either the classification of things, or the principles underlying the classification. ...
The Neandertal was originally a scenic limestone canyon with waterfalls and caves. However, industrial mining during the 19th and 20th centuries removed almost all of the limestone and dramatically changed the shape of the valley. It was during such a mining operation that the bones of the original Neandertal man were found in a cave. Neither the cave nor the cliff in which it was located exist anymore. Limey shale overlaid by limestone. ...
The valley was named after Joachim Neander, the nom-de-plume of a 17th-century minister Joachim Neumann—Neander is the Greek translation of his name which means "new man". He lived nearby and loved the valley to give him the inspiration for his compositions. The former name was "Das Gesteins" ("The Rocks"). Joachim Neander (Neumann) (1650 - May 31, 1680) was a Calvinist teacher who became famous for creating the words to the church choral Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (German: Lobet den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren) in 1679. ... A pen name or nom de plume is a pseudonym adopted by an author. ...
The unique anatomy of Neanderthals probably reflects the fact that they were the first hominid to spend extensive periods of time in extremely cold environments, having evolved in Europe at the onset of the most recent glaciation of that continent (see Pleistocene epoch).
Neanderthal phylogeny remains somewhat enigmatic, despite the relative abundance of fossil remains.
Culturally, Neanderthals are closely associated with a stone-tool tradition known as the Mousterian of the middle Paleolithic.
Neanderthal is now spelled two ways: the spelling of the German word Thal, meaning "valley or dale", was changed to Tal in the early 20th century, but the former spelling is often retained in English and always in scientific names, while the modern spelling is used in German.
Neanderthal skulls were discovered in Engis, Belgium, in 1829 and Forbes' Quarry, Gibraltar, in 1848 prior to the "original" discovery in a limestone quarry of the Neander Valley (near Düsseldorf) in August, 1856, three years before Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published.
The popular view that the Neanderthals had a high larynx and therefore could not have produced the range of vowels supposedly essential for human speech is based on a disputed reconstruction of the vocal tract from the available fossil evidence, and a debatable interpretation of the acoustic characteristics of the reconstructed vocal tract.
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