Basic HTML Version
}une-July,
1970
The
PLAlN TRUTH
37
lelf, Courlesy ol
the
American Museum ol
N ot urol History. Rightr
©
Ambou odor Col/oge
Appearances Are Deceiving -
left, typi cal reconstruction of Nea nder–
thal Man_ Unkempt hair, scragg ly moustache and unsha ven fa ce give
"brutish' ' oppearance. Right, the Ne w Neanderthal Man! With sharp ha ir
style, clean shave, trimmed moustache, tailored suit, white shirt a nd tie -
Neanderthal could fina a place for himse lf in high society.
lished in the "Quarterly Review of
Biology" XXXIII
(1957):
"The skeleton, whicb bad belonged
to a male
40-50
years old, was rotten
with artbritis. This disease bad affected
the binges of La Chapellc's Jowcr jaw,
his oeck aod much of his body. The
forward thrust of his head noted by
Boule was due,
in
part at lcast, to a wry
neck, and tbe stuntcd staturc and stoop·
ing posture wcre duc to arthritic lcsions
10
h1s vertebral column. In bis youth,
La Cbapelle had been as taU as the
average Frenchman living in thc Dor–
dogne today."
Said anthropologJst Carlcton S. Coon:
"According to the Neanderthal leg–
end, he wa\ a squat, stunted fcUow
about five fe:et one inch tall, or
155
cm.
As indicated by careful calcul.ltions
from bis long boncs, La Chapellc-au:I(–
Saints stood five fect four and a balf
inchcs tall, or
164
cm.,
about half an
inch taller than the Frenchmen ll'ho
lit•ed in the region of his rave
at the
time bis remains were excavated.
"With large beads, deep chests,
heavy bones and large feet, tbe Western
Neanderthals must bave been heavy for
thcir stature, probably a good
160
pounds or more.
"They were prime examples of what
students of human constitutional types
call mesomorphs ...
People b11ilt mot·e
or leSJ like these Neanderthalr ma) be
seen today ;,, the Abmzzi Mo11ntai111, in
tbe Alps, ami in Btu•aria"
(
Carlcton
Coon,
The Orif!.Íil of Rares,
Ncw York:
Al fred A. Knopf,
1962,
p.
546-548).
Another conveniently ignorcd factor
was the large brain sizc of Ncanderthal
Man. While the average brain of mod·
ero man is
1300
ce. the Ncanderthal
brain averaged
1450
ce. (often up to
1600
ce.) - an embarrassing endow–
mtnt for a "primitive" missing link!
Neanderthal Man was more brainy
than the average modero Europcan!
Cleanly sbaven and properly dressed, he
would not stand out as "odd" among
"more civilizcd" moderns.
Culturally speaking, Neanderthal Man
was more advanced than sorne of
the modero inhabitants of New Guinea
are toda
y
-
in the Space Age!
Lost in
the
Subway
Today, bones of Neanderthal Man
have been found in various localities the
world over. Their range of variation
was rather wide. At times Neanderthal
Man was quite modero appearing.
So
mu
eh
so that i
f
you:
"Put him in a Brooks Brothers suit
and send bim clown to thc supermarket
for sorne groceries ... he might pass
completely unnoticed. He might run a
Jittle shorter than tbe clerk serving him,
but he would not necessarily be the
shortest man in the place. He might be
heavier-featurcd, squatter and more
muscular than most, but again he rnight
be no more so than the portee handling
the beer cases back in the stockroom"
(F. Clark Howell,
Eariy
Man,
New
York: T!ME-LIFE Books,
1968,
page
123, 124).
What lookcd like a possibly brutish