Neanderthal Notes

Name and Comparisons

  • They lived about 45 years, we live about 80 years
  • Their babies are bigger than ours
  • Their bones are because of constant exercise
  • Their language was mostly commands and simple while ours is more sophisticated
  • They ate between 4,000 to 7,000 calories a day while we eat 1,500 to 2,000 calories a day
  • They had shorter and thicker legs than us
  • Bone in throat to hold together was identical to ours (called Hyoid)

Shelter

  • Lime stone caves because it was too cold to live outside
  • They did all activities in caves (cooking, sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom)
  • 8 – 25 people lived a cave
  • They were able to live in caves because they had better tools and were able to kill any predators that lived before them

Date, Location, and Climate

  • Date: 250,000 35,000 years ago
  • Location: Mainly southern France but also Europe and Asia
  • Climate: Cold – lived during the Ice Age

Tools

  • Side scraper – used to prepare and soften hide (made of stone)
  • Triangular point (made of rock) – used for spear heads and knives
  • Blades (made of stone) – used to cut things – sharper than a modern surgeons scalpel

Tools (continued)

  • Spears (made of wood) – used to hunt animals at close range (wooly mammoth, bison, deer)
  • Flint blade – used to scrape fat and sinew from animal hide
  • Teeth – cut, chew, bite
  • Animal Skin – used as clothing
  • Hand Axes – crush bones and cut wood
  • Weapons were not designed for throwing, so killing had to be done at close quarters. The animals were stabbed at close range or driven off cliffs by surrounding the animal.

Extras

  • Ate 85% meat – had enzymes in stomach to digest so much meat
  • Half of all Neanderthal children died before age 10
  • First to wear clothes
  • 4 out of 5 Neanderthals never saw their 40th birthday
  • Territorial, not nomadic
  • Woman hunted
  • Leopards, wolves, cave lions, and bears were prey and predators
  • 1st to have speech
  • short, heavy bodies due to the cold weather- meant less surface area to keep warm
  • large nose- created a lot of mucous that kept the nose from freezing
  • 1st human species to adapt to freezing weather
  • daily routine- hunting
  • hunted woolly mammoth, bison, red deer
  • age 45 was considered to be elderly- if they old wanted to survive, they had to pull their own weight
  • childhood and being elderly are the most dangerous times in a Neanderthal’s life
  • made decorative items like jewelry
  • Neanderthal coexisted with Cro-Magnon in some parts of Europe, but not in France. The land was so fertile, they fought for it
  • They probably buried their dead not for religious reasons, but to keep animals away and the scent of rotting flesh out
  • Neanderthal’s became extinct because they were out competed by the Cro-Magnon