Prehistoric Ireland
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cd200/mac34.html
The Neanderthals (Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis):
As the ice cap receded across Europe, the high pressure and motion of the ice left behind a layer of powdered stone. This formed an extremely fertile soil, which soon became a vast and fertile grassland. There was an explosion of animal life into this vacuum, which was soon covered with thundering herds of Mammoths, Giant Deer, Bison, and other ungulates. Cave dwelling Neanderthal Man, the heavy set "cave men" of cartoons and comics, was quickly replaced by modern man, and seems to vanish from the record about 34,000 B.C.
We have had such sport lampooning Neanderthal Man, that we tend to forget he was the first known Homo Sapiens. We acknowledge that he is more powerfully built than modern man, but it has recently been shown that he may have been more fleet of foot. For example, he is far better equiped to run sideways than are we - something which may have been very useful during a hunt. We now suspect, from examining tombs, that he was a spiritual being, and more embarrassingly, he had a larger brain than we do.
We may owe more to Neanderthal man and to his Mousterian culture than previously realized. When a Mousterian flute was discovered in the Divje Babe I cave in northwestern Slovenia, a musicologist (Bob Fink) in Saskatchawan, Canada published a study based on spacing of the holes in the bone instrument. Fink maintains that it was tuned to the Diatonic scale, and that our present day ideas of what is musical, may be handed down from our cave dwelling cousins.
There are many theories about the disappearance of Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis , but it is unknown whether he interbred and disappeared, or was killed off by his modern cousins. It is also unknown why he did not adapt to the changing climate, and come to dominate the grasslands.
ping for later