The misconception of the Neanderthal image is primarily due to a discovery by paleontologist Marcellin Boule in 1908. Found in Bouffia Bonneval at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France, Boule discovered the remains of a skeleton that would later be determined to belong to the species Home Neanderthalensis. Boule’s study, which was published between 1909 and 1912 is single-handedly responsible for creating a long-standing negative image of Neanderthals. Also known as the ‘old man’ of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, his description of the skeletal remains left the Neanderthals looking more like apes than humans.
Boule declared that these hominids were unintelligent due to their low- browed brains and assumed they could only produce their crude tools and not much else. Boule also believed that ‘The beast had walked with bent knees and a shambling gait, his head slung forward on squat neck, his big toe splayed out chimpanzee-like to the side’ (Shreeve 1994:18) ... Later we learn that Boule’s prejudices got in the way of his examination of the elderly hominid.
However, as time progressed, scientists were able to diagnosis the condition of the skeleton more clearly and rebuke the former evidence of the Neanderthals primitive traits. “The old man of Chapelle dates to about 50,000 years ago, suffered from sever arthritis in his neck, had a deformed hip, a crushed toe, a broken rib and a damaged patella. The fact that despite all of these ailments, this individual was able to survive indicates that he was cared for by other members of the clan...Despite having a cranial capacity of 1,625cc- a figure well above human range- Boule concluded that the Neanderthals had limited intellectual fortitude and a result of their numerous ‘primitive’ traits” ( La Chapelle-aux-Saints)
The varying skull characteristics of the Neanderthal promote the idea that they could not be immediate ancestors of humans, but had evolved as a separate, highly successful species of humans that went extinct. Also the fact that the man was able to survive to an elderly age by Neanderthal standards exhibits human qualities of caring for the disabled and also burring their dead.
Therefore, the Neanderthal that Boule discovered and misunderstood as brutish ape like creatures, was in actuality a misdiagnosis of a species of human that had a short chronology (1,000,000 - 40,000 bp); and a sudden end. However the site of La Chapelle-aux-Saints and it’s ‘old man’ has benefited the anthropology and archeology sciences in paving the way to a more concrete look at the Neanderthal.
The Archeaology of Europe: Early Prehistory. C. Stringer and C. Gamble (1993) http:depts.vassar.edu/~aavarenz/evolution/La_Chapene.num Neanderthals: A Cyber Perspective. Ramanan, Kharlena Maria http://thunder.indstate.edu/~ramanank/index2.html Fossil information originallyL Homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints (Corvreze). C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris147: 1349-1342
Written by: Sara Tacheny