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Skull session: How many anatomical differences can you discern between the skull of a Neanderthal (left) and that of a Cro Magnon? Click either image to test your mettle.
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Close your eyes and picture a Neanderthal. You're probably imagining heavy
browridges, a big, broad nose, perhaps a jutting midface. If so, you're right
on, though those are only the most obvious differences between your face and
that of your extinct relative. In this feature, compare the skulls and jawbones
of a Neanderthal and an early modern human and see if you can ferret out the
many anatomical dissimiliarities that paleoanthropologists use to distinguish
between the two. (Hint: We highlight 13 differences.)
On the following page (and in miniature above), we present casts of two famous ancient skulls and
associated jawbones housed in the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at
Harvard University. (The originals are at the Musée de l'Homme in
Paris.) The Neanderthal skull and jawbone (above, at left) belong to the so-called "Old Man" of
La Chapelle-aux-Saints, a nearly complete skeleton found inside a cave in
southwestern France in 1908. The early modern skull and jawbone (above, at right) come from
Cro-Magnon I, one of several individuals whose remains turned up in a
rockshelter in the Dordogne in 1868. The Neanderthal is 47,000 to 56,000 years
old, the Cro-Magnon 30,000 to 35,000 years old.
Go to the Skulls (680K)
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© | Updated November 2001
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