Where 'Neanderthal' was first discovered in 1856. Workers thought the heavy brow ridges belonged to a Russian cavalryman or a pathological idiot.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A Cossack with rickets
In August 1856, workers quarrying limestone in the Neander Valley, or Neandertal, blasted open a small cave called the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte. Inside, buried under 60 cm of clay, they found 16 fossilized bones: a skullcap, arm bones, two femurs, ribs, and part of a pelvis. Initially, the crew thought they were the remains of a cave bear and might have discarded them, but the bones were eventually given to local teacher and amateur naturalist Johann Carl Fuhlrott. Fuhlrott immediately recognized them as human, but of a type that was very different from modern people.
The timing of the discovery, three years before Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, meant there was no established framework for thinking about human evolution. When the bones were jointly announced in 1857, the scientific community was deeply divided. The influential pathologist Rudolf Virchow forcefully rejected the idea of an ancient human species. He argued the specimen, now known as Neanderthal 1, was a modern Homo sapiens with a host of diseases. Virchow claimed the thick brow ridges were caused by constant frowning from pain, and the bowed leg bones were evidence of rickets in childhood and arthritis in old age, capped off by several powerful blows to the head. For decades, his diagnosis of a pathological modern human stalled further research.
A new human species
The bones from the Neander Valley were not the first be found—specimens had been unearthed in Belgium in 1829 and Gibraltar in 1848—but they were the first to be recognized as a distinct kind of human. The official classification came from an Irish geologist, William King. In 1864, after studying a cast of the skullcap, King proposed the name Homo neanderthalensis ("Human from the Neander Valley"), formally establishing it as a new and extinct species. King noted the skull's shape resembled that of a chimpanzee and argued its owner was "incapable of moral and theistic conceptions".
Confirmation that Neanderthal 1 was not a diseased anomaly came in 1886 with the discovery of similar skeletons in Spy, Belgium. Today, the bones of over 400 Neanderthals have been found. The original Neanderthal 1 is now dated to be approximately 40,000 years old. The individual was likely a male, between 40 and 45 years old at the time of death. The story of the find had a surprising sequel. The original cave was completely destroyed by quarrying, and its location was forgotten for 141 years. In 1997, researchers Ralf Schmitz and Jurgen Thissen used old documents to rediscover the precise location of the cave's sediment dump. Excavations unearthed over 60 additional human bone fragments, including a piece of a cheekbone that fit perfectly onto the original 1856 skullcap.
💡Fun Facts
The Neander Valley is named after Joachim Neander, a 17th-century Calvinist hymn writer who frequented the area for inspiration. His family name, Neumann, means "new man," which he translated into the classical Greek equivalent, "Neander."
The original cave, Kleine Feldhofer Grotte, was completely destroyed by the limestone quarrying operations that revealed the fossils. Its exact location was lost for over a century.
In 1997 and 2000, archaeologists rediscovered the site's sediment dump and found more than 60 bone fragments. Several pieces, including two cranial fragments, fit perfectly onto the original Neanderthal 1 specimen.
Quarry workers who first found the bones thought the heavy skullcap belonged to a cave bear.
Tuesday to Sunday: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM. Open on Mondays during North Rhine-Westphalia holidays.
Admission
Adult admission is approximately €13, with family tickets and other concessions available.
Accessibility
The Neanderthal Museum and the tower at the discovery site are certified as barrier-free. The museum provides a special app, a floor guidance system, and tactile exhibits for visitors.
