194 CHAPTER 8 | Early Homo and the Origins of Culture
Javanese, African,
and Chinese Archaic
Homo sapiens
While the large-brained Neandertals inhabited Europe and
Southwest Asia, other parts of the world were inhabited
by variants of archaic H. sapiens; these lacked the extreme
midfacial projection and massive muscle attachments
on the back of the skull characteristic of the Neandertals.
Skulls found in Java, Africa, and China date from roughly
the same time period.
Eleven skulls found near the Solo River in Ngandong,
Java, are a prime example. These skulls indicated modern-
sized brains ranging from 1,013 to 1,252 cc, while retaining
features of earlier Javanese H. erectus. When their dating
was recently revised (to between 27,000 and 53,000 years
ago) some researchers concluded that this proved a late
survival of H. erectus in Asia, contemporary with H. sapi-
ens elsewhere. But the Ngandong skulls remain what they
always were: representatives of archaic H. sapiens, with
modern-sized brains in otherwise ancient-looking skulls.
Fossils from various parts of Africa show a similar
combination of ancient and modern traits. Equivalent re-
mains have been found at several localities in China. Thus
the Neandertals could be said to represent an extreme
form of archaic H. sapiens. Elsewhere, the archaics look
like robust versions of the early modern populations that
lived in the same regions or like somewhat more derived
versions of the H. erectus populations that preceded them.
All appear to have contained modern-sized brains, with
their skulls retaining some ancestral features.were exceptionally powerful, and pronounced attach-
ments on their hand bones attest to a remarkably strong
grip. Science writer James Shreeve has suggested that a
healthy Neandertal could lift an average North American
football player over his head and throw him through the
goalposts.^30 Their massive, dense foot and leg bones sug-
gest high levels of strength and endurance, comparable to
robust individuals who live today.
Because brain size is related to overall body mass,
heavy robust Neandertal bodies account for the large av-
erage size of the Neandertal brain. With H. habilis and
H. erectus, increasing brain size has been linked to in-
creasing cultural capabilities. Because Neandertal brain
size falls at the high end of the human size range, pa-
leoanthropologists shift to debating whether changes in
the shape of the skull and skeleton are associated with
changes in cultural capabilities.
Though the interpretation of Neandertal fossils has
changed dramatically compared to when first discovered,
they are still surrounded by controversy. Those who pro-
pose that the Neandertal line went extinct emphasize a
notion of Neandertal biological difference and cultural
inferiority. Those who include Neandertals in our direct
ancestry emphasize the sophistication of Neandertal cul-
ture, attributing differences in skull shape and body form
to regional adaptation to an extremely cold climate and
the retention of ancestral traits in a somewhat isolated
population.
As this face-off between paleoanthropol-
ogist Milford Wolpoff and his reconstruc-
tion of a Neandertal shows, the latter
did not differ all that much from modern
humans of European descent.
© Paul Jaronski; UM Photo Services(^30) Shreeve, J. (1995). The Neandertal enigma: Solving the mystery of modern
human origins (p. 5). New York: William Morrow.