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Article: NEANDERTHALS -- THE NOT-SO-GRISLY FOLK
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- March 7, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1988 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Pity the poor Neanderthals, who had the misfortune to be
discovered at about the time Darwin was evoking the outrage of his
contemporaries by suggesting that humans, apes and gorillas have a
common ancestry.
The fossilized bones of Neanderthals were first excavated and
studied in the middle of the 19th century. The bones were undeniably
human, but distinctly different from those of modern men and women.
The stocky limbs and heavy, slanted brows suggested a gorilla-like
ancestor that no one warmly welcomed to the human family tree.
Until recently, Neanderthals were considered dull-witted, brutish
aberrations of evolution, blessedly rendered extinct about 35,000
years ago by the rise of ...