Wednesday 11 January 2012

And the (Preposterous) Hits Just Keep On Comin': Caution, Wax Neanderthal Naughty Bits Ahead

Tip o' the hat to John Hawks for this latest attempt at visual theorizing about the Neanderthals. Too bad it's so far from the reality. 
     This is the Spy Neanderthal, as newly rendered and reported this day in the Belgian press, in all his gnomic splendour. Where are the massive neck muscles that would attach to the chignon? Where the enormous eyeballs to fill the enormous orbits? A ski-jump nose? Hardly likely if you look at Shanidar 5,which is the only complete Neanderthal ossa nasales in captivity, from what I can glean.
Somebody please put some more hair and much more fat and muscle on this guy. It was damned cold in the Late Pleistocene!  (Photo credit
Forgive me. The above representation looks like Abraham Lincoln. If you follow the logic of the skeleton, and don't allow yourself to be swayed by the Neanderthals-R-Us people, the face should look more like my [sadly inept] approximation seen below. Side view to come.
If you've never seen this representation before, may I suggest you have a look at a series of my posts, beginning with this one. Then just follow [cough] your nose. 

That's it for me. I'm sick. I'm tired. And not just with disingenuous representations of our distant relative!

2 comments:

  1. I've seen that Neanderthal around Santa Cruz. Nice smile.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Robin. It's prolly because of all the admiring glances he's getting, being as how he's the only unclothed biped in the room!

    ReplyDelete

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