Within the lifespan of a species

To discover in the exhibition

For more than 300,000 years of their existence, Neanderthals produced highly diversified lithic cultures in the same way as their contemporaries.

Qafzeh grave (Israel). Dating from 94,000 to 80,000 years ago, these remains confirm both that Neanderthals and modern human co-existed in the Middle East and they were not related.

Reconstruction of the head and neck muscles of the Homo neandertalensis from La Chapelle-aux-Saints in Corrèze dating from 1921. It was supposed to have been Rodin’s model for his sculpture, The Thinker.

Interactive interfaces, located in 5 alcoves, enable visitors to choose among a dozen propositions and to listen to scientists’ views.

In China and Southeast Asia, according to the latest research, 3 to 4 human species were contemporary with Neanderthals.

The myth of the battle of Neanderthals against modern humans.

A “concept store” illustrates at the end of the exhibit the presence of Neanderthals in our daily lives.

When Neanderthals got closer to Homo Sapiens

Not that different…

A large, stratigraphic showcase displays more than thirty flint tools, illustrating the wide variety of Western European Neanderthal tool cultures, in the space and time of the Middle Palaeolithic. Neanderthals lived in small groups dispersed over a vast territory. They did not, during 350,000 years, produce the same tools everywhere.
Their cultural traditions, influenced by the availability and quality of materials, bear various names: the Mousterian (the most significant culture in time and space), the Keilmessergruppen (in Central Europe), etc. Towards the end of the Neanderthal period, there was a great variety
of tool cultures, as if this world was ”breaking up”. The Mousterian culture is associated with Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens in the Middle East, where the two populations buried their dead in the same way. This convergence is illustrated by the cast of one of the oldest graves, discovered at the Qafzeh site in Israel.

Not alone in the world

When Neanderthals inhabited Eurasia, they were not alone: Homo sapiens were present in eastern regions and other species populated the planet. In 2003, the bones of a “small woman” were found in a cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia. This new, specific, insular species named
Homo floresiensis, descended from Homo erectus, whose remaining members were probably still present in Southeast Asia.
In 2010, seeking to determine what species a small finger bone fragment discovered in the Denisova Cave (Siberia) belonged to, geneticists identified another Homo species that roamed across the Altai mountains, 55,000 years ago. The cast of a tooth that was found in the Denisova Cave and the dermoplastic reconstruction of the Flores woman, realised by Elizabeth Daynès, reflect this plural humanity, whose members have gone extinct, with the exception of Homo sapiens, who alone colonised the entire planet.

A New Encounter (2014). Watercolour and pencil, realised for the Cité de la Préhistoire / City of Prehistory, by © Benoit Clarys

The myth of the battle against Homo Sapiens

During the 19^th century, Neanderthals were considered to be inferior to modern humans, their extinction was thus self-evident. They had logically been replaced by superior beings, us.
However, not only is the assumption of a battle benefiting Homo sapiens quite unlikely, there is no evidence to support this hypothesis. Furthermore, their shared territory was vast enough to meet the needs of small, scattered populations. It is likely that certain Neanderthal groups –
including the westernmost ones -, never encountered modern humans, whose establishment in Europe was a long-term process. While conflicts may have occurred, they were certainly limited and localised.

The evidence of an encounter

Based on current scientific knowledge, Neanderthals and Sapiens seem to have coexisted in the Balkans, in Central and Eastern Europe during several millennia. This was enough time to foster and maintain all sorts of interactions. The progress made in palaeogenetics in the past decade has enabled scientists to shed new light on the evolution of Neanderthals and their relationship with other human lineages.

The tricky sequencing of ancient Neanderthal DNA shows that contemporary European and Asian populations share between 1 to 4 % of their genome with Neanderthals, which is not the case of Africans. If interbreeding did occur, then what is a human species? Are Neanderthals and modern humans two different species? These questions fuel the debate between scientists.

From tools to culture

Tens of thousands of stone tools attributed to Neanderthals have been exhumed. Their analysis is central to prehistory. Their characteristics have enabled the differentiation of Neanderthal cultural systems corresponding to given geographic areas and periods. These tool cultures were named after the sites where they were first identified. The “Mousterian” refers to a major culture from the Middle Paleolithic. The name originates from the Peyzac-le-Moustier site in Dordogne, which was excavated in 1863, revealing many lithic tools.

Hand axe or Biface, by © MNHN - JC Domenech

Did Neanderthals really disappear?

After a 350,000-year recorded presence, Neanderthals disappeared from the geologic record approximately 30,000 years ago. Ingenious hunters, they survived significant climate variations. Thus, how can we explain their disappearance? Is it due to an environmental change and to subsistence problems? Did it result from competition between them and Homo sapiens? Does this demonstrate their inferiority? Was it caused by diseases and viruses carried by the invaders? Should we look for the causes of Neanderthal extinction even before the arrival of modern humans as attributable to a slow demographic decline? Today, it is no longer a question of finding one single reason - several phenomena are put forward to explain the extinction of Neanderthals.
Different hypotheses are displayed on the walls of a cylindrical space. Interactive interfaces, located in 5 alcoves, enable visitors to choose among a dozen propositions and to listen to scientists’ views: Philippe Charlier (forensic scientist) - Pierre-Henri Gouyon (biologist) - Jean-Jacques Hublin (paleoanthropologist) - Céline Bon (geneticist) - Évelyne Heyer (geneticist) - Jean-Jacques Bahain (geologist) - Pascal Depaepe and Marylène Patou-Mathis (scientific curators of the exhibition).

Did Neanderthal really disappear ? The different hypotheses are displayed on the walls of a cylindrical space where you can also choose among a dozen propositions and listen to scientists’ views., by © MNHN – JC Domenech

A Neanderthal man in Paris

In 1919, following a conference during which Marcellin Boule, a paleontologist at the Muséum, presented the results of his study on the male Neanderthal skeleton discovered in La Chapelle-aux-Saints, the Neanderthal man was invited into the public sphere. This newcomer was not simply a fossil…

The sculptor and engraver Joanny Durand wrote to Boule to alert him about “a man in Paris presenting all the Simian features”. This strong fellow was supposed to have been Rodin’s model for his sculpture, The Thinker. In order to meet the general public’s strong interest, Marcellin Boule commissioned Joanny Durand, in 1921, to reconstruct the head and neck muscles of the Homo neandertalensis from La Chapelle-aux-Saints in Corrèze. Displayed in the exhibition, the flayed man has been part of the Muséum collections since its creation.

Plaster reconstruction of the bust of the Neanderthal man from La Chapelle-aux-Saints, by the sculptor Joanny Durand, by © MNHN - Daniel Ponsard

Epilogue: a significant Neanderthal presence

Visitors have gradually got to know Neanderthals better. From primitive creatures, they have become humans endowed with reason, beings whose singularity is embodied by the visual artist Elizabeth Daynès’ reconstruction work. An original work entitled Kinga - a Neanderthal Woman -, finely combines the outcome of current scientific findings, the quality of execution and the artist’s interpretation of the unknown, which no skeleton can unveil: the expression and the gaze.