Where did Neanderthals live? What was their environment and habitat? Engage with their environment and their nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle.
To discover in the exhibition
You will be immersed in the heart of the Paleolithic environment.
© MNHN-JC Domenech
On a cyclorama in the background, a diorama represents an animated landscape in which the flora and fauna evolve according to the great climatic periods.
© MNHN-JC Domenech
The fourteen stuffed animals come mostly from the collection of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle.
© MNHN-JC Domenech
These 19e century paintings represent either an idyllic setting or a hostile natural environment reflecting the occasionally contradictory theories of the time.
© MNHN-JC Domenech
To understand their daily life, a scale 1 archeological site, “La Folie” near Poitiers (France), is reconstituted here.
© MNHN-JC Domenech
The vestige of the encampment “La Folie” is remarkable for its demonstration of habitat structures, extremely rare in itself, and even more so for an open-air site.
© MNHN – JC Domenech
Presented as if the digs were ongoing, with its original objects, and supplemented with tools, weapons and food, this reconstitution gives an idea of the Neanderthals’ way of life.
© MNHN – JC Domenech
350,000 years ago… in Eurasia
The archaeological discoveries of sites presenting Neanderthal remains and their dating have made it possible to define - based on current scientific knowledge -, the extended period of time and the territories, which were occupied by small groups of Neanderthals.
In order to meet them you need to:
- change the timescale and travel back to the Palaeolithic Period, between 350,000 and 30,000 years ago - the time when they gradually became extinct.
- encompass a vast area: ranging from continental Eurasia (from England to Uzbekistan) to the Middle East.
Neanderthals in the collective imagination of the 19th century
Under the French Third Republic, renowned academic painters, such as Paul Jamin (1853-1903) and Fernand Cormon (1845-1924), stood out with their anthropological representations. Their paintings reflect a growing interest for science in a society that had become secular as well as the collective imagination, which contributed to building the figure of the Neanderthal as a savage living in a hostile environment.
La fuite devant le mammouth / Escaping from the Mammoth is Paul Jamin’s first prehistoric painting. Beyond the quality of execution, his work was in line with the time’s prevailing scientific discourse.
Following his death in 1903, Louis Capitan, the chair of the AnthropologySociety, paid tribute to his “patient and meticulous studies”. This painting is exhibited in the Musée de l’Homme’s permanent collection.
At the heart of the Palaeo-environment
Spectacular scenography
You will be immersed in the heart of the Paleolithic environment. Fourteen stuffed animals - mostly from the collection of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle -, are placed on a podium. On a cyclorama in the background, a diorama represents an animated landscape in which the flora and fauna evolve according to the great climatic periods. The alternation between day and night governs the screening in an acoustic environment. The scenography highlights the essential relationship to changing nature, providing the resources that are necessary for survival.
A wide variety of environments
Neanderthals lived in very varied latitudes and topographic contexts. They were present in all biotopes - the slopes of great plains but also sometimes, during periods with a temperate climate, high-altitude sites (up to 2,000 metres in the Caucasus). Whether living in the steppes
during cold periods or in forests when the climate conditions were more temperate, they were able to adapt their subsistence behavior patterns.
Game was abundant, even during glacial periods. Based on the analysis of exhumed bones, archeo-zoologists were able to identify fauna that includes extinct animals such as mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses, hyenas, lions and cave bears and many other species still extant: ibex, chamois, deer, reindeer, wolves, foxes, brown bears… as well as hares, ravens, and golden eagles.
To find out more
The myth of the club: the symbol of so-called Neanderthal brutishness
19th century engravings, illustrations, advertisements and a cover of Pilote magazine humorously represent the Neanderthal man (sometimes dragging his wife by the hair), wielding a club. There is no evidence attesting to the use of this unrefined weapon. On the contrary, the weapons that were found demonstrate great technical skill. While certain Neanderthal bone remains reveal fractures or injuries, the latter are due to hunting accidents or falls as opposedto club fights. The association between primitives and violence is a mental construct dating back to the 19th century.
