JOHANN CARL FUHLROTT

'Johann Carl Fuhlrott' was born December 31 1803 in Leinefelde, Germany, and died October 17 1877 in Elberfeld, (Wuppertal). He is famous for the discovery of the Neanderthal 1.
After studying mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Bonn, Fuhlrott became a teacher at the Gymnasium in Elberfeld. In 1856, workers in a lime quarry in the nearby canyon called ''Gesteins'' or ''Neanderthal'' (southwest of Mettmann) showed him bones they had found in a cave and thought to belong to a bear. Fuhlrott identified them as human and thought them to be very old. He recognized them to be different from the usual bones of humans and showed them to the Professor of Anatomy at the University of Bonn, Hermann Schaaffhausen. Together they announced the discovery publicly in 1857. In their view the bones represented the remnants of an ancient human race, different from contemporary humans. Their views were not readily accepted as it contradicted literal interpretations of the Bible, and Charles Darwin's work about evolution had not yet been published. Today, Fuhlrott and Schaaffhausen are considered to be the founders of paleoanthropology, and the genus they discovered is referred to as ''Homo neanderthalensis'' in honor of the site where it was first identified.

Contents

See Also

External links

See Also

★ List of fossil sites ''(with link directory)''

★ List of hominina (hominid) fossils ''(with images)''

External links

★ Fuhlrott Museum

★ Neanderthal Museum