Skip to main content
Historical Bibliography Updated: August 27, 2022

[On the Feldhofer Neanderthal.]

Publication Details

Verhandlungen des naturhistorischen Vereines der preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens 14 (1857): xxxviii-xlii, l-lii. 1857 CE.

The first account of the Neanderthal remains (Neanderthal 1), discovered in 1856 in the the Feldhofer cave of the Neander valley. The remains, which consist of a partial skull, pelvis and assorted long bones, were sent to Johann Carl Fuhlrott, a science teacher in Elberfeld, who immediately recognized that they were a previously unknown type of human. This conclusion was borne out by Hermann Schaaffhausen, a physician and anthropologist in Bonn to whom Fuhlrott sent a cast of the cranium. Over the winter of 1856–57 Schaaffhausen examined the Neanderthal bones in detail, and in 1857 he and Fuhlrott published preliminary announcements of the discovery in the Verhandl. des naturhis. Vereines des preuss. Rheinlande und Westphalens. Fuhlrott’s account appears on page l. 

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#7250
Permanent Linkhttps://staging.historyofmedicine.com/entry/9419
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLon-the-feldhofer-neanderthal-in-verhandlungen-des-naturhistorischen-vereines-der-preussischen-rheinlande-und-westphalens-14-1857-xxxviiixlii-llii

Geographic Context

Mentioned in annotation: Elberfeld