ANT 2330 - Neandertals (3)

When Offered: Fall. Alternate years
This course studies Homo sapiens neanderthalensis from a paleoanthropological perspective. Based on recent DNA evidence, Nean- dertals are currently considered to be a subspecies of Homo sapiens sapiens. Yet they are still largely mischaracterized and remain something of an enigma - why is this? Why did Neandertals disappear so quickly as Homo sapiens sapiens spread throughout the world between 50,000-30,000 years ago even though they had successfully survived very cold pulses of the Late Pleistocene 200,000 years ago or more? This course examines the adaptation of Neandertals from biological, technological, social, and ecological evidence in order to answer these and other related questions.