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The contemporary perception of Neanderthals and their stereotypical portrayal has its origins in 19th century Europe. Naturalists and anthropologists were confronted with an increasing number of fossilized bones that that did not match any known taxon. Carl Linnaeuss 1758 Systema Naturae in which he had Homo sapiens introduced as a species without diagnosis and description, was the authoritative encyclopedia of the time. The notion of extinct species was unheard of and if so, would have contradicted the paradigm of the immutability of species and the physical world, which was the infallible product of a single and deliberate act of a creator god. Most scholars simply declared the early Neanderthal fossils to be representatives of early "races" of modern man. Thomas Henry Huxley, a future supporter of Darwin's theory of evolution, saw in the Engis 2 fossil a "man of low degree of civilization". The discovery in the Neandertal he interpreted as to be within the range of variation of modern humans.

In mid 19th century Germany biological sciences were dominated by Rudolf Virchow, who described the bones as a "remarkable individual phenomenon" and as "plausible individual deformation". This statement is the reason why the characteristics of the Neanderthals were perceived as a form of pathological skeleton change of modern man in German-speaking countries for many years to come.

August Franz Josef Karl Mayer, an associate of Virchow emphasizes disease, prolonged pain and struggle on comparison with modern human features. "He confirmed the Neanderthal's rachitic changes in bone development[...]. Mayer argued among other things, that the thigh - and pelvic bones of Neanderthal man were shaped like those of someone who had spent all his life on horseback. The broken right arm of the individual had only healed very badly and the resulting permanent worry lines about the pain were the reason for the distinguished brow ridges. The skeleton was, he speculated, that of a mounted Russian Cossack, who had roamed the region in 1813/14 during the turmoils of the wars of liberation from Napoleon."

Arthur Keith of Britain and Marcellin Boule of France, were both senior members of their respective national paleontological institutes and among the most eminent paleoanthropologists of the early 20th century. Both men argued that this "primitive" Neanderthal could not be a direct ancestor of modern man. As a result the museum's copy of the almost complete Neanderthal fossil of La Chapelle-aux-Saints was inaccurately mounted in an exaggerated crooked pose with a deformed and heavily curved spine and legs buckled.

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Neanderthals or Neandertals, American English also -, --, -, -) are an extinct species or subspecies of the genus Homo, that was a close relative of modern humans. Both species occupied a common habitat in Europe for several thousand years. Research has so far no universally accepted conclusive explanation as to what caused the Neanderthal's extinction between 40.000 and 28.000 years ago.

Neanderthal classification has been subject to debate since the discovery of the fdo to this day. Currently two formal species names reflect the ongoing controversy - Homo neanderthalensis the binominal name of a distinct species and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, that classifies Neanderthals as a subspecies of Homo sapiens.

Sharing a common ancestor of the genus Homo with Homo sapiens, who evolved independently in Africa, the specie's specific morphology developed in Eurasia during the last 350.000 years, reaching its final, "classical Neanderthal" form approximately 130.000 years ago.

Neanderthals left a rich fossil record in the limestone caves of Eurasia, from Western Europe to the Altai Mountains in Central Asia and the Ural Mountains in the North to the Levant in the South. Discoveries include cultural assemblages and Neanderthals are associated with the Mousterian culture, which first appeared approximately 160.000 years ago.

Generally small and widely dispersed fossil sites suggest, that Neanderthals lived in less numerous and socially more isolated groups than contemporary Homo sapiens. Tools such as Mousterian flint stone flakes and Levallois points are remarkably sophisticated from the outset, yet they have a slow rate of variability and general technological inertia is noticeable during the entire fossil period. Artefacts are of utilitarian nature, symbolic behavioral traits are undocumented before the arrival of modern humans in Europe around 40.000 to 35.000 years ago.

The Neanderthal genome sequence was successfully generated in 2010 as the central assignment for the Neanderthal genome project. The DNA structure proved to be 99.7% identical with anatomically modern humans. Subsequently the genetic relationship is being investigated and ongoing research has yet helped to interpret and verify kinship lines and interbreeding theories with modern humans and other species of the genus Homo and resulting evolutionary implications.

In 2013 researchers announced that the assemblages of at least 40 widely scattered archaeological sites suggest that Neanderthals intentionally buried their dead. In 2016 a team of researchers found ring structures made of stalagmites fragments inside the Bruniquel Cave, south-western France around 176.000 years old, which were attributed to early Neanderthals. These discoveries might revive the debate on the degree of advancement of Neanderthal's social structure.

Etymology
The species was named by geologist William King in his 1864 species description The Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal after having introduced the term Homo Neanderthalensis King one year earlier giving a lecture at the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The type specimen Neanderthal 1 was only discovered in 1856 in a limestone grotto in the Neandertal (Neander-valley, spelled Neanderthal before the 1901 German spelling reform), 12 km east of Düsseldorf, Germany.

Discovery
The first recorded Neanderthal fossil of a partial skull and some associated fragments, later dubbed Engis 2 was discovered in 1829 by Dutch physician and naturalist Philippe-Charles Schmerling in the Awirs Cave, just north of the Belgian municipality Engis and professionally described in 1833. The second fossil Gibraltar 1, was discovered by Captain Edmund Flint in the Forbes' Quarry of Gibraltar in 1848. Both findings received only little attention and were misunderstood as to represent early forms or pathologically developed, abnormal human individuals. A universal definition of species-specific characteristics of species in the genus Homo did not exist in the early 19th century. Methodical recognition of distinct and extinct species only began after Charles Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859.

The 1856 in a limestone quarry - the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte in the Neandertal discovered type specimen consisted of a skull cap, two femora, three bones from the right arm, two from the left arm, part of the left ilium, fragments of a scapula, and ribs. These quickly came into possession of local teacher and amateur naturalist Johann Carl Fuhlrott, who studied the fossil in co-operation with anatomist Hermann Schaaffhausen. The jointly made publication in 1857 represents the beginning of paleoanthropology as a scientific discipline. The scholarly community remained divided for another 30 years until the discovery of two well preserved and almost complete Neanderthal skeletons in Spy/Belgium in 1886 lead to general recognition of the species.

Origin
Altamura Man (between 128.000 and 187.000 years old) is the oldest fossil of the Neanderthal lineage, that has yielded a reliable DNA sequence. Older specimen are until recently interpreted and classified based on morphology and metric analyses. 430.000 years old skull fossils recovered from the Sima de los Huesos cave have proto-Neanderthal features, such as "the beginning of a prominent brow ridge, a distinctive jaw shape and patterns of cusps on the teeth, [but] lack other traits that define the species — notably a large cranium". DNA tests confirm that these skulls represent early Neanderthals. Anthropologists debate over whether the species evolved from Homo heidelbergensis, or from what some researchers call "a controversial species" - Homo antecessor.

"'Not quite Neanderthals, the Sima de los Huesos humans probably represent one of many small, isolated groups that dotted the European continent at the time, notes Jean-Jacques Hublin, a palaeoanthropologistat at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Such isolation is ideal for anatomical features to be established by chance, and this genetic drift could explain many of the attributes that would later define Neanderthals.'"

Fossils found in Tourville-la-Rivière, the 400.000 year old Tautavel Man, the 600.000 year old mandible Mauer 1 and the Petralona skull have all been attributed to the Neanderthal lineage, although only based on morphological and metric analyses.

Classification
Scientists to this day debate over whether Neanderthals should be classified as a distinct species - Homo neanderthalensis - or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the latter placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of H. sapiens. During the early 20th century the prevailing view has been heavily influenced by Arthur Keith and Marcellin Boule, who wrote the first scientific description of a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton. Senior members of their respective national paleontological institutes and among the most eminent paleoanthropologists of their time, both men argued that this "primitive" Neanderthal could not be a direct ancestor of modern man. This idea was reflected in an erroneous and inaccurate reconstruction of the Neanderthal findings of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, mounted in a crooked pose with a deformed and heavily curved spine and legs buckled.

During the 1930s scholars Ernst Mayr, George Gaylord Simpson and Theodosius Dobzhansky reinterpreted the existing fossil record and came to different conclusions. Neanderthal man was classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis - an early subspecies of what was now called Homo sapiens sapiens. The obviously unbroken succession of fossil sites of both subspecies in Europe was considered evidence that there was a slow and gradual evolutionary transition from Neanderthals to modern humans. Contextual interpretations of similar excavation sites in Asia lead to the hypothesis of multiregional origin of modern man in the 1980s.

Contemporary views
Current scientific ideas hold that both species evolved from a common African ancestor - Homo erectus. Fossil and tool finds support the idea that during the first migration wave of around 2 million years ago small groups of Homo erectus left Africa via the Levant, the Black Sea area into Georgia (fossils of Dmanisi) and possibly via North-western Africa towards southern Spain. The 1.2 million years old fragmented finds in Spain are referred to as Homo antecessor by their discoverers and considered to be the ancestors of Neanderthal. This interpretation, however, is controversial.

Some 600,000 years ago a second propagation wave of African Homo erectus took place. Skulls from that period found in Spain for example, suggest a brain volume of between 1100 ccm to 1450 ccm. The brain volume of fossils from the first propagation wave is however estimated only to be slightly above 1000 ccm. Homo erectus that arrived in Europe in the second wave of colonization developed into Neanderthals through the intermediate Homo heidelbergensis. Since about 200,000 years ago in Africa the so-called early anatomically modern humans descended from the local Homo erectus through the intermediate Homo rhodesiensis. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA studies has been interpreted as evidence Neanderthals were not a subspecies of H. sapiens. Others, for example University of Cambridge Professor Paul Mellars, say "no evidence has been found of cultural interaction".

Debated remains the period when the Neanderthal lineage separated from the lineage that lead to modern man. In 2010 a period between 440,000 - 270,000 years B.P. was calculated by the molecular clock method. However, the reliability of molecular clocks is questionable as dating determined by stratigraphic methods varies considerably from those determined using the molecular clock. In 2012 recalculation of the mutation rates revealed evidence of a much earlier separation between 800,000 and 400,000 years ago.

Timeline of discovery and research
Neanderthals are after H. sapiens the best documented hominin species as they habitually occupied limestone caves and rock shelters, locations with a high fossilization and preservation ratio for bones, artefacts and fire places. The bones of over 400 specimen have been found since the early 19th century.

Behavior
The behavioral patterns of the Neanderthals are inferred from their anatomy in combination with the fossil record, the remains and debris they left behind at caves, rock shelters and a number of open air settlements. On the contrary behavior has become the key factor in explaining the variability of the archaeological record.

Neanderthals shared a number of important characteristics with modern humans, such as large brains, manual dexterity and bipedal walking ability, tool use and production, which requires a certain degree of social sophistication. However, Neanderthals lived in relatively small and territorial more isolated groups. Generally small sites and the considerable depth of bone and debris pits suggests that they frequently migrated but retured to the same locations often.

The materials left behind show only minor variations among sites and their foraging systems were considerably less efficient than those of modern human hunter-gatherers, without planned differential use of the landscape necessitating more-muscular limbs and greater endurance.

Regional differences
Habitat and culture of "classical Neandertals" since about 125,000 years ago stretched from western Europe all the way to the Levant in the Middle East and beyond the Crimean Peninsula towards Siberia. Behavior was influenced by climate, terrain, seasonal access to drinking water, the presence of game and other food-resources. Migrations patterns were influenced by the search for raw materials for stone tools.

Elmenteitan
The Elmenteitan culture was a prehistoric lithic industry and pottery tradition with a distinct pattern of land use, hunting and pastoral practice that appeared on the western plains of Kenya, East Africa during the Mesolithic.

Since the late Neolithic continuous food-production, animal domestication and morturary rituals are documented. Progress and growth and continuity is related to wetter periods of increased precipitation, caused by pleistocene fluctuations and retreaing ice sheets.

It was named by Louis Leakey after Lake Elmenteita (also Elementaita), a soda lake, located in the Great Rift Valley, about 120 km northwest of Nairobi.

Typical object and artifact assemblages include large double-edged obsidian microliths and blades, ceramic bowls and shallow stone vessels. Cattle and small stock was domesticated and and herded in combination with hunting, fishing and foraging. Patterns and degree of subsistence economy varied depending on the location and the local climate. Unlike earlier and contemporary cultures, such as the Highland Savanna PN, cremation of the dead took place in caves (Egerton Cave, Keringet Caves). The Njoro River Cave, first excavated in 1938 by Mary Leakey served as a mass-burial site. Associated finds include beads, blades, stone bowls, palettes and pottery vessels, that are interpreted as evidence for burial rituals.

The Elmenteitan was first described in 1931 by Louis Leakey who excavated at the Gamble's Cave and in 1938 at the Njoro River Cave. Leakey had noticed a locally distinct cluster of the lithic industry and a universal pottery tradition in a restricted area on the plains west of the central Great Rift Valley and at the Mau Escarpment. Many tool types are present that were common during the Aurignacian, but the Elmenteitan is distinguished by the high percentage of long symmetrical two-edged obsidian blades which were used unmodified and also served as blanks for a great variety of smaller tools.

All Elmenteitan excavation sites are associated with potsherds where pottery was fully developed. Ceramic vessels are mainly undecorated. Several rare, but very distinctive ornamental designs such as irregular punctuations and rim millings were found. Occationally small bowls with outturned rims, handles with holes or horizontal lugs were discovered.

The Canadian Arctic Tundra occupies the immediate regions north of the treeline in Canada's Arctic Lands. These territories encompass 2600000 km2, 26 % of the country's landmass, including the Arctic Coastal Plains, Arctic Lowlands and the Innuitian Region of the High Arctic. Tundra accounts for approximately 1420000 km2 at the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, northeastern Manitoba, northern Ontario, northern Quebec, northern Labrador and on 36,500 islands, of which Baffin Island with 422000 km2 is the largest.

Being part of the global tundra belt of the northern hemisphere Canada's tundra is characterized by extreme conditions with year round frozen grounds, long, cold winters, a very short growing season and precipitation lower than most deserts. The fact of low precipitation requires the classification of the tundra as a (cold) desert, yet permafrost causes even lower degrees of drainage and evaporation and as a result the ground, lakes and glaciers hold large quantities of fresh water.

Harsh environmental and weather conditions, slow growth, poor soils, lacking resources and nutrients, barly any variants of land forms support to highly adapted and migratory life forms only. Biodiversity is one dimensional and only sustainable for brief periods of appropriate conditions. Hundreds of species of flowering plants reproduce by budding and division rather than by interaction with insects.

Prolonged periods without sun light, frozen soils and strong winds prevent substantial tree growth. Lichen has developed a unique and alternative adaptation strategy, that does not depend on soils for growth. It is one of the most notable, widespread and enduring organisms of the tundra. This symbiotic life form has algae or cyanobacteria live among the filaments of a fungus and benefit from moisture, elementary nutrients and are protected from the environment. The photobiont's (algae) photosynthetic processes in turn generates organic carbon sugars for the fungus.

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Western imperialism in Asia
Western imperialism in Asia has its origins in European traders seeking unrestricted and independent trade with India and the Southeast Asian spice islands or the East Indies after the Ottoman empire had completely shut the Eurasian trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean by the late 15th century. This the Age of Discovery, and the introduction of early modern warfare into what was then called the Far East. By the early 16th century the Age of Sail greatly expanded Western European influence and development of the Spice Trade under colonialism. There has been a presence of Western European colonial empires and imperialism in Asia throughout six centuries of colonialism, formally ending with the independence of the Portuguese Empire's last colony East Timor in 2002. The empires introduced Western concepts of nation and the multinational state. This article attempts to outline the consequent development of the Western concept of the nation state.

The thrust of European political power, commerce, and culture in Asia gave rise to growing trade in commodities—a key development in the rise of today's modern world free market economy. In the 16th century, the Portuguese broke the (overland) monopoly of the Arabs and Italians of trade between Asia and Europe by the discovery of the sea route to India around the Cape of Good Hope. With the ensuing rise of the rival Dutch East India Company, Portuguese influence in Asia was gradually eclipsed. Dutch forces first established independent bases in the East (most significantly Batavia, the heavily fortified headquarters of the Dutch East India Company) and then between 1640 and 1660 wrestled Malacca, Ceylon, some southern Indian ports, and the lucrative Japan trade from the Portuguese. Later, the English and the French established settlements in India and established a trade with China and their own acquisitions would gradually surpass those of the Dutch. Following the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the British eliminated French influence in India and established the British East India Company as the most important political force on the Indian Subcontinent.

Before the Industrial Revolution in the mid-to-late 19th century, demand for oriental goods such as (porcelain, silk, spices and tea) remained the driving force behind European imperialism, and (with the important exception of British East India Company rule in India) the Western European stake in Asia remained confined largely to trading stations and strategic outposts necessary to protect trade. Industrialisation, however, dramatically increased European demand for Asian raw materials; and the severe Long Depression of the 1870s provoked a scramble for new markets for European industrial products and financial services in Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and especially in Asia. This scramble coincided with a new era in global colonial expansion known as "the New Imperialism", which saw a shift in focus from trade and indirect rule to formal colonial control of vast overseas territories ruled as political extensions of their mother countries. Between the 1870s and the beginning of World War I in 1914, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands—the established colonial powers in Asia—added to their empires vast expanses of territory in the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, and South East Asia. In the same period, the Empire of Japan, following the Meiji Restoration; the German Empire, following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; Tsarist Russia; and the United States, following the Spanish–American War in 1898, quickly emerged as new imperial powers in East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean area.

In Asia, World War I and World War II were played out as struggles among several key imperial powers—conflicts involving the European powers along with Russia and the rising American and Japanese powers. None of the colonial powers, however, possessed the resources to withstand the strains of both world wars and maintain their direct rule in Asia. Although nationalist movements throughout the colonial world led to the political independence of nearly all of the Asia's remaining colonies, decolonisation was intercepted by the Cold War; and South East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Asia remained embedded in a world economic, financial, and military system in which the great powers compete to extend their influence. However, the rapid post-war economic development of the East Asian Tigers, India, the People's Republic of China, along with the collapse of the Soviet Union, have loosened European and American influence in Asia, generating speculation today about emergence of modern India and China as potential superpowers.