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Neanderthal, Germany
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Neanderthal (Neandertal) is a small valley of the river Düssel in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, between the cities of Erkrath and Mettmann, near the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia Düsseldorf. In 1856, the area became famous for the discovery of Neanderthal 1.
In 1901 an orthographic reform in Germany changed the spelling of Thal (valley) to Tal. The scientific name Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis for Neandertal man are not affected by this change, because the laws of taxonomy retain the original spelling at the time of naming.
The Neandertal was originally a scenic limestone canyon with waterfalls and caves. However, industrial mining during the 19th and 20th centuries removed almost all of the limestone and dramatically changed the shape of the valley. It was during such a mining operation that the bones of the original Neandertal man were found in a cave. Neither the cave nor the cliff in which it was located exist anymore.
The valley was named after Joachim Neander, the nom-de-plume of a 17th-century minister Joachim Neumann — Neander is the Greek translation of his name which means "new man". He lived nearby and loved the valley to give him the inspiration for his compositions. The former name was "Das Gesteins" ("The Rocks") or "Das Hundsklipp" ("Cliff of dogs").