The Forgotten King

Summary

One hundred and fifty years ago, a letter of correspondence was read aloud at a meeting of scientists in Newcastle, UK, boldly claiming for the first time that humans had not always been alone in their genus. William King, the Anglo-Irish geologist, was the first person to recognize Neanderthals as a separate species of Homo, and one of the first people to substantiate claims regarding the antiquity of man. He did not live long enough to see his proposition or name (Homo neanderthalensis) become accepted, and even now, with his foresight on the matter widely recognized, he is rarely afforded much more than a cursory description as a footnote in the history of Neanderthal research. This presentation provides a timely celebration of King and his contribution to Neanderthal studies.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

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