Gibraltar Neanderthals and results of recent excavations in Gorham’s, Vanguard and Ibex Caves R.N.E BARTON, A.P. CURRANT, Y. FERNANDEZ- JALVO, J.C. FINLAYSON, P. GOLDBERG, R. MACPHAIL, P.B. PETTITT & C.B. STRINGER* In December 1998, we presented a Special section on great finds and publications of 1848. The discovery of the Gibraltar skull was in that famous year, Now, 150 years later, new excavations and a recent conference have once again focused interest on this, the first place where Neanderthal remains were found. Key-words: Gibraltar, palaeontology, Middle-Upper Palaeolithic, Neanderthal Introduction and background Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the accidental discovery of the ‘Gibraltar skull’ (FIG- URE I), blasted out during work at Forbes’ Quarry, below the North Face of the Rock (Busk 1865). The find, which probably came from a lime- stone breccia (Busk 1865) was presented on 3 March 1848 to the Gibraltar Scientific Society by its secretary, Lieutenant Edmund Flint of the Royal Artillery. The discovery very nearly placed Gibraltar at the forefront of 19th-century early human studies. But for a quirk of fate, which left the significance of the cranium un- disclosed for a further 16 years, the find might have led to a very different naming of one of the earliest Neanderthal skeletal remains known to science. In 1864, the cranium was sent to England where it was exhibited by George Busk in Sep- tember at the British Association for the Ad- vancement of Science meeting in Bath. At the meeting, the eminent scientist, Hugh Falconer recognized the fossil as ‘a very low type of humanity - very low and savage, and of ex- treme antiquity’. He suggested that it be made the type of a new human species Homo var. calpicus, named after Mons Calpe (Gibraltar). But the specimen and the proposal were eclipsed by the publication in the same year of the spe- cies name Homo neanderthalensis, by William King, based on the Neander Valley (Feldhofer) skeleton from Germany, which had been found in 1856. Unfortunately, even today, the exact provenance of the Gibraltar skull is uncertain, and without a context it will require coupled ESR/Uranium Series dating on a tooth-enamel fragment, or direct gamma-ray dating, to esti- mate its real age. Nevertheless, it remains one of the best-preserved Neanderthal crania yet found, and as it probably represents a female individual, it provides valuable data on Nean- derthal skeletal variation. A second significant Neanderthal find was made in Gibraltar in 1926, at the Devil’s Tower site, surrounding a cleft in the North Face lime- stone, not far east of Forbes’ Quarry (Garrod et * Barton, Department of Anthropology, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, Oxford OX3 OBP, England. Currant & Fernandez-Jalvo, Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London sw7 5BD, England. Finlayson, The Gibraltar Museum, 18-20 Bomb House Lane, Gibraltar. Goldberg, Department of Archaeology, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston MA 02215, USA. Macphail, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WClH OPY, England. Pettitt, Research Laboratory for Archaeology 8r the History of Art, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, Oxford ox1 3~l, England. Stringer, Human Origins Group, Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London sw7 5BD, England. Received 28 August 1998, accepted 30 October 1998 ANTIQUITY 73 (1999):13-23