Archaic humans evolved from Homo erectus about 600 000 years ago and lived in Africa and Eurasia from 150 000 to 30 000 years ago. Of these, the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) lived in Europe from 150 000 to 30 000 years ago.
Cranial capacity during this stage was little different from modern humans at 1200 - 1600 ml and during the later stages Mousterian and other complex stone tools were produced. The reconstruction is of an adult male Homo neanderthalensis (La Ferrassie 1) discovered from the La Ferrassie rock shelter in the Dordogne region of France in 1910. The physique is very robust and the cranial capacity is larger than the average of contemporary humans.
Photo and text from the National Science Museum in Tokyo website, at http://shinkan.kahaku.go.jp/floor/b2f_en.jsp
