De onderkaak van Ellewoutsdijk. Neanderthaler of mens?

Abstract

The collector Guilonard found a human mandible amongst shells that were sucked up from the Westerschelde near Ellewoutsdijk in 1957. Physical anthropologist prof. dr. J. Huizinga, of Utrecht University, thought that this mandible possibly belonged to a Neanderthal.There was doubt, and a scientific description of this mandible never appeared. In the course of years, the original mandible of Ellewoutsdijk was lost. Luckily, saved casts of this mandible are present in the Universiteitsmuseum Utrecht. It turns out, from a morphological research of twelve Neanderthal characteristics, that the absence of a chin of the mandible of Ellewoutsdijk constitutes the strongest argument to attribute this mandible to a Neanderthal. However, the majority of the reviewed characteristics of Ellewoutsdijk matches the morphology of humans stronger than that of Neanderthals.The question arises, if the remarkable morphological situation of the mandible of Ellewoutsdijk “reminds” us of Neanderthals as a result of hybridisation in previous generations.