While I was putting together materials pertaining to the spread of the Uralics and diffusion of Boreal Mesolithic cultures, A friend sent me a link which included pages from an issue of Current Anthropology on the Mesolithic of Eastern Europe.
One section of one page was startling enough that I reproduce it below:
View "A" is from above and "B" is from behind: both compare well to the common Neanderthal skull traits. I have added a dotted line to indicate where I take the demarkation of the brow ridges to be. These skulls all date within the period of 2000-4500 BC generally from the indicated cultural associations. Not as recent as some of the "relic hominid" skull and skeletal materials that are suggested in the literature-some of the finds might be as recent as the 1800s in North America and that is no joke. However these examples are consistent with the pattern and add to the growing list. In both Germany and in the former Soviet Union, skull and skeletal material of the same type is also reported from the succeding Bronze Age, possibly up to as recently as 1000 BC.
In going over the other pages I also found another example that was most suggestive:
The one in the middle has predominantly Neanderthaloid traits, relieved only slightly by the bulge of the forehead. In this example and the one at top, the transverse section through the cranium is distinctly broad and round, a Neanderthal trait. In this set I would also say number 9 has some distinctly African traits and number 15 central-Asiatic of the "Premongol" series.
Best Wishes, Dale D.
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