Re: Linnaeus --> von Linne (was RE: Albisaurus)

[Gerrit Hanenburg <G.Hanenburg@inter.NL.net>]

At 08:37 26-11-2002 +1100 Dann Pigdon wrote:

> > The custom of latinizing names was quite common in Europe in the Middle
> > Ages and up to the eighteenth century...
>
> I believe the Neander Valley was named after an eccentric German called
> Newman (that's the English spelling, probably not the original German)
> who called himself Neander (literally "new man").

More specifically Joachim Neander (1650-1680), teacher, poet, and composer.

> It was only later that
> hominid remains were found there. Hence Neanderthal - meaning "Neander
> Valley", and also (coincidently) "valley of the new man". Spooky...

The site has gained renewed interest in recent years since the discovery of 
the dump site in 1997. During excavations in 1997 and 2000 a total of 62 
new hominid skeletal remains have been recovered, three of which fit 
directly onto the Neanderthal 1 calotte discovered in 1856!

See:
Schmitz, R.W. et al. (2002). The Neandertal type site revisited: 
Interdisciplinary investigations of skeletal remains from the Neander 
Valley, Germany. PNAS 99: 13342-13347.

Gerrit