Gibraltar 2
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| Common name | Gibraltar 2 |
|---|---|
| Species | Homo neanderthalensis |
| Place discovered | Devil's Tower Mousterian Rock Shelter, Gibraltar |
| Date discovered | 1926 |
| Discovered by | Dorothy Garrod |
Gibraltar 2, also known as Devil's Tower Child, represented five skull fragments of a female Neanderthal child discovered in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The discovery of the fossils at the Devil's Tower Mousterian rock shelter was made by archaeologist Dorothy Garrod in 1926. It represented the second excavation of a Neanderthal skull in Gibraltar, after Gibraltar 1, the second Neanderthal skull ever found (after Engis 2). In the early twenty-first century, Gibraltar 2 underwent reconstruction. Continued excavation in Gibraltar, combined with radiocarbon dating of charcoal from Gorham's Cave in 2006, has led to the conclusion that the caves may have represented the last refuge of the last surviving Neanderthals.
Prehistoric man resided in Gibraltar, the British Overseas Territory at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula. The evidence was first found in the Devil's Tower Road area, at Forbes' Quarry, in the north face of the Rock of Gibraltar. This was the site of the 1848 discovery of the first Neanderthal skull by Lieutenant Edmund Flint (d. 12 January 1857) of the Royal Artillery. The fossil, an adult female skull, is referred to as Gibraltar 1 or the Gibraltar Skull (pictured at left). Neanderthals were unknown at the time that the fossil was found. Lieutenant Flint, secretary of the Gibraltar Scientific Society, presented his discovery to the organisation on 3 March 1848. Eight years later, in 1856, fossils were discovered in a cave of the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, Germany. Those remains were described in 1864 as Homo neanderthalensis by Professor W. King of Queen's College, Galway, now University College. Later that year, the Gibraltar Skull was sent to England and exhibited by George Busk at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, with its similarity to the Neander Valley fossils noted. However, it wasn't until the early twentieth century that it was realized that Gibraltar 1 was the skull of a Neanderthal. If the skull's significance had been understood in the nineteenth century, Neanderthal Man would probably have been termed "Gibraltar Man".
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