Neaderthal (Nefmaðurinn or Nýmannsdælir)

1) Nefmaðurinn ("The skulls of Neanderthals, a hominid species that lived contemporaneously with modern humans until 30.000 years ago, have much more robust feature than do modern humans and have the LARGEST NOSES of any hominin species, living or extinct." excerpt from "Faces Around the World: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the Human Face" by Margo DeMello) See also: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41074946/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/neanderthal-nose-enigma-why-so-big/ The extremely large nose of the Neanderthal is sufficiently distinctive a characteristic to found a term upon.


2) Nýmannsdælir The valley this particular hominide is named after was in its turn named after a certain "Neander", the pseudonym of Joachim Neumann, the Greek calque of his family name to be specific: a German hymn writer: (Greek 'nea' (new) + andros (man). If it is reasonable to create a loan-translation of a family name into Greek, what would be wrong in producing an Icelandic equivalent: "Nýmanns-", which means that the valley could reasonably be translated as "Nýmannsdalur" and the name of the there found hominide species would then be "nýmannsdælir", equivalent to German 'Neanderthaler'.