Name of the valley close to Düsseldorf (Germany) where the first bones of Homo neanderthalensis (sometimes classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, depending on the palaeogenetic data) were found in 1856. Neanderthals appeared between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago and became extinct between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago. For some time, the two human species of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens co-existed.