The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as "simian" or "ape-like" by Marcellin Boule and Arthur Keith.
Le Moustier Neanderthals (Charles R. Knight, 1920)
Caveman hunting a brown bear. Book illustration by unknown artist for The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone (1907).
Cavemen anachronistically fighting a dinosaur on the cover of an issue of Action Stories (1940).
Neanderthals are an extinct group of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago.
The type specimen, Neanderthal 1, was found in 1856 in the Neander Valley in present-day Germany.
Neanderthal
The site of Kleine Feldhofer Grotte where Neanderthal 1 was discovered
Ernst Haeckel's Primate family tree showing H. stupidus (Neanderthal) as the ancestor to H. sapiens
Skullcap of Neanderthal 1, the type specimen, at the Musée de l'Homme, Paris