The first account of the Neanderthal remains (Neanderthal 1), discovered in 1856 in the the Feldhofer cave of the Neander valley. The remains, which consist of a partial skull, pelvis and assorted long bones, were sent to Johann Carl Fuhlrott, a science teacher in Elberfeld, who immediately recognized that they were a previously unknown type of human. This conclusion was borne out by Hermann Schaaffhausen, a physician and anthropologist in Bonn to whom Fuhlrott sent a cast of the cranium. Over the winter of 1856–57 Schaaffhausen examined the Neanderthal bones in detail, and in 1857 he and Fuhlrott published preliminary announcements of the discovery in the Verhandl. des naturhis. Vereines des preuss. Rheinlande und Westphalens. Fuhlrott’s account appears on page l. 

The first comprehensive description of the Neanderthal skull, following Schaaffhausen’s and Fuhlrott’s preliminary announcements of the discovery in the Verhandlungen des naturhistorischen Vereines der preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens. The Neanderthal I skull discovered in 1856 was the first human fossil skull morphologically distinct from the skulls of modern Homo sapiens, to be discovered. English translation, with comments, by G. Busk entitled “On the crania of the most ancient races of man” in Nat. Hist. Rev., 1861, 1, 155-76. Huxley (No. 165) made much of this discovery; however, because the skull was not unearthed from demonstrably ancient strata, its age was disputed until Julian Fraipont and Max Lohest reported more rigorously unearthed find of Neanderthals at Spy in Belgium in 1886.