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The species was named by geologist William King in his 1864 species description The Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal after having introduced the term Homo Neanderthalensis King one year earlier giving a lecture at the British Association for the Advancement of Science.{{cite web|url=http://www.boneandstone.com/articles_classics/king_1864.pdf |title=The Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal. by Professor Wiiliam King |publisher= Bone and Stone |date= |accessdate=September 26, 2016}}William King: On the Neanderthal Skull, or Reasons for believing it to belong to the Clydian Period and to a species different from that represented by Man. In: British Association for the Advancement of Science, Notices and Abstracts for 1863, Part II, London, 1864, p. 81 f.William King: The Neanderthal Skull. In: The Anthropological Review. Vol. 1, Nr. 3, 1863, S. 393–394, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3024846.pdf?_=1464700412077 full text (PDF)] The type specimen Neanderthal 1 was only discovered in 1856 in a limestone grotto in the Neandertal (Neander-valley, spelled Neanderthal before the 1901 German spelling reform), {{convert|12|km|mi|abbr=on}} east of Düsseldorf, Germany.Kunzig, Robert. [http://discovermagazine.com/1998/jan/theyearinscience1346 "The Year in Science: Human Origins 1997"], Discover (magazine) (January 1, 1998) reprinted in [https://books.google.com/books?id=6B37S4LW1MIC Contemporary Readings in Physical Anthropology], p. 145 (Alan Almquist ed., Prentice Hall, 2000)

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The first recorded Neanderthal fossil of a partial skull and some associated fragments, later dubbed Engis 2 was discovered in 1829 by Dutch physician and naturalist Philippe-Charles Schmerling in the Awirs Cave, just north of the Belgian municipality Engis{{cite web |url=http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/3d-collection/engis-2 |title= Engis 2 | publisher= Smithsonian Institution |date= |accessdate=September 27, 2015}} and professionally described in 1833.Philippe-Charles Schmerling: Recherches sur les ossements fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de la Province de Liège. P.-J. Collardin, Liège 1833, pp. 1–66{{cite web |url=https://www.nespos.org/display/PublicNesposSpace/Engis+3+-+individuum+Engis+2 |title= Engis 3 - individuum Engis 2 - Public NESPOS Space | publisher= NESPOS Society |date= |accessdate=September 27, 2015}} The second fossil Gibraltar 1, was discovered by Captain Edmund Flint in the Forbes' Quarry of Gibraltar in 1848. Both findings received only little attention and were misunderstood as to represent early forms or pathologically developed, abnormal human individuals.Thomas Henry Huxley: On some fossil remains of man. chapter 3 in: Evidence as to man's place in nature. D. Appleton and Company, New York 1863 A universal definition of species-specific characteristics of species in the genus Homo did not exist in the early 19th century. Methodical recognition of distinct and extinct species only began after Charles Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859.Thomas Henry Huxley: On some fossil remains of man. Kapitel 3 in: Evidence as to man's place in nature. D. Appleton and Company, New York 1863

The 1856 in a limestone quarry - the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte in the Neandertal discovered type specimen consisted of a skull cap, two femora, three bones from the right arm, two from the left arm, part of the left ilium, fragments of a scapula, and ribs. These quickly came into possession of local teacher and amateur naturalist Johann Carl Fuhlrott, who studied the fossil in co-operation with anatomist Hermann Schaaffhausen. The jointly made publication in 1857 represents the beginning of paleoanthropology as a scientific discipline.{{cite web |url=http://archaeologyinfo.com/homo-neanderthalensis/ |title=Homo neanderthalensis |publisher=Patrick Johnson | date= |accessdate=September 26, 2016}}{{cite web |url=http://www.pnas.org/content/96/13/7117.full |title= Hominids and hybrids: The place of Neanderthals in human evolution by Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey H. Schwartz | publisher= National Academy of Sciences |date= |accessdate=September 26, 2016}} The scholarly community remained divided for another 30 years until the discovery of two well preserved and almost complete Neanderthal skeletons in Spy/Belgium in 1886 lead to general recognition of the species.Ian Tattersall: Neandertaler. Der Streit um unsere Ahnen. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1999, S. 81, {{ISBN|3-7643-6051-8}}.

Altamura Man (between 128.000 and 187.000 years old) is the oldest fossil of the Neanderthal lineage, that has yielded a reliable DNA sequence.{{Cite web|url = http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/calcified-altamura-man-oldest-neanderthal-dna-sample-020285 | title= Calcified remains of Altamura Man yield oldest ever Neanderthal DNA sample | publisher=Ancient Origins | date=April 4, 2015 | accessdate=September 3, 2016 }} Older specimen are until recently interpreted and classified based on morphology and metric analyses. 430.000 years old skull fossils recovered from the Sima de los Huesos cave have proto-Neanderthal features, such as "the beginning of a prominent brow ridge, a distinctive jaw shape and patterns of cusps on the teeth, [but] lack other traits that define the species — notably a large cranium".{{cite web|url=http://www.nature.com/news/pit-of-bones-catches-neanderthal-evolution-in-the-act-1.15430 |title='Pit of bones' catches Neanderthal evolution in the act |publisher=Nature |date=June 19, 2014 |accessdate=September 27, 2016}}{{cite web |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oldest-ancient-human-dna-details-dawn-of-neandertals/ |title= Oldest Ancient-Human DNA Details Dawn of Neandertals | publisher= SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN |date=March 14, 2016 |accessdate=September 26, 2016}}{{cite web |url=http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-heidelbergensis |title= Homo heidelbergensis - Comparison of Neanderthal and modern human DNA suggests that the two lineages diverged from a common ancestor, most likely Homo heidelbergensis | publisher= Smithsonian Institution |date= |accessdate=September 26, 2016}} DNA tests confirm that these skulls represent early Neanderthals.{{cite web|url=http://www.nature.com/news/oldest-ancient-human-dna-details-dawn-of-neanderthals-1.19557 |title=Oldest ancient-human DNA details dawn of Neanderthals |publisher=Nature |date=March 14, 2016 |accessdate=September 27, 2016}} Anthropologists debate over whether the species evolved from Homo heidelbergensis, or from what some researchers call "a controversial species" - Homo antecessor.{{cite web|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/homo-antecessor-common-ancestor-of-humans-and-neanderthals-143357767/?no-ist |title=Homo antecessor: Common Ancestor of Humans and Neanderthals? |publisher=Smithsonian |date=November 26, 2012 |accessdate=September 27, 2016}}

"Not quite Neanderthals, the Sima de los Huesos humans probably represent one of many small, isolated groups that dotted the European continent at the time, notes Jean-Jacques Hublin, a palaeoanthropologistat at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Such isolation is ideal for anatomical features to be established by chance, and this genetic drift could explain many of the attributes that would later define Neanderthals."

Fossils found in Tourville-la-Rivière,{{cite web|url=http://www.lemonde.fr/archeologie/article/2014/10/09/le-bras-d-un-pre-neandertalien-trouve-en-bord-de-seine_4503785_1650751.html |title=Le bras d'un pré-Néandertalien trouvé au bord de la Seine] » |publisher=Le Monde |date=October 9, 2014 |accessdate=September 28, 2016}} the 400.000 year old Tautavel Man, the 600.000 year old mandible Mauer 1 and the Petralona skull have all been attributed to the Neanderthal lineage, although only based on morphological and metric analyses.{{cite journal|title=Middle Pleistocene Human Remains from Tourville-la-Rivière (Normandy, France) and Their Archaeological Context |journal=PLOS ONE |date=October 8, 2014 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0104111 |doi-access=free |last1=Faivre |first1=Jean-Philippe |last2=Maureille |first2=Bruno |last3=Bayle |first3=Priscilla |last4=Crevecoeur |first4=Isabelle |last5=Duval |first5=Mathieu |last6=Grün |first6=Rainer |last7=Bemilli |first7=Céline |last8=Bonilauri |first8=Stéphanie |last9=Coutard |first9=Sylvie |last10=Bessou |first10=Maryelle |last11=Limondin-Lozouet |first11=Nicole |last12=Cottard |first12=Antoine |last13=Deshayes |first13=Thierry |last14=Douillard |first14=Aurélie |last15=Henaff |first15=Xavier |last16=Pautret-Homerville |first16=Caroline |last17=Kinsley |first17=Les |last18=Trinkaus |first18=Erik |volume=9 |issue=10 |pages=e104111 |pmid=25295956 |pmc=4189787 }}

Scientists to this day debate over whether Neanderthals should be classified as a distinct species - Homo neanderthalensis - or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the latter placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of H. sapiens.{{cite journal |doi=10.1073/pnas.96.13.7117 |title=Hominids and hybrids: The place of Neanderthals in human evolution |year=1999 |last1=Tattersall |first1=Ian |last2=Schwartz |first2=Jeffrey H. |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=96 |issue=13 |pages=7117–9 |jstor=48019 |bibcode=1999PNAS...96.7117T |pmid=10377375 |pmc=33580|doi-access=free }}{{cite journal |doi=10.1073/pnas.96.13.7604 |title=The early Upper Paleolithic human skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) and modern human emergence in Iberia |year=1999 |last1=Duarte |first1=Cidália |last2=Mauricio |first2=João |last3=Pettitt |first3=Paul B. |last4=Souto |first4=Pedro |last5=Trinkaus |first5=Erik |last6=Van Der Plicht |first6=Hans |last7=Zilhao |first7=João |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=96 |issue=13 |pages=7604–9 |jstor=48106 |bibcode=1999PNAS...96.7604D |pmid=10377462 |pmc=22133|doi-access=free }} During the early 20th century the prevailing view has been heavily influenced by Arthur Keith and Marcellin Boule, who wrote the first scientific description of a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton. {{cite web | url=https://archive.org/stream/lhommefossiledel00boul#page/n1/mode/2up | title =L'homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints - full text - Volume VI (p. 11–172), Volume VII (p. 21–56), Volume VIII (p. 1–70), 1911–1913 | publisher =Royal College of Surgeons of England | date= |accessdate=July 26, 2016 }} Senior members of their respective national paleontological institutes and among the most eminent paleoanthropologists of their time,{{cite web | url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcellin-Boule | title =Marcellin Boule - French geologist | publisher =Encyclopædia Britannica | date= |accessdate=July 26, 2016 }}{{cite web | url=https://www.therai.org.uk/search?q=Arthur+Keith&Search= | title =Arthur Keith | publisher =Royal Anthropological Institute | date= |accessdate=July 26, 2016 }} both men argued that this "primitive" Neanderthal could not be a direct ancestor of modern man. This idea was reflected in an erroneous and inaccurate reconstruction of the Neanderthal findings of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, mounted in a crooked pose with a deformed and heavily curved spine and legs buckled.{{cite web | url=http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/fossils/la-chapelle-aux-saints | title =La Chapelle-Aux-Saints - The old man of La Chapelle - The original reconstruction of the 'Old Man of La Chapelle' by scientist Pierre Marcellin Boule led to the reason why popular culture stereotyped Neanderthals as dim-witted brutes for so many years. | publisher =Smithsonian Institution | date= |accessdate=July 26, 2016 }}

During the 1930s scholars Ernst Mayr, George Gaylord Simpson and Theodosius Dobzhansky reinterpreted the existing fossil record and came to different conclusions.{{cite web | url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-neandertal-brethren/ | title =Our Neandertal Brethren: Why They Were Not a Separate Species | publisher =SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN | date=August 1, 2010 |accessdate=July 26, 2016 }} Neanderthal man was classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis - an early subspecies of what was now called Homo sapiens sapiens. The obviously unbroken succession of fossil sites of both subspecies in Europe was considered evidence that there was a slow and gradual evolutionary transition from Neanderthals to modern humans. Contextual interpretations of similar excavation sites in Asia lead to the hypothesis of multiregional origin of modern man in the 1980s.{{cite journal | last1=Wolpoff | first1=MH | last2=Hawks |first2=J |authorlink2=John D. Hawks |last3=Caspari |first3=R | year=2000 | title=Multiregional, not multiple origins | journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology | volume=112 | issue=1 | pages=129–36 | url=http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wolpoff/Papers/Multiregional.PDF |doi=10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(200005)112:1<129::AID-AJPA11>3.0.CO;2-K |pmid=10766948| hdl=2027.42/34270 }}

Current scientific ideas hold that both species evolved from a common African ancestor - Homo erectus. Fossil and tool finds support the idea that during the first migration wave of around 2 million years ago small groups of Homo erectus left Africa via the Levant, the Black Sea area into Georgia (fossils of Dmanisi) and possibly via North-western Africa towards southern Spain. The 1.2 million years old fragmented finds in Spain are referred to as Homo antecessor by their discoverers and considered to be the ancestors of Neanderthal. This interpretation, however, is controversial.

Some 600,000 years ago a second propagation wave of African Homo erectus took place. Skulls from that period found in Spain for example, suggest a brain volume of between 1100 ccm to 1450 ccm. The brain volume of fossils from the first propagation wave is however estimated only to be slightly above 1000 ccm. Homo erectus that arrived in Europe in the second wave of colonization developed into Neanderthals through the intermediate Homo heidelbergensis. Since about 200,000 years ago in Africa the so-called early anatomically modern humans descended from the local Homo erectus through the intermediate Homo rhodesiensis. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA studies has been interpreted as evidence Neanderthals were not a subspecies of H. sapiens.{{Cite journal|author=Hedges SB |title=Human evolution. A start for population genomics |journal=Nature |volume=408 |issue=6813 |pages=652–3 |date=December 2000|pmid=11130051 |doi=10.1038/35047193 |s2cid=3240904 |url= }} Others, for example University of Cambridge Professor Paul Mellars, say "no evidence has been found of cultural interaction".{{Cite news|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1450949.htm |title=Modern humans, Neanderthals shared earth for 1,000 years |date=1 September 2005 |accessdate=19 September 2006 |publisher=ABC News (Australia) |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060115225948/http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1450949.htm |archivedate=January 15, 2006 }}

Debated remains the period when the Neanderthal lineage separated from the lineage that lead to modern man. In 2010 a period between 440,000 - 270,000 years B.P. was calculated by the molecular clock method. However, the reliability of molecular clocks is questionable as dating determined by stratigraphic methods varies considerably from those determined using the molecular clock. In 2012 recalculation of the mutation rates revealed evidence of a much earlier separation between 800,000 and 400,000 years ago.

Neanderthals are after H. sapiens the best documented hominin species as they habitually occupied limestone caves and rock shelters, locations with a high fossilization and preservation ratio for bones, artefacts and fire places. The bones of over 400 specimen have been found since the early 19th century.{{cite web|url=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070912154630.htm | title= New Evidence On The Role Of Climate In Neanderthal Extinction - The bones of more than 400 Neanderthals have been found since... | publisher= Science Daily |date=September 13, 2007 |accessdate=October 12, 2016}}

The behavioral patterns of the Neanderthals are inferred from their anatomy in combination with the fossil record, the remains and debris they left behind at caves, rock shelters and a number of open air settlements. On the contrary behavior has become the key factor in explaining the variability of the archaeological record.

Neanderthals shared a number of important characteristics with modern humans, such as large brains, manual dexterity and bipedal walking ability, tool use and production, which requires a certain degree of social sophistication. However, Neanderthals lived in relatively small and territorial more isolated groups. Generally small sites and the considerable depth of bone and debris pits suggests that they frequently migrated but retured to the same locations often.{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Neanderthal/Neanderthal-behaviour |title=NEANDERTHAL BEHAVIOUR |publisher=encyclopaedia britannica |date=|accessdate=October 13, 2016}}

The materials left behind show only minor variations among sites and their foraging systems were considerably less efficient than those of modern human hunter-gatherers, without planned differential use of the landscape necessitating more-muscular limbs and greater endurance.{{cite web|url=http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/neanderthal-behavior-59267999 |title=Neanderthal Behavior |publisher=Nature |date=|accessdate=October 13, 2016}}{{cite web|url=http://www.livescience.com/28036-neanderthals-facts-about-our-extinct-human-relatives.html |title=Neanderthals: Facts About Our Extinct Human Relatives |publisher=Live Science |date=April 13, 2016|accessdate=October 13, 2016}}{{cite web|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rethinking-neanderthals-83341003/?no-ist=&page=2 |title=Rethinking Neanderthals |publisher=Smithsonian |date=April 13, 2016|accessdate=October 13, 2016}}

Habitat and culture of "classical Neandertals" since about 125,000 years ago stretched from western Europe all the way to the Levant in the Middle East and beyond the Crimean Peninsula towards Siberia.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oA7iMFhbvBYC&dq=Neanderthal+behavior&pg=PA1 |title=High Resolution Archaeology and Neanderthal Behavior: Time and Space in ...edited by Eudald Carbonell i Roura |date=13 March 2012|isbn=9789400739222 |accessdate=October 13, 2016|last1=Roura |first1=Eudald Carbonell I. }} Behavior was influenced by climate, terrain, seasonal access to drinking water, the presence of game and other food-resources. Migrations patterns were influenced by the search for raw materials for stone tools.

{{

Infobox archaeological culture

|name = Elmenteitan

|map = Lake Elmenteita satellite image.png

|mapalt = Lake Elmenteita satellite image

|altnames = Elmenteitan Culture

|horizon =

|region = Kenya, Africa

|period = Mesolithic, Neolithic

|dates = around 3,300 to 1,300 BP

|typesite = Gamble's Cave

|majorsites = Gamble's Cave, Gogo Falls, Njoro River Cave

|extra =

|precededby = Kenya Stillbay, Highland Savanna PN

|followedby = Kenya Wilton

}}

The Elmenteitan culture was a prehistoric lithic industry and pottery tradition with a distinct pattern of land use, hunting and pastoral practice that appeared on the western plains of Kenya, East Africa during the Mesolithic.{{cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/124525 |title= The Elmenteitan: An Early Food-Producing Culture in East Africa | publisher= Jstor |jstor= 124525 |accessdate=December 6, 2016|last1= Robertshaw |first1= Peter |journal= World Archaeology |year= 1988 |volume= 20 |issue= 1 |pages= 57–69 |doi= 10.1080/00438243.1988.9980056 }}

Since the late Neolithic continuous food-production, animal domestication and morturary rituals are documented. Progress and growth and continuity is related to wetter periods of increased precipitation, caused by pleistocene fluctuations and retreaing ice sheets.{{cite web |url=http://alexandriaarchive.org/bonecommons/archive/files/giffordgonzalez_icaz2010_0d1a567ef4.pdf |title= East African Pastoralism: Routes, Outcomes, Questions | publisher= Alexandria Archive |date= |accessdate=December 6, 2016}}{{cite web |url=http://alexandriaarchive.org/bonecommons/archive/files/giffordgonzalez_icaz2010_0d1a567ef4.pdf |title= East African Pastoralism: Routes, Outcomes, Questions | publisher= Alexandria Archive |date= |accessdate=December 6, 2016}}

It was named by Louis Leakey after Lake Elmenteita (also Elementaita), a soda lake, located in the Great Rift Valley, about {{convert|120|km|mi|0|abbr=on}} northwest of Nairobi.{{cite web |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Elmenteitan |title= Definition of Elmenteitan | publisher= Merriam Webster Dictionary |date= |accessdate=December 6, 2016}}

Typical object and artifact assemblages include large double-edged obsidian microliths and blades, ceramic bowls and shallow stone vessels. Cattle and small stock was domesticated and and herded in combination with hunting, fishing and foraging. Patterns and degree of subsistence economy varied depending on the location and the local climate.{{cite web |url=http://www.archaeologywordsmith.com/lookup.php?terms=Elmenteitan |title= Elmenteitan | publisher= Archaeology Wordsmith |date= |accessdate=December 6, 2016}}{{cite web |url=http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/23464 |title= A contribution to the study of subsistence patterns of elmenteitan populations with reference to animal bones from Gogo falls in Sourh Nyanza District, Kenya | publisher= University of Nairobi Digital Archive |date= |accessdate=December 8, 2016}} Unlike earlier and contemporary cultures, such as the Highland Savanna PN, cremation of the dead took place in caves (Egerton Cave, Keringet Caves). The Njoro River Cave, first excavated in 1938 by Mary Leakey served as a mass-burial site. Associated finds include beads, blades, stone bowls, palettes and pottery vessels, that are interpreted as evidence for burial rituals.{{cite web |url=http://www.actforlibraries.org/archaeological-sites-njoro-river-cave/ |title= Archaeological Sites Njoro River Cave | publisher= Act For Libraries |date= |accessdate=December 6, 2016}}

The Elmenteitan was first described in 1931 by Louis Leakey who excavated at the Gamble's Cave and in 1938 at the Njoro River Cave. Leakey had noticed a locally distinct cluster of the lithic industry and a universal pottery tradition in a restricted area on the plains west of the central Great Rift Valley and at the Mau Escarpment.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kJMFMpoHuVgC&dq=elmenteitan&pg=PA127 |title= The Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History by Christopher Ehret, Merrick Posnansky |date= January 1982|isbn= 9780520045934 |accessdate=December 8, 2016|last1= Ehret |first1= Christopher |last2= Posnansky |first2= Merrick }} Many tool types are present that were common during the Aurignacian, but the Elmenteitan is distinguished by the high percentage of long symmetrical two-edged obsidian blades which were used unmodified and also served as blanks for a great variety of smaller tools.{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mtOhAwAAQBAJ&dq=elmenteitan&pg=PA369 |title= The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns y Bassey Andah, Alex Okpoko, Thurstan Shaw |date= |accessdate=December 8, 2016}}

All Elmenteitan excavation sites are associated with potsherds where pottery was fully developed.

Ceramic vessels are mainly undecorated. Several rare, but very distinctive ornamental designs such as irregular punctuations and rim millings were found. Occationally small bowls with outturned rims, handles with holes or horizontal lugs were discovered.

{{cite web |url=http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/content/part/EANHS/Nos.%2042-43_200_1931_Leakey.pdf |title= NOTES ON THE STONE AGE CULTURES OF EAST AFRICA. By L. S. B. LEAKEY,Ph.D., F.S.A. | publisher= Biodiversity Library |date= |accessdate=December 8, 2016}}

----

The Canadian Arctic Tundra occupies the immediate regions north of the treeline in Canada's Arctic Lands. These territories encompass {{convert|2600000|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}}, 26 % of the country's landmass, including the Arctic Coastal Plains, Arctic Lowlands and the Innuitian Region of the High Arctic . Tundra accounts for approximately {{convert|1420000|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}} at the Yukon, the [[Northwest

Territories]], Nunavut, northeastern Manitoba, northern Ontario,

northern Quebec, northern Labrador and on 36,500 islands, of which Baffin Island with {{convert|422000|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}} is the largest.{{cite web |url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/physiographic-regions/ |title= Physiographic Regions | publisher= The Canadian Encyclopedia |date= |accessdate=December 9, 2016}}

Being part of the global tundra belt of the northern hemisphere Canada's tundra is characterized by extreme conditions with year round frozen grounds, long, cold winters, a very short growing season and precipitation lower than most deserts. The fact of low precipitation requires the classification of the tundra as a (cold) desert, yet permafrost causes even lower degrees of drainage and evaporation and as a result the ground, lakes and glaciers hold large quantities of fresh water.

Harsh environmental and weather conditions, slow growth, poor soils, lacking resources and nutrients, barly any variants of land forms support to highly adapted and migratory life forms only. Biodiversity is one dimensional and only sustainable for brief periods of appropriate conditions. Hundreds of species of flowering plants reproduce by budding and division rather than by interaction with insects.

{{cite web |url=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/tundra.php#arctic |title= The tundra biome | publisher= California Academy of Sciences |date= |accessdate=December 9, 2016}}{{cite web |url=http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/ecoregions/canadian_lowarctic_tundra.cfm |title= Canadian Low Arctic Tundra - About the Area | publisher= World Wide Fund For Nature |date= |accessdate=December 9, 2016}}

Prolonged periods without sun light, frozen soils and strong winds prevent substantial tree growth.{{cite web |url=http://study.com/academy/lesson/tundra-biome-climate-locations-plants-animals.html |title= Tundra Biome: Climate, Locations, Plants & Animals

| publisher= Study.com |date= |accessdate=December 9, 2016}} Lichen has developed a unique and alternative adaptation strategy, that does not depend on soils for growth. It is one of the most notable, widespread and enduring organisms of the tundra. This symbiotic life form has algae or cyanobacteria live among the filaments of a fungus and benefit from moisture, elementary nutrients and are protected from the environment. The photobiont's (algae) photosynthetic processes in turn generates organic carbon sugars for the fungus.

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{{New Imperialism}}

Western imperialism in Asia has its origins in European traders seeking unrestricted and independent trade with India and the Southeast Asian spice islands or the East Indies after the Ottoman empire had completely shut the Eurasian trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean by the late 15th century. This the Age of Discovery, and the introduction of early modern warfare into what was then called the Far East. By the early 16th century the Age of Sail greatly expanded Western European influence and development of the Spice Trade under colonialism. There has been a presence of Western European colonial empires and imperialism in Asia throughout six centuries of colonialism, formally ending with the independence of the Portuguese Empire's last colony East Timor in 2002. The empires introduced Western concepts of nation and the multinational state. This article attempts to outline the consequent development of the Western concept of the nation state.

The thrust of European political power, commerce, and culture in Asia gave rise to growing trade in commodities—a key development in the rise of today's modern world free market economy. In the 16th century, the Portuguese broke the (overland) monopoly of the Arabs and Italians of trade between Asia and Europe by the discovery of the sea route to India around the Cape of Good Hope.M. Weisner-Hanks, Early Modern Europe 1450–1789 (Cambridge, 2006) With the ensuing rise of the rival Dutch East India Company, Portuguese influence in Asia was gradually eclipsed.{{#tag:ref| For fifty or sixty years, the Portuguese enjoyed the exclusive trade to China and Japan. In 1717, and again in 1732, the Chinese government offered to make Macao the emporium for all foreign trade, and to receive all duties on imports; but, by a strange infatuation, the Portuguese government refused, and its decline is dated from that period.{{cite book |last=Roberts|first=Edmund |authorlink=Edmund Roberts (diplomat) |title=Embassy to the Eastern courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat : in the U. S. sloop-of-war Peacock ... during the years 1832-3-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aSgPAAAAYAAJ |date=Digitized 12 October 2007 |origyear=First published in 1837 |publisher=Harper & brothers |oclc=12212199 |at=image 173, p.166}}|group="nb"}} Dutch forces first established independent bases in the East (most significantly Batavia, the heavily fortified headquarters of the Dutch East India Company) and then between 1640 and 1660 wrestled Malacca, Ceylon, some southern Indian ports, and the lucrative Japan trade from the Portuguese. Later, the English and the French established settlements in India and established a trade with China and their own acquisitions would gradually surpass those of the Dutch. Following the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the British eliminated French influence in India and established the British East India Company as the most important political force on the Indian Subcontinent.

Before the Industrial Revolution in the mid-to-late 19th century, demand for oriental goods such as (porcelain, silk, spices and tea) remained the driving force behind European imperialism, and (with the important exception of British East India Company rule in India) the Western European stake in Asia remained confined largely to trading stations and strategic outposts necessary to protect trade. Industrialisation, however, dramatically increased European demand for Asian raw materials; and the severe Long Depression of the 1870s provoked a scramble for new markets for European industrial products and financial services in Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and especially in Asia. This scramble coincided with a new era in global colonial expansion known as "the New Imperialism", which saw a shift in focus from trade and indirect rule to formal colonial control of vast overseas territories ruled as political extensions of their mother countries. Between the 1870s and the beginning of World War I in 1914, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands—the established colonial powers in Asia—added to their empires vast expanses of territory in the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, and South East Asia. In the same period, the Empire of Japan, following the Meiji Restoration; the German Empire, following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; Tsarist Russia; and the United States, following the Spanish–American War in 1898, quickly emerged as new imperial powers in East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean area.

In Asia, World War I and World War II were played out as struggles among several key imperial powers—conflicts involving the European powers along with Russia and the rising American and Japanese powers. None of the colonial powers, however, possessed the resources to withstand the strains of both world wars and maintain their direct rule in Asia. Although nationalist movements throughout the colonial world led to the political independence of nearly all of the Asia's remaining colonies, decolonisation was intercepted by the Cold War; and South East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Asia remained embedded in a world economic, financial, and military system in which the great powers compete to extend their influence. However, the rapid post-war economic development of the East Asian Tigers, India, the People's Republic of China, along with the collapse of the Soviet Union, have loosened European and American influence in Asia, generating speculation today about emergence of modern India and China as potential superpowers.

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