William King (geologist), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

William King (geologist)

Anglo-Irish geologist

Date of Birth: 22-Apr-1809

Place of Birth: Sunderland, England, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 24-Jun-1886

Profession: geologist, university teacher, paleontologist, archaeologist, prehistorian, paleoanthropologist

Zodiac Sign: Taurus

William King (22 April 1809 – 24 June 1886), was an Anglo-Irish geologist at Queen's College Galway.
He was the first (in 1864) to propose that the bones found in the German valley of Neanderthal in 1856 were not of human origin, but of a distinct species: Homo neanderthalensis.
He proposed the name of this new species at a meeting of the British Association in 1863, with the written version published in 1864.