X is a valley about 10 km east of Duesseldorf in Germany where a discovery was made in 1856. While it was not the first of its kind, it coincided with publishing of one of Darwin’s books.
This made the efforts to study the discovery serious, and the discovery itself ended up being named after the valley X.
What am I talking about?
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Neanderthal, which comes from Neander 'name of the place' & thal 'German for valley'.
While there were earlier discovery of Neanderthal remains in Belgium & Gibraltar, they were misclassified as 'modern'. It was the release of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859 which spurred an interest in evolutionary studies.
Extremely detailed resource on the discovery of Neanderthal remains.
Watch how we know Modern Humans are related to Neanderthals.