TOPICS:AnthropologyArchaeologyNeanderthalsPaleontologyThe ConversationUniversity Of Bath

ByNICHOLAS R. LONGRICH, UNIVERSITY OF BATHMARCH 5, 2022

Credit: Charles R Knight/Wikimedia

Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becomingHomo neanderthalensis– the Neanderthals. They weren’t our ancestors, but a sister species, evolving in parallel.

Neanderthals fascinate us because of what they tell us about ourselves – who we were, and who we might have become. It’s tempting to see them in idyllic terms, living peacefully with nature andeach other, like Adam and Eve in the Garden. If so, maybe humanity’s ills – especially our territoriality, violence, wars – aren’t innate, but modern inventions.

Biology and paleontology paint a darker picture. Far from peaceful, Neanderthals were likely skilled fighters and dangerous warriors, rivaled only by modern humans.

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