Archaeologists are Rewriting the History of Neanderthals Again

Less than 2 decades ago, anthropologists were still debating whether Neanderthals could speak, use fire, cook their food, and even speculated that they were scavengers rather than hunters. They were depicted as disheveled cavemen, wearing crude animal skins and wielding wooden clubs, and barely surviving. When Neanderthals were first identified from the fossil record around 150 years ago, Anthropologists typically took a negative view of anyone that were different from the modern European, and thus the Neanderthal was regarded as a savage. Nonetheless, around 50 years ago, some anthropologists started to recognize that Neanderthals engaged in intelligent behaviors, such as burying the dead, caring for broken bones, and creating sophisticated tools. Neanderthals were not known to have left grave goods, but this could have been a cultural practice rather than a lack of intelligence. Similarly, their lack of cave art could have just been a cultural preference rather than a lack of intelligence. For example, In the modern world we do not leave grave goods or paint pictures on cave walls, but this does not mean that we are lacking intelligence.