L’Neanderthal man never ceases to surprise us. The story of this distant cousin, whose disappearance (between 40,000 and 10,000 years before our era) is shrouded in mystery, is gradually being revealed. Regular discoveries made across the planet over the past twenty years have revealed and refined his profile. He was not the thick brute that we initially imagined.
Arriving in Europe around 250,000 years ago from Africa, where the Homo ergaster strain would continue to evolve to give rise to our ancestor (Sapiens), Neanderthal left traces that support the idea that he was endowed with a great capacity for adaptation, a form of intelligence and sensitivity.
The teeth found in this rock shelter in the Drôme outline new avenues for writing the history of Neanderthals. © DR
“He was much less stupid than has been said, mastered sophisticated flint knapping, decorated his caves and probably lived in perfect harmony with his environment,” summarized Ludovic Slimak (researcher at the CNRS / Paul-Sabatier University of Toulouse) at the time of the publication of his book. The Last Neanderthal published by Odile Jacob.
He buried his dead, the paleontologists Antoine Balzeau (CNRS / Musée de l’Homme) and Asier Gómez-Olivencia (University of the Basque Country) definitively ruled in 2020. And he had articulate language, a team of anthropologists led by Mercedes Conde-Valverde, a specialist, more recently revealed. […] Read more
