"They wore clothes, wielded fire, and created art; they may have even been smarter than us..." Just who were our closest cousins?

Far from dim-witted cavemen, Neanderthals were just like us, living in large, familial groups that hunted together, ate together, and laughed together…

What are Neanderthals?

Neanderthals - or Homo neanderthalensis, to give them their scientific name - are an extinct group of ancient humans who lived alongside Homo sapiens for nearly 200,000 years.

As descendants of the same ancestor that gave rise to modern humans, Neanderthals are our closest cousins. Some argue they could even be classified as a subspecies (e.g. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), based on the fact they often interbred with Homo sapiens.

When were Neanderthals discovered?

The first known Neanderthal fossils, belonging to an individual known as Neanderthal 1, were discovered in 1856 in Neander Valley, Germany. This valley gave Neanderthals their name, though it wasn’t until the 21st century that they were really considered ‘humans’.

For a long time, it was thought human evolution progressed from a chimpanzee-like ancestor through a so-called ‘Neanderthal phase’ to modern humans. This ‘March of Progress’-style theory has since been debunked. Instead, Neanderthals are now considered an off-shoot of the same evolutionary branch that led to us.

When did Neanderthals live?

While they may have evolved from the same common ancestor as Homo sapiens, Neanderthals emerged much earlier - roughly 400,000 years ago compared to 300,000 years ago.

That said, it isn’t until 130,000 years ago that the most recognisable, ‘classic Neanderthals’ appear in the fossil record.

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After this point, following their divergence from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals split from another group of closely related, now-extinct humans. These long-lost relatives are called Denisovans. They’re only known from a handful of fossils, but their genes have been identified in modern humans - so it’s clear they’re incredibly important to our evolutionary story.

Neanderthals lived up until 40,000 years ago, ultimately facing extinction during the Late Pleistocene. This was around the same time that Homo sapiens were beginning to explore the furthest reaches of the world, establishing themselves in Australia and the Americas for the first time.

Where did Neanderthals live?

It’s debated who the common ancestor between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens was: Homo heidelbergensis, Homo antecessor, or perhaps an unknown Homo species.

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What we do know, however, is that Neanderthals emerged from a group of these archaic humans who, roughly 400,000 years ago, left Africa, migrated north, and made Eurasia their home.

Neanderthals ranged across much of Europe and even spread into Southwest and Central Asia, up to the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia. The earliest Neanderthals inhabited warm, temperate woodlands in France, Spain, and Italy, while later members of the species moved away from southern Europe and adapted to colder, steppe-like environments in England and Russia.

The centre of Neanderthal society, though, appears to be in southwestern France, which is where the highest density of pre- and classic Neanderthal sites have been found.

What did Neanderthals look like?

There are lots of subtle differences between us and Neanderthals, particularly when you examine our skulls.

However, if you dressed both a Neanderthal and a modern human in a suit, put them on the London Underground, and sent them on their way to a job interview at Goldman Sachs, passersby wouldn’t bat an eye - in other words, we look very similar.

The most telltale sign that the person sitting next to you on the tube is a Neanderthal (or not) is the shape of their skull. Neanderthals had long, low skulls with prominent brow ridges above their eyes. They also had very big, wide noses and, unlike modern humans, they didn’t have much of a chin.

Skull of a caveman close-up. history. stone Age. aborigine, neanderthal. — Gerasimov174/Getty Images

Standing roughly 1.5-1.75m tall, Neanderthals were shorter on average than modern humans. They were also stockier, with proportionally shorter limbs.

It’s thought they had more fast-twitch muscle fibres too, which has led some to suggest they would have been effective sprinters, more so than modern humans. The famous line spoken by Gimli in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers rings particularly true here: “I’m wasted on cross-country! We dwarves are natural sprinters, very dangerous over short distances!”

What did Neanderthals eat?

Neanderthals ate the same things as us; not the ultra-processed foods of the modern day, but the smorgasbord of meats, plants, and fungi that our hunter gatherer ancestors once dined on. This kind of varied diet is evidenced by studies of their dental calculus, which preserves remains from many different types of food.

Like Homo sapiens, Neanderthals were apex predators capable of hunting big game, from woolly mammoths to steppe bison. Some coastal communities, particularly those living in Gibraltar, also specialised in hunting young seals and dolphins. This is evidenced by cutmarks observed on the remains of these animals.

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Neanderthals were keen chefs too, employing a wide range of food preparation techniques that went beyond simply throwing chunks of meat onto an open fire. At a site in Spain known as Cueva del Sidrón, researchers found evidence that Neanderthals who lived there may have roasted and smoked meat, and used certain plants, such as yarrow and camomile, for flavouring.

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Another site in France, known as Grotte du Lazaret, has yielded the remains of 23 red deer, six ibexes, three aurochs, and one roe deer, all of which appear to have been hunted in a single autumn hunting season, possibly when herds would group together for the rut. Such a sheer amount of food led researchers to hypothesise that Neanderthals living at Grotte du Lazaret were curing and storing meat before winter set in.

How smart were Neanderthals?

Ever since their discovery in 1856, Neanderthals have been depicted as primitive ‘cavemen’. Even today, the term ‘Neanderthal’ is often used as an insult or synonym for ‘uncivilized’ or ‘unintelligent’. The reality couldn’t be any more different.

Firstly, Neanderthals had larger brains than Homo sapiens - an average of 1,600cm³ compared to an average of 1,400cm³. The Guiness World Record for the largest human brain also belongs to a Neanderthal, known as Amud 1. This brain was estimated to be 1,736cm³!

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Now, brain size doesn’t necessarily scale with intelligence - after all, Albert Einstein is reported to have had a brain size that was towards the lower end of average for Homo sapiens. However, like ours, Neanderthals’ brains were large compared to their bodies (i.e. high brain-body mass ratio), meaning they too were highly intelligent.

By CT scanning the braincases of Neanderthals, researchers have discovered their brains were organised slightly differently to ours. Neanderthals had larger eyes and better vision, perhaps an adaptation for living at higher latitudes with less light during long, dark winters. This implies they had larger visual cortices and that more of their brain was dedicated to visual processing.

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In contrast, Homo sapiens are thought to have had larger cerebellums, which is where all the complex, social cognitive processes take place. This may have allowed Homo sapiens to socialise better than Neanderthals, sharing knowledge and skills with neighbouring tribes. In fact, it’s widely thought that this ability to socialise is what ultimately allowed humans to proliferate, spread across the globe, and outlive their closest cousins.

While their brains may have been built slightly differently, Neanderthals engaged in many of the same activities as us. They had their own unique cultures, ritualistic practices, and - believe it or not - tastes in fashion.

They made art too, including jewellery. At a 130,000-year-old, Neanderthal-occupied site in Croatia, researchers found white-tailed eagle claws arranged into a necklace. Similar, Neanderthal-made jewellery fashioned from animal remains was also found in Grotte due Renne cave in France - a 40,000-year-old site.

Could Neanderthals speak?

It’s clear from the wealth of archaeological artefacts left by Neanderthals, as well as anatomical evidence (e.g. similar vocal anatomy) and known cognitive abilities, that they could speak and effectively communicate with one another. How else would the group living at Grotte du Lazaret in France have coordinated the hunting and curing of so many animals?

However, to find out just how well Neanderthals could speak, researchers have had to look deep into their genetic code. A study published in April, 2026, found that Neanderthals had the same genetic hardware for language that Homo sapiens do, and that our lineage’s language-learning abilities may have developed a long time before we diverged from one another.

The researchers involved in this latest study investigated genomic regions known as ‘human ancestor quickly evolving regions’, or HAQERS. These aren’t genes, rather sequences that affect how and when certain genes are expressed, and they’ve been shown to have a large effect on human language development.

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Neanderthals not only had HAQERS, but they were even more prominent than those found in humans today. This doesn’t mean Neanderthals definitely had language, or that it was more advanced than the languages of early Homo sapiens, but it does suggest the genetic hardware was there for it to develop.

Did we evolve from Neanderthals?

Contrary to popular belief, modern humans did not evolve from Neanderthals. Instead, Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis are separate, though very closely related, species that share a common ancestor.

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The identity of this ancestor isn’t exactly clear, but we know based on both fossil and genetic evidence that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens diverged approximately half-a-million years ago.

The best way to view Neanderthals is as our cousins. They’re our contemporaries and we can both trace our history back to a shared ancestor - a grandparent in this particular analogy.

**Did Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbreed?**

Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred so often that the genes of our long-extinct cousins still exist in our DNA - some researchers even go as far to argue that modern humans are the amalgamation of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, products of thousands of years of interbreeding.

Thanks to the Neanderthal genome project - a ground-breaking initiative launched back in 2010 - we know modern humans of non-African descent carry roughly 2% Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. Some groups carry even more: the proportion in East Asian populations can be as high as 4%!

By interbreeding with Homo sapiens, Neanderthals passed on a number of different genes - some advantageous, others not. It’s thought Neanderthals passed on genes associated with skin and hair, giving our ancestors increased resilience against the cold in the cooler environments of northern Europe and Siberia. They may have also given us genes associated with diabetes, lupus, and Crohn’s disease.

While Neanderthals may have ultimately faced extinction, it’s not quite accurate to say they disappeared without leaving a trace - we can literally see evidence of them in our own DNA. Instead of vanishing, Neanderthals likely assimilated with early Homo sapiens, contributing to the gene pool that eventually spawned modern humans.

Why did Neanderthals go extinct?

The latest fossil and archaeological evidence of Neanderthals dates to 40,000 years ago; after this point, the only ‘Neanderthal remains’ are the genes they left in populations of Homo sapiens.

It’s unclear exactly why Neanderthals faced extinction. One idea is that the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe and subsequent competition for territory and resources drove Neanderthals towards irreversible decline.

Based on several studies, we know Neanderthals maintained small populations across their range. These populations had low genetic diversity and some even demonstrate evidence of inbreeding, such as a group that used to live in the Altai Mountains

There’s also the not-so-small matter of climate change to consider. Neanderthals lived through several ice ages, but ultimately became extinct during the last glacial period. These ice ages would have continually fragmented groups of Neanderthals living in Eurasia, preventing them from building up large populations.

However, a study published in April, 2026, suggested Neanderthals didn’t go extinct simply because of climate change and/or competition with Homo sapiens. Instead, this study used a combination of modelling, archaeological evidence, and ethnographic data, to arrive at the conclusion that the key factor that drove Neanderthals to extinction was social connectivity - or the lack thereof.

The researchers involved with this recent study found Homo sapiens formed stronger, more flexible social networks that helped them survive periods of climatic instability. Neanderthals no doubt had similar connections, but researchers found they were more fragile and regionally limited, ultimately making them less resilient as conditions got more and more unpredictable.