A 45,000-year-old Neanderthal quartz scraper found in France's Dordogne region reveals ancient appreciation for aesthetics and advanced material selection, challenging primitive stereotypes.
Archaeologists experimented with rhino teeth to see if Neanderthals used them as tools. The study found markings on ancient rhino teeth at archaeological sites similar to those made by using them as hammers for stone tool production, suggesting Neanderthals incorporated them into their toolkits.
Neanderthals performed a root canal on a molar tooth 60,000 years ago, the oldest known example of invasive dental treatment, predating Homo sapiens' earliest known dentistry by tens of thousands of years.
A 59,000-year-old Neanderthal tooth found in Siberia shows evidence of intentional drilling to relieve a tooth infection, indicating sophisticated medical intervention.
A new study comparing MRI scans of 400 modern human brains with Neanderthal endocasts reveals that brain size variation among living humans exceeds differences between Neanderthals and ancient Homo sapiens. The findings challenge previous assumptions that Neanderthals were cognitively inferior, with researchers concluding that brain size is a poor predictor of intelligence and Neanderthal cognitive abilities likely matched our own.
