neanderthal

The Latest Neanderthal

Although Neanderthals had larger brain cavities than the modern man, researchers believe that Neanderthals were not quite as intelligent as the modern man. The Neanderthals are thought to have been violent and put into extinction by their much more sophisticated cousins, Homo sapiens. Researchers believe that Homo sapiens may have even slaughtered the last of the Neanderthals, nearly 34, 000 years ago.

The most recent discovery concerning Neanderthals, found in a cave in Vindija, Croatia, shows that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens must have lived at the same time in central Europe for at least six millennia.

Paul Pettitt and his colleagues at the University of Oxford in England used direct accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating on two pieces of Neanderthal skulls from the cave in Vindija. Using this technique, the team discovered that the Ne...