Around 130,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis were established and began to transition in Europe. During this transition period, what are now known as Neanderthals, began to develop an interesting and unique set of features. Neanderthals had very large brains, with the average brain size of skeletal remains being 1520ccs. To put their large brain size into perspective, a modern human has an average brain size of 1350 to 1400ccs. Neanderthals had a rounded crania, as well as an “occipital bun,” which, as defined in lecture, is a protuberance of the bone by the back of their skull. While Neanderthals have large brains and more advanced behavioral traits, they lack the flexibility and behavioral creativity that more modern groups have. For example, evidence shows that Neanderthals commonly lived in their natural surroundings, such as a rock shelter. There is little evidence that shows they had the behavioral flexibility/creativity to put together organized shelters or camps.  Scientists are also able to know about the Neanderthals lifestyle by looking at their bones. Their bones were very thick and they were heavily muscled suggesting an active rough lifestyle. Neandrethals could probably speak based on the fact that the bones around the larynx are very similar to modern humans. Recently, scientists have identified a FOXP2 gene in Neanderthal DNA, which is a gene related to speech in humans. This finding indicates that Neandrethals could have been able to speak.

Neandethals used fairly simple tools to survive.  Their tool culture is known as the Mousterian tool culture and dates from 300,000 years ago.  Even when Neandrethals and modern humans overlapped, there was no evidence that Nendrethals used modern human tools. One reason for this is that their brains were thought to be inflexible, and they would not be able to learn how to properly use these tools. The tools they did use included hunting weapons and bolos, which are strings or ropes attached to rocks that are used to kill animals. 

While exploring Neanderthals and their relatively modern traits, it is important to look for symbolic behavior, which is a key modern trait. An example of symbolic behavior includes anything artistic, such as cave art. However, after finding no cave art from Neanderthals, and very little art in general, it is believed that Neanderthals did not posess symbolic behavior. Despite the lack of symbolic behavior, Neanderthals have shown moments of compassion involving the few and rare old people among them. Old wounds, along with the fact that some of the old people were injured and needed help in order to survive, shows that they were kept alive by other group members.

 Neanderthals are the closest relative to humans. Although modern humans and Neanderthals did live during overlapping time periods, there was not much cross breeding.  The Neanderthal, commonly referred to as the stone age man, does in fact live within modern humans. In fact it has been discovered that each of us humans carries up to 4% of Neanderthal genes. Scientists will continue to study and discover more about the relationship between the Neanderthal and modern humans.