After reviewing all of the lecture videos and the links provided. I was able to give an explanation about how the discovery of Neanderthals affected scientists thinking on fossil records and human evolution. Neanderthals appeared by 130 Kya and was located in smaller groups through the ice age environment. These creatures expanded through the existence of our human evolution simply through mating. It was a known fact that during Eurasia, Neanderthals and Denisovans mated with modern humans nearly 45,000 years ago. However, in the lecture videos there were many distinctive features that oppose scientists thoughts on human evolution. Neanderthals had very large brains, and larger brains than modern humans. This correlates to why it can affect the evolution because of their behavior. They are advanced within their culture. Neanderthals would bury their dead ones beneath the ground that can produce a connection with how humans evolved over time. This can alter researchers discoveries of these creatures because of the fossil records of them burying their loved ones. This symbolic culture shows that the older Neanderthals have compassion for creatures who were ill or had missing teeth that needed assistance. In our modern culture, humans typically have funerals for people who passed and traditionally they’re buried in the ground. Now many of us have compassion for others, especially for elderly people because of incapabilities. According to “The Neanderthal in Us” video, each human contains between 2-4% of Neanderthal. Researchers stated that “Neanderthals and humans are mixed within that small percentage.” The mixing theory explained that thousands of years ago modern humans migrated to Europe to introduce a more common ancestors of human descendants. Because of that, it is spoken that the reason some humans have special conditions such as mutations or any other mental ability. Now it does not mean they simply inherited this trait, but it’s known that the genes changed and was affected over time. Furthermore, these fossilized remains has supported Paleoanthropologists discoveries by learning new information by observing the features of Neanderthals fossilized body parts found in Ethiopia. Studies shows that the DNA of Neanderthals is present within humans because it’s known to be the last common ancestor and scientists were able to determine the genes that relate to modern humans. In addition, the fossilized remains contains the large brains (as stated earlier), huge face with massive noses, and lastly they were thick bone muscles. Now, it can be implied based on their findings that researches learned that modern humans are strongly correlated to Neanderthals even though we contain a small percentage of their features. However, in my opinion, I think the biggest contribution that these findings made to alter the human evolution would be the comparison of a Neanderthal man versus a modern human. Neanderthals developed hair which mutated to humans for us to adapt to colder environments. Even though Neanderthals are stockier and shorter, they can contribute to human evolution because we have similar physical features that derives within the human body since studies show that they possibly inter-breeded with each other.