Author:  Julie Spitzer

Throughout Europe and parts of Asia, from 400,000 to 40,000 years ago, Homo neanderthalensis roamed. This species has been called our closest ancestor. Short, stocky and cold adapted with large but not quite as complex brains, they used tools, controlled fire, created art and buried their dead. They were quite advanced for what storybooks usually depict as crude, primitive cavemen.