How Neanderthals lived
Skilled cold-climate hunters with fire, tools, glue, medicine and a diet heavy in large game.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 89 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 5 thousand years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
Neanderthals occupy Europe and western Asia through repeated glaciations, hunting mammoth, bison, reindeer and horse at close range with thrusting spears — their skeletons carry injury patterns compared to those of rodeo riders. They make composite tools, produce birch tar, process plants, use feathers and talons, and care for individuals with disabling injuries over years. Dental calculus has yielded evidence of cooked plant food and of medicinal plants including a natural antibiotic mould.