[vladimir998]

“...we know...”

No, you’re guessing with a tiny bit of evidence.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks vladimir998.

...we know they almost never travelled outside small home territories that were rarely over 1000 square kilometres.

It used to be "known" that they didn't eat fish at all, but during the past two years all of a sudden, "fish was an important part of the Neandertal diet". It's very, very important to some people to deny that Neandertal is ancestral to much of the modern world, and this article is written by someone who does that, right after pointing out how very similar Neandertal behavior was to ours.

[Sacajaweau]

Man is man and always has been. His cleverness is provoked by curiousity and necessity.

The wheel was invented the first time someone saw a rock roll down a hill...but alas, the observer was killed in the landslide so it wasn't until his 8th cousin, 23 times removed saw the same thing and lived to invent the wheel.

His younger brother invented the unicycle, left his wife and went off to do the hot blonde in cave No. 37.

The hot blonde stole the unicycle and went off to Cave No. 28 where the priest lived and confessed her sin. For her penance, she had to donate the unicycle to the church and the priest enjoyed his Sunday rides.

You probably think this is all made up but we have the unicyle at our little museum in the Village. Hoe's that for evidence!!

[sphinx]

That's my reaction as well. These are perfectly plausible speculations based on inferences from group size and tools. Plausible, yes ... but for all we really know, Neanderthals had a rich language and narrative tradition, were musical fiends, and had pi out to nine places.

Speaking of pi ... I have an historical/cultural question. The ancients, of course, made a big deal out of pi, and several different cultures figured it out, apparently independently, to a surprising number of decimal places. My question is, what interested them in pi to begin with? Early mathematics arose mostly in the context of practical problem solving, and it's fairly easy to see why various calculations were developed. But what about pi? Am I overlooking some obvious Bronze Age problem that would have drawn attention to that particular ratio?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***No, you’re guessing with a tiny bit of evidence.***

I have read that the one item never found in a Neanderthal site is a bone needle. As a result some say they were covered with a coat of hair.

I’ve seen a few people who would almost fit their description.