Remember when Neanderthals were slow-moving brutes? I’ve been away from my desk here for a bit, co-writing a book. But I wanted to drop in for a moment to note all the recent research that obliterates the storied intellectual distinction between Neanderthals and the rest of us humans — distinctions that have been very important to some people.

Here are a few highlights:

● Remember the famous Neanderthal brain that was supposed to be inferior to the modern one, rendering them the big, dumb brutes of legend? Outcompeted, in a Darwinian struggle for life, by smarter modern humans? From Kiona N. Smith at Ars Technica, we continue to learn, that that is a misleading picture: “because brain size is actually a terrible way to predict cognitive capability. Neanderthals could have been a lot more like us than some previous studies have claimed, which definitely fits what the archaeological record tells us about how they lived. It would also mean that our species probably didn’t out-compete the Neanderthals by being smarter or more adaptable.” (April 28, 2026). The differences are mainly “cosmetic.”

● Neanderthals adapted to their environment quite handily, traveling, for example, through the Alps with reusable toolkits (paper). One tool found is described as multifunctional: “The ancient utensil dates back to the end of the Saalian glaciation, around 130,000 years ago, and consists of four tools carved from a single cave lion tibia, a sort of prehistoric Swiss Army knife.” (Open access paper.).

Holes drilled in human teeth suggest that they also practiced dentistry: “A lower molar tooth belonging to a Neanderthal adult was originally unearthed in 2016, but it was not clear what had caused the deep hole in its surface. Now, experimental evidence indicates the hole was made with a small stone drill used to clean out bits of severely rotten tooth tissue,” The paper is open access.

● According to the Hebrew University at Jerusalem, a discovery from 110,000 years ago shows that Neanderthals and modern humans worked together: “The first-ever published research on Tinshemet Cave reveals that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only coexisted but actively interacted, sharing technology, lifestyles, and burial customs. These interactions fostered cultural exchange, social complexity, and behavioral innovations, such as formal burial practices and the symbolic use of ochre for decoration. The findings suggest that human connections, rather than isolation, were key drivers of technological and cultural advancements, highlighting the Levant as a crucial crossroads in early human history.” (April 12, 2026) Maybe Neanderthals introduced some of these cultures; we don’t know. The paper is open access.

Another recent open-access study points to cannibalism among Neanderthals but modern humans share that trait under extreme circumstances and it is sometimes a social or religious ritual. That has included the idea that eating the deceased is more respectful than permitting decay or that it allows the eater to acquire traits of the deceased.

● Some recently studied Neanderthal sites suggest cultural practices that don’t yield to a simple explanation. For example, at LiveScience, Sophie Berdugo reports, “ the Neanderthals were collecting animal skulls over a long period of time in particularly cold periods between 135,000 and 43,000 years ago … the team also found the animal skulls had been placed in specific areas of the cave repeatedly over a prolonged period of time. This suggests that this practice may have been maintained over generations and was not directly tied to economic or subsistence needs, Villaescusa Fernández said.” (January 20, 2026) Here’s the open access paper. It it was a cult, it certainly lasted a long time.

● Some researchers have gone so far as to ask, Did the Neanderthals have religion? At LiveScience, Owen Jarus tells us, views are mixed: “If by ‘religion’ we mean ritual behaviors directed at supernatural agents then yes I believe Neanderthals were religious,” Patrick McNamara, a neurology professor at Boston University’s School of Medicine who has conducted extensive research into the evolution of the human brain and the neuroscience of religion, told Live Science in an email. “Their religious beliefs and behaviors were very likely close to what we call ‘shamanism’ — a visionary form of religious experience.” Shamanism has been noted in culture worldwide. He suggests that there may have been a Bear cult: “there are several Neanderthal-related archaeological sites with Bear skulls arranged in ritual altars in caves etc.”

On the other hand, “Margaret Boone Rappaport, an anthropologist who co-wrote the book The Emergence of Religion in Human Evolution (Routledge, 2020), told Live Science in an email that while Neanderthals “may have engaged in some forms of ritual, they likely did not possess the specific advanced neurocognitive capacity for a complex, modern human-like religion or ‘theological thinking.’” But she bases this on a belief that Neanderthals lacked certain brain structures required for such thinking — which suggests that she adheres to the older way of understanding them, and an older way of understanding religion as well.

In the absence of writing, we cannot, of course, know what the specific beliefs of any prehistoric religion might be. At this point, the safest conclusion is probably that Neanderthals could believe what other ancient humans could. Research goes on and so does the story.

Next: We need to catch up with some other very ancient peoples too.