After 13 years studying a Neanderthal burial site, researchers say Neanderthals were more community-oriented and emphatic that previously understood
Researchers say Neanderthals were more intelligent and empathetic than previously understood. They cared for their elders and buried them with dignity, according to a study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study focused on a skeleton of an elderly Neanderthal man — 30 to 40 years old — that was found in 1908 in La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southern France. It is the remains of a man who could barely walk and had lost all his teeth. The shape of his spine led to the theory that Neanderthals were hunch-backed.