{"id":12086,"date":"2025-11-12T10:06:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T04:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=12086"},"modified":"2025-11-12T13:48:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T08:18:30","slug":"who-were-the-neanderthals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/who-were-the-neanderthals\/","title":{"rendered":"Neanderthals"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Neanderthals Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A recent study supports the view that Neanderthals were not wiped out in a dramatic extinction, but were instead genetically absorbed into the emerging human population over thousands of years.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Neanderthals<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They were an <\/span><b>extinct relative of modern humans <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">once found <\/span><b>across Europe, extending into Central and Southwest Asia.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Species: Homo neanderthalensis<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The name Neanderthal (or Neandertal) derives from the <\/span><b>Neander Valley in Germany, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">where the<\/span><b> fossils were first found.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are the <\/span><b>closest extinct relatives of modern humans <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Homo sapiens).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientific evidence suggests <\/span><b>our two species shared a common ancestor.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neanderthals were<\/span><b> closely related to another group of extinct,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> little-known h<\/span><b>uman relatives called the Denisovans.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Current evidence from both fossils and DNA suggests that <\/span><b>Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">at least <\/span><b>500,000 years ago.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>last populations <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of Neanderthals are thought to have<\/span><b> died out roughly 40,000 years <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ago, several thousand years or so after a wave of modern humans migrated deeper into Europe.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although they are long extinct,<\/span><b> their genes <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are still<\/span><b> present in modern human DNA.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Neanderthals <\/b><b>Features<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some <\/span><b>defining features of their skulls<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> include the <\/span><b>large middle part of the face, angled cheek bones<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and a <\/span><b>huge nose for humidifying and warming cold, dry air<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their <\/span><b>bodies <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">were <\/span><b>shorter and stockier <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">than modern humans, another adaptation to living in cold environments.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But their <\/span><b>brains were just as large as modern humans<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>often larger-proportional to their brawnier bodies.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their <\/span><b>bones reveal<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that they were extremely<\/span><b> muscular and strong,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> but<\/span><b> led hard lives,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> suffering frequent injuries.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Unlike modern humans<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Neanderthals<\/span><b> didn\u2019t have much of a chin.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neanderthals made and <\/span><b>used a diverse set of sophisticated tools, controlled fire, lived in shelters, made and wore clothing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, were <\/span><b>skilled hunters<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of large animals, <\/span><b>ate plant foods<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and occasionally <\/span><b>made symbolic or ornamental objects.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Around 300,000 years ago Neanderthals <\/span><b>developed an innovative stone technology <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">known as the <\/span><b>Levallois technique.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This involved <\/span><b>making pre-shaped stone cores<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that could be <\/span><b>finessed into a finished tool at a later time.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is evidence that Neanderthals <\/span><b>deliberately buried their dead<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and occasionally <\/span><b>even marked their graves with offerings, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">such as flowers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>No other primates, and no earlier human species, had ever practiced this <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sophisticated and s<\/span><b>ymbolic behavior.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/indiandefencereview.com\/neanderthals-never-disappeared-extinction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IDR<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neanderthals were an extinct relative of modern humans once found across Europe, extending into Central and Southwest Asia. Read more about Neanderthals, Species, Features, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":73132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3669,246,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-12086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-neanderthals","9":"tag-prelims-current-affairs","10":"tag-prelims-pointers","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}