40,000 years ago Ice Age Europe was like a chessboard, with Neanderthals and modern humans moving across the continent, often in close proximity to each other.
Of all the continents Homo sapiens migrated to, this one holds the biggest mystery: why did the Neanderthals become extinct?
A conventional argument is that modern humans were masters of innovation, creating new art works, and mastering new kinds of stone tools like arrow heads, and they simply outsmarted and perhaps outcompeted the Neanderthals.
In other words, the claim is that Neanderthals weren’t as smart as we were. But this reputation is undeserved and is being overturned as new artifacts come to light.
New fossil evidence from France shows that Neanderthals too were innovative pioneers, finding ways to make animal hides waterproof.
Whatever brought the end of the Neanderthals, it wasn’t their lack of smarts.