In this article, I first provide an overview of the Neandertals by recounting their initial
discovery and subsequent interpretation by scientists and by discussing our current …

Highlights•Did Neanderthals have language and speech or are these unique to modern
humans?•We showed in 2013 that the evidence suggests that they very probably did.•Here …

Modern humans have large and globular brains that distinguish them from their extinct
Homo relatives. The characteristic globularity develops during a prenatal and early postnatal …

" Sometime before 15,000 years ago, a band of hunter-gatherers arrived in Northeast Asia.
They continued east, becoming the first people to set foot in the Americas. They soon found …

When, where, and how often hominin interbreeding happened is largely unknown. We study
the potential for Neanderthal-Denisovan admixture using species distribution models that …

The destructive distillation of birch bark to produce tar has recently featured in debates about
the technological and cognitive abilities of Neandertals and modern humans. The abilities to …

Birch tar is the oldest synthetic substance made by early humans. The earliest such artefacts
are associated with Neanderthals. According to traditional interpretations, their study allows …

The Evolution of Paleolithic Technologies provides a novel perspective on long-term
trajectories of evolutionary change in Paleolithic tools and tool-makers. Members of the …

We report the discovery of a 50,000-y-old birch tar-hafted flint tool found off the present-day
coastline of The Netherlands. The production of adhesives and multicomponent tools is …

New discoveries and dating of fossil remains from the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of
Humankind, South Africa, have strong implications for our understanding of Pleistocene …