Who Were the Neanderthals? Where They Lived and Why They Vanished
Stocky, big-brained and well adapted to the Ice Age, Neanderthals made tools, controlled fire and buried their dead. Part of them survives in our genomes.
Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) were a species of ancient human who lived across Europe and southwestern to central Asia from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago, according to the Smithsonian. They made stone tools, controlled fire and buried their dead, and they interbred with modern humans: people of non-African ancestry today typically carry roughly 1 to 2% Neanderthal DNA.
Picture a small group around a hearth in a limestone cave during a cold phase of the Ice Age. They are shorter and stockier than most people today, with a long, low skull, heavy brow ridges and a brain as big as ours. They hunt large animals and shape stone tools with practiced skill. That is roughly what the fossil and archaeological record lets scientists reconstruct.
When and where did Neanderthals live?
Neanderthals lived from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. London’s Natural History Museum notes that the earliest Neanderthal-like fossils are about 430,000 years old and that the best-known Neanderthals lived between about 130,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Their range stretched from Portugal and Wales in the west to the Altai Mountains of Siberia in the east, according to the Natural History Museum in London. The first fossils later recognized as Neanderthal came from Engis in Belgium in 1829 and Gibraltar in 1848. The species takes its name from the Neander Valley in Germany, where a skeleton found in 1856 was the first identified as an early human when it was discovered, according to the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program.
What did Neanderthals look like?
Neanderthals were shorter, stockier and more heavily built than most people today, a body shape that helps conserve heat in cold climates. The Smithsonian gives average estimates from fossils:
| Feature | Neanderthal males | Neanderthal females |
|---|---|---|
| Average height | About 164 cm (5 ft 5 in) | About 155 cm (5 ft 1 in) |
| Average weight | About 65 kg (143 lb) | About 54 kg (119 lb) |
| Brain size | As large as modern humans’ and often larger |
A big brain does not by itself tell you how a species thought, but it does rule out the old picture of Neanderthals as slow-witted brutes.
What did Neanderthals make and do?
Neanderthals made a style of stone tools called Mousterian, striking flakes from a carefully prepared stone core. They controlled fire, hunted large animals and, according to the Smithsonian, deliberately buried their dead, sometimes with objects in the grave.
Evidence for symbolic behavior is growing but still debated. The Natural History Museum lists jewelry made from eagle talons up to about 130,000 years old, pierced animal teeth and worked ivory, and probable use of pigments. Its human-origins expert Chris Stringer has noted that no representational art, pictures of real animals or people, has been found at Neanderthal sites.
A 2018 study in Science dated red markings in caves in Spain, including hand stencils and geometric shapes, to a time before modern humans are known to have reached the region, which would make them Neanderthal work. Other researchers have questioned the dating method, so the claim is still argued over.
Do modern humans have Neanderthal DNA?
Yes. When the first draft Neanderthal genome was published in Science in 2010, its authors estimated that 1 to 4% of the DNA of present-day people outside Africa came from Neanderthals. A later high-quality genome refined the estimate to roughly 1.5 to 2.1% for people outside Africa. The exact figure depends on the method and the reference genomes used, and some recent studies give slightly higher numbers.
When did the mixing happen? Two studies published in December 2024, one in Science and one in Nature, used ancient genomes to place most of the interbreeding at around 47,000 years ago. The Science study estimated that it unfolded over roughly 7,000 years. Neanderthal DNA is also found in some African populations today, mostly through later migrations back into Africa.
Genetic ages like these rest on mutation rates and on dated fossils; our guides to how fossils are dated and how carbon dating works explain why dates near 40,000 to 50,000 years are hard to pin down.
Why did the Neanderthals disappear?
No one knows for certain. The Natural History Museum states plainly, “We don’t yet know,” and lists several explanations that may have worked together:
- Competition with modern humans who arrived in Europe more than 40,000 years ago and used the same resources.
- Rapid climate swings that changed the plants and animals Neanderthals relied on.
- Small, isolated populations with low genetic diversity, split up repeatedly by changing climate.
The disappearance seems to have been staggered, with local groups dying out at different times rather than all at once. The latest evidence of Neanderthals is from about 40,000 years ago in Europe. After that, they survive only as fossils, tools and fragments of DNA in living people.
Bottom line
Neanderthals were a separate human species that thrived in Ice Age Europe and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years. They made skilled tools, controlled fire and buried their dead, and they interbred with modern humans around 47,000 years ago. Why they vanished about 40,000 years ago is still an open question with several competing explanations.
FAQ
Were Neanderthals a different species from us?
They are usually classified as a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis. Because they interbred with modern humans, some scientists treat them as a subspecies, and the label is partly a matter of convention.
Were Neanderthals smarter than we think?
Their brains were as large as ours, and they made complex tools, used fire and may have made ornaments. How their thinking compared with modern humans cannot be measured directly, and researchers disagree on how to read the evidence.
When did Neanderthals and modern humans split?
The two lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago, and some genetic estimates put the split closer to 650,000 years ago, according to the Natural History Museum. They met again much later, when modern humans spread into Eurasia.
Did Neanderthals and modern humans live at the same time?
Yes. Modern humans reached Europe more than 40,000 years ago, and the two groups lived side by side in some regions for part of that time. The DNA many people carry today is direct evidence of those encounters.
