April
10
/ 2018
James Ohman & Asier Gomez-Olivencia / The Conversation When we think of Neanderthals, we often imagine these distant ancestors of ours to be rather brutish, dying at a young age and ultimately becoming extinct. But new findings show that at least some of these ancient Neanderthals survived into old age – despite suffering from sickness or diseases. Neanderthals were hunter-gatherers, living in harsh environments, mostly colder than today. And of course they had to face different dangers to modern humans – not only during the hunt, but also because they shared ecosystems with large carnivores such as lions, leopards and hyenas. But despite this harsh life of the hunter gatherer, our research indicates that some Neanderthals lived to be fairly
