However, even as recently as 40,000 years ago in Europe, the Neanderthals show almost no evidence of the symbolic thinking—no art or sculpture for example—that we often associate with language, and little evidence of the cultural attainments of Homo sapiens of the same era.
However, even as recently as 40,000 years ago in Europe, the Neanderthals show almost no evidence of the symbolic thinking—no art or sculpture for example—that we often associate with language, and little evidence of the cultural attainments of Homo sapiens of the same era. By 40,000 years ago, Homo sapiens had plentiful art, musical instruments and specialized tools such as sewing needles. Neanderthals probably didn’t even have sewn clothing, instead they would have merely draped themselves with skins [ 12]. And, despite evidence that around 1–5% of the human genome might be derived from human–Neanderthal matings [ 13], the Neanderthals went extinct as a species while we flourished.