# @itsaihistory on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DQHIli4jWvK
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/61744800-itsaihistory-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/3bcd5795c3.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-10-22T12:28:27.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Parker Gordon (@itsaihistory) — https://gondola.cc/itsaihistory

## Caption

🪓The Neanderthals | c. 60,000 BC

Who they were:
Neanderthals lived across Europe and western Asia from about 400,000–40,000 years ago. Stocky, broad-faced hominins built for Ice Age cold.

Origins:
They split from a common ancestor with modern humans 500,000–600,000 years ago, evolving in Eurasia while humans developed in Africa.

Daily life:
Caves like Shanidar (Iraq) and Sidrón (Spain) sheltered them from predators and weather. They hunted big game, shared work, kept fires, and prepared hides.

Fire and tools:
They struck flint for sparks and crafted stone hand axes, scrapers, and bone tools. At some sites, they made birch tar to haft stone tips onto handles.

Diet:
Mostly meat from large herbivores—plus marrow, fat, plants, and nuts. Roasting meat over cave hearths was routine.

Art and rituals:
They used ochre pigment, made cave markings, and buried their dead. At Bruniquel Cave (France), they built ring structures from stalagmites—signs of symbolic behavior.

Relationship with humans (Homo sapiens):
They overlapped and interbred with Homo sapiens. Most non-African people today carry about 1–2% Neanderthal DNA.

Extinction:
By 40,000 years ago, they had vanished. Climate shifts, shrinking habitats, and competition with modern humans likely ended their lineage.

Legacy:
They were skilled and social, far from the “caveman” myth. Evidence shows complex tools, symbolic thought, and care for the injured. Part of them lives on in us.

#itsaihistory #history #neanderthals #europeanhistory #archaeology

## Stats

- **Views:** 40,171
- **Likes:** 1,194
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- **Comments:** 24

## Tags

history, europeanhistory, archaeology, itsaihistory, neanderthals

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