Interesting news today about our long-extinct Neanderthal cousins. Apparently they were just as good at making tools as our ancestors. There’s an overview in The Guardian, and somewhat more detail here. I particularly liked this bit:

The University of Exeter is the only university in the world to offer a degree course in Experimental Archaeology. This strand of archaeology focuses on understanding how people lived in the past by recreating their activities and replicating their technologies. Eren says: “It was only by spending three years in the lab learning how to physically make these tools that we were able to finally replicate them accurately enough to come up with our findings.”

So, where are all the Neanderthal re-enactment groups, eh?