Neanderthals Timeline

Following Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Fuhlrott and Schaaffhausen argued that Neanderthal 1 represents a primitive lower human form, aligning more closely with non-human apes as well as Negroids, Eskimos, and Aboriginal Australians, which were variably classified as separate species or subspecies of human at the time.

In 1872, Rudolf Virchow erroneously interpreted Neanderthal characteristics as evidence of senility, disease, and malformation instead of archaicness, which stalled Neanderthal research until the end of the century.

Image source: Rudolf Virchow

Marcellin Boule's influential publications opposed hypotheses that placed Neanderthals close to the ancestry of modern humans, shaping a view of them as brutish and distant relatives for decades.

Image source: Marcellin Boule

French palaeontologist Marcellin Boule authored several publications starting in 1908 describing the French Neanderthal specimen La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 ('The Old Man') as a slouching, ape-like creature distantly related to modern man.

Image source: La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1

By the mid-twentieth century, it was widely believed that human evolution progressed from an ape-like ancestor through a 'Neanderthal phase' to modern humans, placing Neanderthals directly on the lineage leading to Homo sapiens.

Even before genetic evidence confirmed admixture, hybridisation between Neanderthals and early modern humans had been proposed early on, such as by English anthropologist Thomas Huxley in 1890.

Image source: Thomas Henry Huxley

Danish ethnographer Hans Peder Steensby proposed in 1907 that hybridisation occurred between Neanderthals and early modern humans, long before genetic evidence would confirm such admixture.

Image source: Hans Peder Steensby

In 1962, Carleton Coon proposed hybridisation between Neanderthals and early modern humans, continuing a line of speculation that predated the genetic confirmation of interbreeding decades later.

Image source: Carleton S. Coon

In 2010, the first mapping of the Neanderthal genome demonstrated that there was at least some interbreeding between archaic and modern humans, revolutionising understanding of human origins.

Image source: Neanderthal genetics

The first Neanderthal genome sequence was published in 2010, and strongly indicated interbreeding between Neanderthals and early modern humans, confirming what some researchers had speculated for over a century.

Sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2010 revealed that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, leaving traces of Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of people alive today.

Image source: Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans

A 2026 study confirmed evidence of sex bias, reporting that sexual selection—a preference for male Neanderthals and modern human females—was the primary driver of asymmetric mating patterns, rather than sex biases in demography or migration.

Research showed that the body mass index of the average European Neanderthal was comparable to that of 20th century Canadians and Americans, indicating a robust but not extraordinary build.

Image source: Neanderthal anatomy

Studies showed that Neanderthals returned to the same locations generation after generation, and some sites may have been used for more than a century, suggesting strong attachment to familiar places in their landscapes.

Image source: Neanderthal behaviour

As of 2014, 63 purported engravings and scratches on flints, bones, pebbles, and stone slabs had been reported from 27 different European and Middle Eastern Lower-to-Middle Palaeolithic sites, hinting at symbolic behaviour.

In 2019, the Finlaysons reported that Neanderthals disproportionately butchered the golden eagle over any bird of prey or corvid species, and speculated that Neanderthals viewed the golden eagle as a symbol of power like some recent modern human societies did.

A 2020 study found evidence of a 3-ply cord fragment made from conifer inner-bark fibres at Abri du Maras, France, which can be used to knit light items, such as strings for hanging beads, demonstrating Neanderthal fibre technology.

Image source: Irish elk

In 2026, a study published in PLOS One described a Neanderthal molar recovered from Chagyrskaya Cave in southwestern Siberia, dating to approximately 59,000 years ago, which bears evidence of an intentional dental procedure.

Image source: Denisovan