Study suggests Neanderthals were more advanced

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

PARIS (AP) — Researchers have found what they say are specialized bone tools made by Neanderthals in Europe thousands of years before modern humans are thought to have arrived to share such skills, a discovery that suggests modern man's distant cousins were more advanced than previously believed.

In a paper published online Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers discuss their discovery of four fragments of bone in southwestern France that they say were used as lissoirs, or smoothers, to make animal hides tougher and more water-resistant.

The researchers believe the oldest tool is 51,000 years old, while the other three are between 42,000 and 47,000 years old. Similar tools are still used by leather workers to this day.

Until now, scientists have believed that modern humans taught the Neanderthals how to make the tools, but modern humans are only believed to have reached central and western Europe 42,000 years ago.

The researchers say the discovery provides the first evidence that Neanderthals may have independently made specialized bone tools — that is, tools that could only be made from bone. Other early Neanderthal bone tools were simply replicas of their stone tools.

The find adds to an evolving understanding that these distant cousins weren't perhaps the brutes they have come to represent in popular culture — but also confirms that there is still much we don't know about them.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20130812/EU--Neanderthals-Not.Brutes_/

[Jacque67 7,328]

China was so way ahead.

[spookyturtle 9,465]

Why would modern humans share skills with Neanderthals? If they were modern humans they would have killed or enslaved the Neanderthals and taken everything they had.

[Darnell 8,478]

I likes the tools.

[duraaraa 203]

It won't be long until we clone a Neanderthal. That will be extremely cool.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

It won't be long until we clone a Neanderthal. That will be extremely cool.

Those folks with distinctive brow ridges have a bit more Neanderthal DNA than others.