We Underestimated the Neanderthal

Pop culture has not been kind to the Neanderthal. In books, movies and even TV commercials, the species is portrayed as rough and mindless, a brutish type that was rightly supplanted by our Homo sapiens ancestors. But even 40,000 years after the last Neanderthals walked the earth, we continue to make discoveries that challenge that portrayal. New research suggests Neanderthals might have been less primitive — and a lot more like modern humans — than we might have thought. The Times science reporters Carl Zimmer and Franz Lidz discuss recent discoveries about Neanderthals, and what those discoveries can tell us about the origins of humanity.