Updating Neanderthals

Book excerpt: Updating Neanderthals: Understanding Behavioral Complexity in the Late Middle Paleolithic provides comprehensive knowledge on Neanderthals who lived throughout the European and Asian continents. The book synthesizes historical information about the study of Middle Paleolithic populations and presents current debates about their genetics, subsistence, technology, social and cognitive behaviors. It focuses on the last phase of Neanderthal settlements and presents the main patterns of modern humans across Europe. Written by international experts on the Middle Paleolithic who have conducted innovative studies in the last three decades, this book explores the implications of interactions between different human species, including Neanderthals, Denisovans and Sapiens. In addition, the book discusses the diversity and variability of human adaptations and behaviors in the changing climate and environment of the Late Pleistocene, and the relationship between these behaviors, demography and cognitive capabilities. - Offers a comprehensive update on the variability and diversity of Neanderthal behaviors during the Late Pleistocene - Presents an interdisciplinary reconstruction of Neanderthals by assessing archaeology, paleontology, paleoecology, anthropology, genetics and cognition - Reviews the reliability of archaeological data and the theoretical and methodological advances of the last 30 years - Discusses the most debated Neanderthal themes, such as demography, diet, socio-economy and art