How did Neanderthals evolve?

What was the relative contribution of animal and plant sources to the average Neanderthal's diet? Were Neanderthals routinely symbolic (e.g. making ornamental or decorative objects, burying the dead), or did this just occur in specific populations? If the latter is the case, why did those populations exhibit these behaviors? read more

Peking Man probably evolved in Asia so Neanderthals could have evolved anywhere. Homo erectus is probably the common ancestor for both H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis. And persons of European and Middle Eastern ancestry may be the result of interbreeding of the two what were really races of man. read more

Claims that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead, and if they did, whether such burials had any symbolic meaning,: 158–60 are heavily contested. The debate on deliberate Neanderthal burials has been active since the 1908 discovery of the well-preserved Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 skeleton in a small hole in a cave in southwestern France. read more