Who were the Neanderthals, our extinct human relatives?
Neanderthals are an extinct group of hominins that emerged around 400,000 years ago and died off around 40,000 years ago. They are our closest known relatives and interbred with Homo sapiens.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Live Science Contributor
Rebecca Wragg Sykes has studied Neanderthals for twenty years. In addition to her academic work as an Honorary Fellow at the University of Liverpool in the U.K., she is widely recognized for her public scholarship in science communication, through writing, broadcast and consultancy. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Times and The Guardian, among others. Her first book, "Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art" won the 2021 PEN Hessell-Tiltman prize for history and was listed in the New York Times' 100 Notable Books. In 2022 she received the Royal Anthropological Institute's Public Anthropology Award, and the President's Award from the Prehistoric Society. She is currently writing her next book, Matriarcha: Prehistory Re-imagined.
