Clay Burell's Library tagged prehistory →  View Popular

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  • They had music (flute)
    
    
    • bone of a bear, from Croatia
    • Neandertal also cared for the sick and aged
      
      
      • The individual Erik Trinkhaus is describing is from Shanidar,
        
        and appears as Creb, "the Clan's Mog-ur,
        
        or magician," the "most revered holy man of all of
        
        the clans," in Jean Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear
        
        series
      • "There is no doubt that they were a social group that
        
        did take care of their members." (Iraq)

Evidence of care for the elderly and the sick has been found^[6]. They also used medicinal plants, made clothes out of animal skins and used stone tools. Neanderthals performed elaborate burial rituals, suggesting some sort of religion.^[7] Alternatively they may have been unable to understand that the personality of the dead person is gone.

Interestingly, archaeologists have never found Neanderthal cave drawings, although handcrafted art has been found.^[8]