When you ask the average person what a neanderthal is, the most likely answer that one is going to receive is that a neanderthal is an insult that is meant to call someone stupid or an idiot. This is in reference to the commonly believed notion that neanderthals were stupid, which is why they eventually died off all those years ago. But, according to new research, we may have actually learned something from our seemingly dumber hominin cousins.
What anthropologists were trying to link was golden eagles to neanderthals, claiming that they could have trapped the animal some 130,000 years ago. So, they went and reviewed so golden eagle bones at specific sights where neanderthal remains were known to be and they were able to examine that at places where little meat would be found on the bird, there were cut marks. These marks suggest that Neanderthals would take the feathers off of the bird (since the wings had very little meat), and similar cuts were found by the leg and foot bones as well.
While no neanderthal jewelry has been found with a golden eagle part as of yet, other eagles have. The talons of a white-tailed eagle have been found around a neanderthal necklace in 2015, suggesting there could be a chance that neanderthals did the same for the golden eagles as well.
The suggestion that we learned this from neanderthals stems from the fact that neanderthals were thought to have been making this type of jewelry for thousands of years before we did, leading scientists to believe that we may have taken the idea from neanderthals initially.
Or we both could have just had the same idea. We might never know for sure.
JustInScience 