Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] 400,000 years ago,

this was what the human species

who reigned over Europe and Asia looked like.

(Neanderthals grunting)

Their exceptional hunting skills

helped them overcome

some of the most savage prehistoric beasts.

Adaptable to even the most hostile conditions,

they left their mark everywhere,

from the coasts of Spain to the Siberian mountains.

These were the Neanderthals.

The last traces of these extraordinary hunter-gatherers

date back 40,000 years.

So what happened?

For the last 150 years,

scientists from around the world

have been trying to get to the bottom of this mystery.

They continue tirelessly to excavate sites

in an attempt to retrace the history of the Neanderthals.

(stones clacking)

Why did they disappear?

Were they victims of climate change?

Or of a devastating epidemic?

Were they wiped out by other humans?

(Neanderthals yelling)

Or preyed on by a formidable predator?

(bear growling) (Neanderthal yelling)

Who or what were the culprits?

All sorts of theories as to why Neanderthals disappeared

are being put forward.

There's an extraordinary ongoing exploration

into the history of human life.

It's a dazzling journey back in time,

trying to get to the origins of our roots

and the makeup of our genes.

It's an unprecedented investigation

of their prehistoric era

that will allow us to get to the truth.

Who killed the Neanderthals?

(electronic beeping)

(suspenseful music) (brush bristling)

Researchers have been excavating sites

in forests, along cliffs,

under rock shelters, and in caves

to try to solve the mystery.

These men and women

are on the trail of this extinct species.

They've been examining clue after clue,

analyzing the tiniest trace

and the slightest piece of evidence.

Neanderthals lived in Europe,

the Middle East, and Central Asia

from 400,000 years ago to 40,000 years ago

before becoming totally extinct.

Were they our ancestors,

our cousins, monsters?

What did they look like?

In 1856,

the very first fossil was discovered in Germany,

in a wooded area called the Neander Valley,

giving rise to the most whimsical of interpretations.

In the middle of the 19th century,

three years before Darwin's

Origin of the Species was published,

it was inconceivable that humans

might have had an ancestor.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] At the time of the discovery

of the Neanderthals,

there was a sort of taboo.

The idea that a different species of human

could have existed was hard for many scientists to accept,

simply because no other humans had been recorded

in fossil collections.

- [Narrator] So just who could this human have been,

with its elongated cranium and protuberant eyebrows?

For many experts in the 19th century,

it was merely the corpse of a Cossack,

returning from the Russian wars.

The proof was in the numerous bone fractures

which supposedly caused his death.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] There is an amazing story

about the experts who imagined that the shape of the skull

was due to the extreme pain

the man had had to endure.

This pain had made him constantly tense his face muscles,

causing not only the elongated cranium,

but the sizable protuberance above his eyes as well.

(Neanderthal yelling)

- [Narrator] But in the second half of the 19th century,

other bone remains,

similar to those of this first discovery,

were found in other countries.

In total, archeologists dug up over 270 fossils

across more than 130 sites.

The scientists were no longer in doubt.

They had before them the remains of another human species.

But what was it?

In 1908, Marcellin Boule,

who founded the Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris,

examined one of the first Neanderthal skeletons

found in France, at La Chapelle-aux-Saints.

His results were unsettling.

They showed a certain number of deformities:

a curved spine and bandy legs,

similar to those of gorillas.

Based on these findings,

the Czech illustrator, Kupka,

drew an aggressive-looking, ape-like creature

covered in hair.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] At the time,

they didn't have enough information

about prehistoric human behavior.

So they had to make drawings,

and most of those that have remained

are in fact the most ludicrous caricatures.

- [Narrator] These prehistoric humans,

often compared to animals or to monsters,

were seen as primitive beings.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] They were like something from another world,

conjuring up images of humans

that were nothing like present-day humans.

They were obviously something very unusual,

bestial, archaic, and primitive.

There all sorts of pictures

created of bizarre, disheveled creatures.

- [Narrator] And this image of them as savage brutes

would stick around for a long time.

(Neanderthal growling) (woman screaming)

(Neanderthal growling)

Were they ape-like creatures

or humans crippled by spine deforming diseases?

Were Neanderthals really the beasts

depicted by the first anthropologists?

How can we find out who they really were?

Today, cutting-edge tools have enabled scientists

to entirely reconstruct their physical appearance.

Each object is carefully dug up, numbered, and analyzed

in order to come up with the most realistic

composite image possible of the victim.

So what did Neanderthals really look like?

(electronic beeping)

Using the remains of individual number two,

found in Spy Cave in Belgium,

researchers at the Royal Institute of Natural Science

have been working to create a 3-D model

of a Neanderthal skeleton.

(suspenseful music)

(researchers chattering quietly)

Patrick Semal and Tara Chapman

lead the team, whose first task

is to produce high resolution scans.

But there was a major problem.

The skeleton was incomplete.

There were bits of certain bones missing,

and the rib cage and the pelvic bone

had gone forever.

- The femur, for example, is almost complete,

but is missing a very small part of the top.

That's on the right bone.

But on the left bone,

it's missing the lower half.

And how you do this is you put small points on the bones,

which we call landmarks,

and then you put the same points on both bones,

the original bone and the other,

the bone you want to scale to.

And then what I was able to do

is once they were similar,

is then I could cut the bottom half of the right femur,

scale to the left, and join them together.

And then you have a complete bone.

- [Narrator] This is called the mirror technique,

reconstituting missing parts

by using those from the opposite side.

When a whole set of bones is missing,

Tara Chapman's team called upon laboratories

from other countries

to help them solve the puzzle.

So here, the rib cage and pelvis

have come from the Neanderthal remains in Kebara in Israel.

Once these fossils have been modeled,

they're scaled to the rest of the skeleton

using statistical calculations

based on the proportional sizes of existing bones.

- Once we did that,

we then took the small fragment of the sacrum

and we measured it against the new Kebara 2 size,

and we found that it fit it quite well.

So for that, we could say, okay.

And then we took the thorax

and we scaled that to the size

of the Kebara 2 pelvis as well.

(electronic beeping)

- [Narrator] This is the most precise modeling

of a Neanderthal to ever to be produced.

The caricatures have long since gone.

Thanks to this highly realistic reconstitution,

an anatomical analysis of Neanderthal features

is now possible.

(suspenseful music)

Will this help us to find out

the cause of their extinction?

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] So, the cranial cavity, is on average

more or less the same volume as ours today.

But the architecture is completely different from ours.

The cranium is elongated,

fairly flat and wide.

It has a protuberant face

with a broad, protruding nose.

- [Narrator] One distinguishing feature,

a low, receding forehead

with a very pronounced supraorbital ridge.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] So, the face was quite different from ours,

especially as there was practically no chin

under the lower jawbone.

- [Narrator] Could this physique,

which was so different from ours,

have been a handicap in their attempt

to survive a hostile and brutal environment?

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] These specimens were fairly sturdy,

with an average estimated height of 160 centimeters.

- [Narrator] The skeleton indicated

that they had a wide, barrel-shaped torso

with powerful hands and feet.

Their short legs and small stature

made them exceptional wrestlers,

ready for any sort of fight.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Neanderthals had a very sturdy physique

with highly prominent joints,

indicating substantial muscular development.

They were extremely athletic individuals

who could run long distances.

- [Narrator] Neanderthals had no physical weaknesses

that would have brought about their extinction.

But the scientists' work didn't stop there.

They wanted to find out how Neanderthals walked.

Was Marcellin Boule right?

Did they walk like gorillas?

By simulating the muscle movement

on the bones of the virtual skeleton,

and by analyzing the wear and tear on the joints,

they were able to reproduce the Neanderthal walk.

In the biomechanics lab

of the Universite Libre of Belgium,

Tara Chapman has been working

with Dr. Serge Van Sint Jan

in reconstituting the way our protagonists walked.

By placing markers in the exact same places

on a modern-day Homo sapiens'

and on a virtual Neanderthal skeleton,

they're able to compare the prehistoric way of walking

with ours.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We were able to make the bones

move in space

and then analyze the bones, one after the other,

for example, while walking

or during a whole series of movements

like throwing a javelin, crouching,

running, and so on.

- [Narrator] Neanderthals have a very similar morphology

to ours.

And when comparing the motion curves

of prehistoric humans to modern-day humans,

there's no difference.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Neanderthals certainly didn't walk

in the ape-like manner

that was associated with them in the past,

simply because their joints

were totally consistent with our own joints.

So from a joint and bone structure point of view,

there's absolutely no reason to believe

that they walked like apes.

- [Narrator] The idea that Neanderthals

were closer to gorillas than humans

is no longer tenable.

They ran and walked just like us.

(Neanderthals yelling) (water splashing)

(suspenseful music)

So what was their figure like,

their physical appearance?

Thanks to the analysis of their muscle mass

and the reconstitution techniques,

it's possible to simulate a Neanderthal body.

Can their muscles,

skin color,

body hair,

and eye and hair color all be worked out?

In the Max Planck Institute of Human Evolution in Leipzig,

Jean-Jacques Hublin's team

are trying to identify the exact color and texture

of our ancestor's skin.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] One of the fundamental characteristics

of the human species

is having very little body hair.

Since it's connected to their ability to sweat,

it's related to the hunting methods

of the first Homo genus in Africa

who were able to hunt their prey

even during the hottest parts of the day.

This is not what other predators

who were more nocturnal used to do.

- [Narrator] Homo genus lost its covering of body hair

1.7 million years ago.

When Neanderthals appeared 400,000 years ago,

they were not furry creatures, covered in hair.

Their anthropometric profile is becoming clearer.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Skin color is something that varies

considerably in humans.

Every time a population moves away from a sunny region,

an area where there's lots of ultraviolet light,

towards a region where there is less light,

it results in a loss of pigmentation.

- [Narrator] Neanderthals lived in northern latitudes,

where light was scarce,

and they would have had fair skin,

which helps capture the sunlight

and manufacture vitamin D, vital for bone strength.

(mysterious music)

When the scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig

analyzed Neanderthal DNA,

they found the skin and hair colors

to be within the same palette

as that of modern Europeans.

These archaic humans had pale or tan skin,

dark blonde or red hair

with hazel or lighter colored eyes.

(majestic music)

We now have a composite portrait of our victim.

Neanderthals were sturdy individuals with powerful muscles,

measuring around 160 centimeters

and weighing 75 kilos.

They were not weak and feeble.

Their brains were as large as ours,

and they walked just like we do.

They weren't prone to any particular disease,

nor physical disability.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Neanderthals were prehistoric athletes,

whose physique was well adapted to their environment,

both in terms of climate and also geographically.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] If these humans were so well adapated

to their environment,

who were their ancestors?

To answer this,

we need to delve into the Neanderthal memory,

to browse the great book of the origins of humanity

and to go back in time.

(electronic beeping)

In the Arago Cave in the Eastern Pyrenees,

scientists discovered the cranium

of the oldest known inhabitant of France.

He lived on this planet more than 600,000 years ago

and belonged to a subspecies

called Tautavel Man.

Researchers called him the European Homo erectus,

or Homo heidelbergensis.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The skull dates back 450,000 years

and belonged to a young adult in his 20s.

- [Narrator] Could Tautavel Man have been the ancestor

to the Neanderthals?

The bone analysis throws up numerous clues.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The cranium was flat

with a receding forehead,

a powerful supraorbital ridge

with a hollow right above the nose,

and no chin.

So, in many ways,

he resembles his direct descendants, the Neanderthals,

but there are important differences

and characteristics between the two.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] The young man discovered at Tautavel

has the same anatomical characteristics as our victim.

Tautavel Man was a taller, thinner species

with a smaller brain.

They weren't Neanderthals,

but would evolve into them.

For thousands of years,

there was a succession of ice ages and warmer periods

which isolated Homo heidelbergensis,

confining them to Europe.

Their bodies adapted to their environment,

becoming stronger and stockier,

and the size of their brains increased.

(baby crying)

Over the generations,

Tautavel Man became Neanderthals.

Tautavel Man were Neanderthals' ancestors

and passed on their history,

a history which has become that of the Neanderthals.

And it's a history which goes right back

to the origins of humanity in Africa

over one million years ago.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The European Neanderthals

descended from a population called Homo heidelbergensis.

This population also existed in Africa.

The Homo heidelbergensis who stayed in Africa

became Homo sapiens.

The European Homo heidelbergensis became Neanderthals,

but those in Africa became Homo sapiens.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] Neanderthals have the same parents as us,

Homo heidelbergensis or evolved Homo erectus.

Neanderthals are our human brothers and sisters.

A million years ago,

our common ancestors lived on the African continent.

Around 600,000 years ago,

the family divided in two.

Our direct ancestors stayed in Africa,

whereas the ancestors of the Neanderthals

crossed into the Middle East and settled in Europe.

Traces of them have been found in Germany,

in Sima de los Huesos in Spain,

and in the Arago Cave in Tautavel.

Neanderthals seemed to be able to adapt to climate change,

but was there a major upheaval

which was the cause of their extinction?

To find out more,

it's important to know exactly when they became extinct

by dating the bone remains and comparing the data

with the climate history of Europe.

At the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit,

Aikaterina Douka has managed to determine the date

of the death of the Neanderthals.

- In order to accurately date

the latest Neanderthals,

we visited several sites across Europe

and collected material from Spain, France,

several sites in Italy, Greece,

and of course, Northern Europe,

where we know Neanderthals used to live.

(machinery buzzing)

- [Narrator] In this Oxford University lab,

researchers have developed a whole new technique

for dating bone fossil remains.

To avoid contamination, the samples are filtered

so that only the carbon-14 in fossils is analyzed.

This is known as ultrafiltration.

- We didn't know what to expect

because the results were coming one by one,

and for years, we would date one site

and date another.

But it was only when we put all the synthesis together

that things became quite clear.

There were no sites all across Europe

that would postdate 39,000 years ago.

We were very excited when we eventually,

for the first time, we got a reliable date

for the extinction of Neanderthals.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] 39,000 years ago,

the disappearance of the Neanderthals

came much earlier than previously imagined.

Scientists now want to find out

what the weather in Europe was like at the time.

Was the climate temperate

or was there a severe ice age?

(birds cawing) (waves crashing)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] In fact, the climate was very unstable

during that period.

There were a whole series of climate crises

which we call Heinrich events.

They are fairly ferocious episodes

linked to ice flowing into the oceans

in the Northern Hemisphere.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] For over a century,

icebergs float relentlessly

all the way down to the coasts of Spain.

These mountains of ice considerably cooled down

the climate in Europe 40,000 years ago.

Scientists call this climate event Heinrich 4.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] It's important to understand

that these environmental and climate crises

happen constantly over 400,000 years,

and Neanderthals would have experienced them all.

And yet, they weren't wiped out.

What is true is that the coldest episodes

would have had an impact on the size

of Neanderthal populations in general.

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] The different climactic upheavals

weakened the Neanderthals

by reducing the extent of their territory

and making food resources scarce.

But these sturdy individuals

were nevertheless able to survive

and continued to exist on the planet.

(suspenseful music)

If the extinction of the Neanderthals

can't be explained by the climate,

perhaps their way of life was the cause.

Were their know-how and their technologies good enough

to enable them to resist the prehistoric era?

(fire crackling)

What did their habitat, stretching from Gibraltar

to Mount Altai in Siberia,

and from Germany to the south of Italy look like?

How and on what did they live?

Did they regularly change camp

according to the seasons

and the movements of the animals they hunted?

(sand squishing)

Neanderthals were very careful where they pitched camp.

Cave entrances, meadows overlooking valleys,

or riversides were all examples

of well chosen places to settle.

(birds chirping)

(waves crashing)

(electronic beeping)

Dominique Cliquet and his team

found the most unexpectedly rich site

beneath the dunes of the large beaches

of the Cotentin Peninsula in Northern France.

Under the sands of Le Rozel,

they discovered 20 meters

of an extremely well preserved domestic habitat.

The valuable traces left behind

have presented the archeologists

with a true photo of Neanderthal daily life.

(archeologists chattering quietly)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] What is interesting about this site

is that there are levels of occupation

that have been regularly covered by sand,

blown in by the wind.

So we have snapshots, relatively brief moments of life,

frozen in time,

and then covered over again by sand.

- [Narrator] The site shows us

a degree of social organization

with a distribution of tasks

across the members of the tribe.

The archeologists were able to define the different zones

dedicated to preparing hides,

cutting meat, and cooking.

Here, we can see a hearth

where Neanderthals cooked their food.

(Neanderthal speaking in foreign language)

A clan made up of a dozen members

regularly came to these dunes

from autumn through to spring.

(Neanderthal sputtering)

(Neanderthal laughing)

(Neanderthal speaking in foreign language)

In Le Rozel,

the sand has preserved unique traces of their presence:

footprints.

The researchers found more than 500 of them in all.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We found one, then a second,

then we found several.

Some of them we found were so clearly imprinted,

impacted into the ground

with the toe marks still visible.

It looked someone had walked into a barely dried

puddle of mud.

It was absolutely clear

what we were looking at.

- [Narrator] A storm had broken over the tribe

and their living space was covered over with silt.

(bird cawing)

And it's in this mud

that our Neanderthals left their mark.

Once the storm had passed,

a strong wind blew a thick layer of dry sand

over the footprints in the silt,

thus preserving the traces of Neanderthals

for 80,000 years.

This footprint demonstrates that a Neanderthal

had tried to sidestep an obstacle.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The foot is more heavily imprinted

into the mud,

which splashed up on both sides of the foot.

The image is of a dynamic Neanderthal,

scrambling up the edges of the sand dune.

- [Narrator] Here, a Neanderthal had crouched down

and then used his hand to get up,

leaving an imprint of fingers and palm for posterity

as a signature.

(electronic beeping)

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

Neanderthals lived on this coastline in clans,

composed of parents and children,

80,000 years ago.

(waves crashing)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] And what is really poignant

is that we found numerous children's footprints,

two small baby feet,

and those of a one-year-old.

(serene music)

- [Narrator] Over one particular area

over 80 square meters,

Dominique's team found only imprints

from children's feet,

as if it had been a play area

just next to the place where the adults were busy

with daily survival activities,

(children laughing)

almost like a kindergarten

where the youngsters played

while the adults looked on approvingly.

(children laughing)

(footsteps lightly thudding)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We could imagine their daily life.

Especially when we found trails of footprints,

it was as if Neanderthals had just passed by.

We almost turned around

to check that they weren't actually behind us.

(serene music)

(birds cawing)

- [Narrator] Just like the sandcastles

that we all built when we were children,

this site is fragile.

It only takes a drop of rain or a sea breeze

and these ephemeral traces of the past

would disappear forever.

(birds cawing)

What these well organized camps tell us

about the nomadic Neanderthals

is that they lived here for as long as they could,

depending on how much food they could get hold of.

More evidence of daily Neanderthal life

can be found elsewhere in Europe.

(insects chirping) (footsteps crunching)

At Roc de Marsal in the French Dordogne,

researchers uncovered numerous traces of hearths,

as can be witnessed by the redness

of these burnt rocks

and the white-colored ashes

found in the layers of sediment.

(stones clacking)

Fire played a crucial role

in the human evolution of Neanderthals,

vital for lighting,

essential for keeping warm,

used for cooking meat,

and a formidable tool for keeping predators at bay.

Neanderthals certainly knew how to make fires.

Researchers have even worked out

how Neanderthals went about producing fire.

They used marcasite,

which contains iron and sulfur

to produce sparks (stones clacking)

and set alight plant fibers.

(fire crackling)

The striations left on some of the stone tools

bear out this technique.

(fire crackling)

Neanderthals mastered fire

better than any species before them

and used it as an indispensable ally in their survival.

Other dig sites have come up with evidence,

enabling us to understand what and how a Neanderthal ate.

Is it possible that they died out

because of some dietary deficiency?

(suspenseful music)

In order to find out what our victim ate,

Amanda Henry, research scientist

at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands

has been analyzing Neanderthal dental calculus.

This layer of plaque found on teeth and gums

holds all sorts of unexpected information

about what Neanderthals ate.

- What we're looking for inside the calculus

are tiny residues of plants,

usually either starch grains or phytoliths

that formed during the plant's lifetime

and that can last over archeological time spans.

And what we're looking for is the shape

and the size and some of the morphological features

of these starch grains and phytoliths

in order to figure out what plant they came from.

(electronic beeping)

- [Narrator] These vegetal remains

show that Neanderthals ate plants,

such as barley, tubers,

water lily roots, and even dates.

But there was something else that Amanda Henry found out.

- We have found gelatinized or altered starches

on a few of our Neanderthal dental calculus samples.

And we think that's pretty strong evidence

that Neanderthals were intentionally processing their food,

some sort of cooking.

(dramatic music)

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] So, Neanderthals didn't suffer

from deficiencies in vitamins or mineral salts

since their diets were extremely varied.

They even cooked plants to make them more edible.

Nevertheless, the numerous bones found in dig sites

indicate the Neanderthals must primarily

have eaten meat.

Scientists have been able to calculate

how much energy they spent daily.

Due to their powerful muscles

and impressive body mass,

Neanderthals burned around 6,000 calories a day,

three times more than we do.

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

They would have had to eat meat every day

to satisfy their needs.

Could famine caused by shortage of animals

have been the cause of their extinction?

(somber music)

Marylene Patou-Mathis is a researcher

at the Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris

and has studied animals from the Neanderthal era

and how they were hunted.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] You can forget the naive, outdated image

of the poor prehistoric man

wandering around the frozen tundra

trying to find food.

This is totally incorrect.

Our studies have shown

that there was a great range of animals

and plenty of them could be hunted,

especially as most of the prey

were in flocks or herds.

Finding food was not a problem.

(dramatic music)

(animals snorting and stampeding)

- [Narrator] Did the Neanderthals just salvage dead animals

or were they skilled hunters?

At Le Rozel,

Dominique Cliquet uncovered a strange carcass.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We were fortunate to come across a fragment

of the jawbone of a walrus.

It was almost certainly an animal

that had drifted down on an ice floe

and was probably dead when washed up on the shore.

The meat was probably scavenged,

although I don't really like the expression

because it's associated with meat

that's been left out for a while.

And anyway, Neanderthals were like us.

When they ate meat,

they ate perfectly edible meat.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] And carrion meat can be dangerous.

It has to be kept away from other carnivores

such as vultures and hyenas. (bird screeching)

Researchers have also found out

that a Neanderthal menu contained both fish and shellfish.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] They made the most

of all the natural resources they could lay their hands on

for daily survival.

They were knowledgeable about their environment.

(somber music)

(twigs snapping)

- [Narrator] Even if Neanderthals took advantage of animals

that were already dead,

they still used hunting

as their principal means of survival.

By analyzing the geography of the sites of Central Europe,

Marylene Patou-Mathis

worked out that knowledge of their environment

enabled Neanderthals to choose suitable places

like water holes or the bottom of valleys

to trap animals and prevent them from getting away.

(Neanderthal grunting)

- [Translator] I studied a site a Starosele

in the Crimea

where Neanderthals had killed small equidae

in an enclosed valley.

First, the beaters drove them into the valley,

and since it was enclosed,

when they arrived at the edge of the valley,

the hunters blocked their route

and speared them with lances.

(spear whooshing) (bison grunting)

- [Narrator] Neanderthals used a range

of well worked strategies to hunt mammoths,

bisons, oryx,

horses, ibex,

and also smaller prey,

such as hares or groundhogs,

depending on the season.

(Neanderthals grunting)

Were they able to make sophisticated tools and weapons

powerful and effective enough (stones clacking)

to kill their prey and skin them?

(Neanderthals grunting)

What about tools to pick and gather fruit and vegetables?

Or to work on hides and furs?

There's a great deal of evidence

to show that Neanderthals were exceptional hunters,

such as these carved stones as sharp as knives

which litter the ground of their living areas.

Scientists in Germany

have even discovered other weapons in their armory:

wooden spears whose points were hardened by fire.

(serene music)

(footsteps tapping lightly)

At the University of Nanterre in the Paris region,

Eric Boeda is a prehistoric technologist

who has reconstituted the history of tools

invented by humans.

(stones clattering)

For him, Neanderthal inventions

were as good as any other technical inventions

of major importance.

Before they came along,

human shaped rocks block by block like sculptors,

but Neanderthals were excellent artisans

and invented a new revolutionary toolmaking technique.

It consisted of cutting stone

to produce sharp-edged flakes.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] They already knew what they wanted

from a block of stone.

The tool they were making

had 10 technical characteristics,

but in theory, the block of stone

wouldn't inherently have them.

The Neanderthal man or woman

would first prepare the block,

giving it a certain shape.

And this shape will contain the very specific

technical characteristics in question.

(stones clacking)

So once the preparation had been done,

they would strike the rock with one blow

in the prepared place.

And the flake that would be produced

would have exactly the sharp edge required.

(dramatic music)

(fabric tearing)

- [Narrator] This major new technique

had a considerable advantage.

It enabled several tools with identical characteristics

to be reproduced quickly.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] This design to reproduce the same flakes

was connected not so much to a need

for particularly sharp tools,

but more to the possibility of standardizing

or normalizing the handheld part.

In other words, handles could be created

that would be adapted to these identical flakes.

- [Narrator] Neanderthals invented the assembling

of objects.

The heel shape of these flakes,

like a peaked cap, is evidence of this.

They knew how to attach carved stones onto a handle

using animal tendons.

(electronic beeping)

In the Middle East,

at the site of Umm el Tlel in Syria,

Eric Boeda discovered another way

Neanderthals attached tools and weapons,

once again highlighting their ingenuity.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We found 200 square meters of flakes,

remains of camels, donkeys, and hunted game.

So it was clearly a normal camp.

When I picked up the first object,

I noticed there was a mark in the ground,

and exactly the same mark was also visible

on the surface of the object

that had been in contact with the ground.

There were a few bits which came away,

but I took these bits

and I burnt some of them,

and it seemed like we'd found bitumen on them.

- [Narrator] By mixing bitumen with sand

and then cooling it down with water,

the Neanderthals had found a substance

as strong as cement

to glue things together.

Using natural tar in this way

proves once again how inventive

and intelligent this species was.

The innovation spread all over the Mediterranean,

right up into Germany,

where Neanderthals used a plant-based glue

made from birch sap.

(serene music)

(Neanderthal exhaling and grunting)

On the steep ledges of Mount Hortus

near Montpellier in the south of France,

Neanderthals hunted ibex from the end of January

right up to the spring.

During an archeological dig at this hunting spot,

Henry de Lumley uncovered

an apparently insignificant piece of evidence

which nevertheless proved that Neanderthals

didn't just hunt for food.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] In the remains, which date back

40 to 45,000 years,

we found bones from the legs of panthers

that connected up anatomically,

but nothing else of the skeleton was found.

This led us to believe

that there must have been a panther skin

with the ends of the paws still inside,

used as a rug or as clothing.

More than that, we couldn't say.

- [Narrator] The use of dead animal hides

is backed up by the presence of dental wear and tear,

particularly on the incisors.

It's proof that teeth were used

as a third hand.

By holding the animal skin between the jaws,

Neanderthals were able to pull it tight

and work on it more easily.

(hides rustling)

Masters of fire, revolutionary stonecutters,

fearsome hunters, creative craftspeople,

the picture of Neanderthals is becoming clearer.

This great nomadic people

clearly didn't become extinct

through lack of know-how. (baby crying)

So just how far did these tireless nomads travel?

Working alongside Russian researchers,

the scientists at Max Planck in Leipzig

have perfected a new technique

for uncovering DNA

even when there are no human bone remains to excavate.

Here in the Siberian caves,

they're analyzing the sedimentary layers.

(foil crinkling)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] This is a fantastic new opportunity

for archeology.

DNA contained in sediment layers

enables us to tell if humans were present at a dig site,

but also to tell if Neanderthals were there first,

and then if modern humans arrived afterwards,

and perhaps the Neanderthals came back again after that.

- [Narrator] It's a technique which allows

a better definition of the geographic zones

covered by Neanderthals,

and also perhaps to find out

if they went even further east

at the risk of getting lost.

(footsteps crunching)

The oldest identified Siberian Neanderthals

were discovered in the Denisova Caves

and arrived there during a period of global warming

120,000 years ago.

At that time, glaciers only covered

a very small section of the ice caps.

And so whole populations could travel eastwards

within Asia quite easily.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] There's a strong probability

that the Neanderthals traveled

to the easternmost territories

beyond the Siberian mountains.

Thanks to the techniques of sedimentary analysis,

it's certainly possible to obtain DNA

from open-air sites.

And then we would have proof

of the presence of Neanderthals

in the Far East, in Mongolia, or in China.

- [Narrator] Neanderthals were completely at home in nature,

and nothing suggests that their endless migrations

led to their downfall.

(suspenseful music)

All the evidence gathered on the daily lives of Neanderthals

shows that they must have been able

to communicate amongst themselves

to devise hunting strategies,

to pass down ancestral customs,

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

to warn fellow travelers of potential dangers,

or simply to express emotions.

How can we be sure that they mastered the tools of language?

The first clue came from the Kebara site in Israel.

Archeologists found a Neanderthal fossil

that was almost completely intact.

And with it, the anatomical proof

that Neanderthals were able to express themselves

with language.

(suspenseful music)

This bone, situated in the upper larynx,

is the hyoid bone,

which helps to keep the base of the tongue in place

and enables sound to be articulated,

a valuable piece of evidence

which proves that Neanderthals could most likely talk.

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

(footsteps tapping)

More evidence came to life

thanks to the computer modeling of the cranium.

Scientists were able to recreate the endocranium,

in other words, the imprint of the brain.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] An endocranium

is the somewhat magical image

of something that doesn't get preserved in fossils.

It's the brain.

The brain leaves an imprint

on the inner surface of the cranium

because during our growth and development,

both brain and skull evolve at the same time.

The brain presses on the cranium

and both are bound to each other as we grow.

- [Narrator] This cast of a Neanderthal brain imprint

shows that they possess the same zones

associated with language as modern-day humans.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We were able to detect one by one

the different areas of the brain.

Here are the frontal lobes, the temporal lobes,

and the occipital lobes.

And the precision is such

that we're able to observe smaller zones,

the different convolutions

and the anatomical zones

which are of a functional interest.

Here we can see the extension of Broca's area,

which is a zone linked to language production, for example.

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] The third piece of evidence

comes to us via genetics.

In the Max Planck laboratories in Leipzig,

scientists have identified the FOXP2 gene

in Neanderthal DNA.

This gene is fundamental

in the development of language in humans.

(electronic beeping)

So, Neanderthals could talk.

(Neanderthal speaking in foreign language)

Thanks to the power of words,

Neanderthals were able to transmit their know-how

to future generations,

enabling their continued existence.

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

(Neanderthals laughing)

So if there's no material evidence in their daily life

which suggests the cause of their extinction,

could it have been to do

with their relationship with others?

What can the fossils tell us about the ties

which bound the members of the tribe to each other

up until death?

(suspenseful music)

(wind rushing)

Living up to the age of 30 was a huge challenge

for these prehistoric humans.

Life was closely linked to death.

Were they afraid of it?

Did they see it as inevitable

or just as a passage to another world?

In Siberia, a team of Russian archeologists

from the Institute of Novosibirsk,

led by Professors Kseniya Kolobova and Bence Viola,

have been carrying out digs since 2010.

(researchers speaking in foreign language)

(water splashing)

In the Chargyskaya Cave,

not far from the Altai Mountains,

the scientists have made an extraordinary discovery,

a first in this part of the world:

more than 18 Neanderthal bone remains.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We found a complete Neanderthal living space

in the Chargyskaya Cave,

where they'd left evidence of their daily lives.

They hunted, carved stones, and made fires.

The cave is not very big,

and there were about 10 to 15 members in the clan.

(suspenseful music)

(researchers chattering)

- [Narrator] Some of the bone remains were found together

in the same spot at the cave's entrance.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] A vast majority of these bones

came from the same individual.

For example, there was a right arm

with the shoulder blade, collarbone, humerus,

ulna, and radius.

It's almost certainly an intentional anthropogenic deposit.

- [Narrator] The arm is in its entirety,

and bears no traces of animal bites,

so these are not the remains of a predator's meal.

These bones were buried in a tomb.

This was a clan burial

from as far back as 50,000 years ago.

However, nothing here indicated

that there had been any particular ritual.

Neanderthals buried their dead.

The first Neanderthal tomb in France

was discovered at La Chapelle-aux-Saints,

near to Brive-la-Gaillarde in the southwest.

(ominous music)

Sheltered under the rocks,

the deceased was buried in the fetal position

with the head facing the east.

In other words, towards the rising sun.

(Neanderthals chanting quietly)

Other tombs have been discovered in the Middle East,

showing more evidence of how much attention

Neanderthals paid to their dead.

The corpse was often decorated with objects,

placed there like offerings,

plants, animal bones,

carved stones,

traces of ochre or even shells,

proof that Neanderthals were empathetic.

They had an ability to imagine another world,

helping the dead to the life beyond.

(Neanderthal speaking in foreign language)

(electronic beeping)

Numerous Neanderthal skulls

dating back around 120,000 years

were excavated at a remarkable site

at Krapina in Croatia.

At the Museum of Natural Science in Zagreb,

Jakov Radovcic

analyzed the various marks on the bones.

The carefully drawn striations

were symbols of a complex funereal rite.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We observed several types

of cranial striations in Krapina.

We can be absolutely certain

that some of them are of human origin.

I believe that these cranial striations

were created intentionally

and have a symbolic value.

- [Narrator] These marks had a geometrical shape

and they were meticulously drawn on the brow

and on the head itself.

Jakov Radovcic believes that they were signs

of a very special ritual

that is often called a skull cult.

The cranial bone was broken

to enable the brain to be removed

and most likely, eaten.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The striations almost certainly came about

as a result of cannibalistic behavior,

probably as a ritual,

asserting the particular relationship

between the tribe and the dead person.

- [Narrator] So it was a cannibalistic funeral.

The Krapina fossils are not an isolated case.

Other signs of cannibalism

have been found on other dig sites.

(footsteps tapping)

At the Belgian Royal Institute of Natural Sciences,

Helene Rougier has been examining fossils

found in the Goyet Caves

at the end of the 19th century.

She, too, observed similar traces on the bone remains.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] In the caves,

we found a whole collection of Neanderthal bones

from the rather piecemeal remains

of at least six individuals.

And the reason for this fragmentation

was that the bones had been broken

so that the marrow could be extracted.

This was after the muscles

and the skin had been removed,

and the body, completely torn apart.

- [Narrator] These marks on the bones

are a sign that the Neanderthal

deliberately cut away the skin.

Here, we can see that the bone had been broken

even though the person was already dead.

(eerie music)

And so it wasn't the burying of the bones

which caused them to break.

There are very visible impact marks

made by a small rock.

These signs are definite proof of cannibalistic practices.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We found the same occurrences

on Neanderthal bones

as we found on reindeer and horses.

And the marks were situated in exactly the same places

and produced in the same way on the Neanderthals

as on the animals.

- [Narrator] Was this cannibalism for food or for ritual?

For the Goyet finds,

the scientists cannot answer that question,

but it's clear that cannibalistic practices

have dangers for human health.

So could these practices have been the cause

of the extinction of Neanderthals?

In the middle of the 20th century,

researchers were able to prove

that populations who practice cannibalism

could be wiped out.

A terrifying disease called kuru

have killed off certain tribes in Papua New Guinea.

A protein called prion

is responsible for the fatal disease.

This protein is found in the brain

and in the bone marrow

and is transmitted through eating those parts of the body.

- [Translator] We found a great number of traces

of repeated cannibalism in certain sites,

so we wondered if they'd all developed

the prion-type illness since they were cannibals,

especially as the protein is difficult to get rid of.

In other words, if they used a tool

to cut out a diseased brain

and then used the same tool

to cut up meat afterwards,

then the disease could easily spread to someone else.

(ominous music)

- [Narrator] Once the prion has been absorbed

into the body,

it attacks and destroys the nervous system,

causing death.

This might have been how Neanderthals died.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The most important sites

where cannibalism has been observed

date back to between 100 and 800,000 years,

so, well before Neanderthals became extinct.

And the other problem is that Neanderthals

were spread out over a huge area

of Europe and parts of Eurasia.

So we're talking about very disparate populations

with different cultures.

It's probably a bit of an exaggeration

to say that all Neanderthals were cannibals.

- [Narrator] So, death by prion was not the cause

of the extinction of Neanderthals.

It would have meant that every tribe was cannibalistic.

But there's no archeological proof of this.

(serene music)

So if the Neanderthal death customs

were not responsible for their disappearance,

perhaps we need to be looking at the birth side of things.

Were there enough Neanderthals

to guarantee the future of the species?

(Neanderthals yelling)

Have their fossil remains

kept any vestiges of their birth?

(Neanderthal speaking in foreign language)

(Neanderthal screaming)

(baby crying)

Did a low birth rate

bring about the extinction of the Neanderthal people?

(Neanderthals speaking in foreign language)

(baby crying)

(Neanderthals chanting)

In the genetic laboratories at Max Planck,

researchers have managed to compare the DNA

of several Neanderthal fossils.

Basing their results on the number of fossils found

and their genetic similarities,

these paleodemographers

are able to estimate the size

of the Neanderthal population.

- The measure that we usually obtain

from the analysis of sequence data

is what we call the effective population size.

And Neanderthals usually go

in the low thousands

or the low ten-thousands.

- [Narrator] The effective population size

helps to measure the genetic diversity of Neanderthals.

It seems it varied between 1,000 and 10,000

depending on the period studied.

These variations in genetic diversity

that can be detected in the DNA

correspond exactly to the Earth's different climate periods.

(suspenseful music)

The tests show that the population of Neanderthals

had a very low genetic diversity

compared to other species.

In other words,

the DNA in each Neanderthal is very similar.

But while analyzing this DNA,

the scientists came across something else.

- So what we infer from the Neanderthal's genomes

is a long-term decrease in their population.

- [Narrator] So genetic research

definitely confirms the theory

that there was a drop

in the Neanderthal population over time.

But the reasons for this still remain.

In the Denisova Cave in Siberia,

more clues hidden in the DNA

of the extinct species were uncovered.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] What's interesting at Denisova

is that there was a very small group for a long time,

but also, there was an element inbreeding,

especially in the last generation.

We can see that the parents of these individuals

are very close genetically.

They may have been grandparents and grandchildren

or an uncle and a niece.

- [Narrator] This consanguinity

is an important piece of information.

Since they couldn't find any other partners,

Neanderthals were forced to mate within their own clans,

their own families.

(Neanderthal groaning)

Without an injection of genes

from outside of the tribe,

is this how archaic humans sowed the seeds

of their downfall?

Did the very low genetic diversity of Neanderthals

and the inbreeding of certain individuals

bring about the degeneration of the population,

and thus, its extinction?

- This reveals diversity

may, in some populations,

be linked to inbreeding,

which further decreases the diversity

and increases the probability

of recessive deleterious variation expressing themselves.

And this may lead to a number of genetic disorders.

- [Narrator] Genetic disorders

caused by malfunctioning genes

produce negative effects on the organism.

(electronic beeping)

So what risks were these people running?

- Populations with low diversity

have much more difficulty to face

environmental challenges

or genetic challenges

that may come from,

for example, infection.

- [Narrator] Infections linked to illnesses

for which these humans

would not have developed natural defense mechanisms.

Genetics can go even further to explain the situation

of the Neanderthal populations of 40,000 years ago.

Over time, there were fewer and fewer of them.

Their genetic diversity declined.

Cases of inbreeding have been discovered.

Neanderthals found themselves less well-equipped

to fight diseases

as well as the constant changes

dictated by their nomadic way of life.

(Neanderthals groaning)

Neanderthals, the victims at our crime scene,

demonstrated a weakness in their DNA

in the very heart of their cells.

(dramatic music)

To find out if this is a clue to their extinction,

we need to look more carefully

at their relationship to others.

Did Neanderthals make the wrong type of friends?

Were they wiped out during tribal conflicts?

(punches thudding) (Neanderthals grunting)

Or did they fall victim to a disease

carried by a third party?

(suspenseful music)

(electronic beeping)

In the Asturian hills in Northern Spain,

at the end of a long forest path,

is a small passage leading deep underground.

(foliage rustling)

In the Sidron Cave,

Professors Marco de la Rasilla and Antonio Rosas

brought to light an archeological treasure.

At the bottom of this deep chamber,

400 meters from the entrance

where a small river flows,

these researchers discovered

what looked like a mass grave of Neanderthals.

(Neanderthal panting)

In all, nearly 2,600 bones were excavated.

What could have happened?

Is this a proof of mass extermination?

- El Sidron assemblage

is the largest Neanderthal bone assemblage

ever found in the Iberian Peninsula.

And we have identified a minimum number of 13 individuals.

Seven adults,

three adolescents,

two juveniles, and one infant.

(Neanderthal crying)

(Neanderthal speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] At the Sidron site,

what is both strange and surprising

is that there were practically no animal remains found

alongside those of the Neanderthals.

- Usually, the assemblages come from different period.

In this case,

because of the special condition of the site,

we are in front of a single

biological and social Neanderthal group.

This is quite special for this kind of site,

and it makes the Sidron a very particular place.

- [Narrator] The DNA found in the remains

of these 13 Neanderthals

confirm their biological relationship.

These men, women, and children

all belonged to the same family.

Their bones were crushed

and their skulls, broken into small pieces.

How can the sad fate of this tribe be explained?

(suspenseful music) (footsteps tapping)

At the University of Madrid,

Antonio Rosas analyzed these remains.

What did the results show?

What happened to the Sidron tribe of 13 Neanderthals?

- We have found different evidences

to support the hypothesis of cannibalism.

The clearest are what we call cut marks.

We found marks of cannibalism in adults

and also in immature individuals.

- [Narrator] Cannibalism again.

The bones had been broken open for the marrow.

Was this Neanderthal clan devoured

by bloodthirsty warriors?

The carbon dating was to provide some answers.

- We have a site that similar methods

for dating the assemblage,

actually, we would have very consistent dating.

And the age is 49,000 years old.

- [Narrator] This clan had been eaten

49,000 years ago by other Neanderthals.

(suspenseful music)

After the fatal feeding frenzy,

a storm broke.

(birds chirping)

The river that runs through the rocks

carried away the remains of this cannibalistic feast

into the depths of the cave,

which is where the fossils of this tribe were discovered.

Were the Sidron 13 victims of intertribal conflict?

Were they martyrs of a sacrificial rite

or a meal for another famine-affected clan?

If Antonio Rosas can't come up with the answers,

there are similar traces of violence elsewhere

which could provide some explanations.

(birds chirping) (water rushing)

(water splashing)

In 1979, at Saint-Cesaire in Charente-Maritime

in the west of France,

the skull of a young Neanderthal female,

nicknamed Pierrette,

was found with a large gash on it.

In the Middle East,

other fossils have been found

with serious injuries to the head and limbs.

(birds chirping)

(insects chirping)

Are these a series of clues

which point to the consequences of a bloody war?

Were Neanderthals perhaps victims

of what we call nowadays a genocide?

Did they come into contact

with another species of human?

(dramatic music)

(fighters yelling and groaning)

Who are these strange humans with flat faces,

round heads, and elongated figures?

With high, rounded foreheads

and faces ending in pointed chins?

(fighters screaming)

With long legs holding up slender bodies?

(fighters screaming and grunting)

They are Homo sapiens.

So are they the prime suspects

in this investigation?

(fighters yelling and grunting)

And if Neanderthals came into contact with them,

what's their story?

(wind howling)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The versions which most closely resemble us

come from Africa

300,000 years ago.

They were recently discovered in Jebel Irhoud in Morocco.

- [Narrator] While Neanderthals dominated Europe,

Homo sapiens conquered huge areas of Africa,

from the Indian Ocean

all the way to the Atlantic coasts.

And then, 120,000 years ago,

a major climate event

forced our ancestors to seek out new lands to inhabit.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] In the past, there were episodes

called the periods of the wet Sahara.

Instead of the Sahara that we know today,

there were savannas, lakes, rivers,

elephants and giraffes

over a territory which was as big as the U.S.A.

The wet Sahara period of 120,000 years ago

is possibly what explains the presence

of modern-day humans outside of Africa

in the zone between the Persian Gulf,

the Indian Ocean, and Syria.

(serene music)

- [Narrator] Homo sapiens, modern humans,

migrated northwards in two different directions.

The first route followed the Nile Delta

up to Palestine,

and then continued into the Jordan Valley.

The second route took the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait

towards the Arabian Peninsula

and up to the Levant.

So, Homo sapiens arrived in the Neanderthal territory

and settled in rock shelters

such as the Skhul and Qafzeh caves in Israel

For over 10,000 years,

modern humans were forced to share this land

with prehistoric men and women

in the Tabun Caves in Mount Carmel.

How did this cohabitation work out?

- Anthropologists like to think in models.

You know, we have models to explain what could have happened

when two different groups meet each other.

Either it's a love story,

it's a massacre story,

or one just simply give up and move to a new area.

(Homo sapiens speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] When faced with newcomers,

hunter-gatherers reacted in one of three different ways.

The first involved brutal conflict.

The tribes fought each other

and victory went to the stronger

or the cleverer tribe.

The second reaction was flight.

The incumbents left their place

to the newly arrived strangers.

And lastly, there was exchange.

The two sets of people interacted,

communicated, and mixed together

culturally and genetically.

- I don't know if it was a Romeo and Juliet story

in that sense,

but what I can tell,

as I said from the fact that they were overlapping

for such a long period of time

and the fact that they shared the same technology,

that they were communicating peacefully

with one another

and probably interbred.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] In the Middle East,

Neanderthals and sapiens exchanged their knowledge

and interbred.

These first encounters in Israel,

dating back 120,000 years,

were neither brutal nor belligerent.

So what could the traces of violence

found in France signify?

Are they evidence of bloody battles

between these two types of humans?

Was their history in Europe different from elsewhere?

Or did their paths just simply cross?

To find this out,

we have to work out exactly

when Homo sapiens arrived in Neanderthal colonies in Europe.

The first European sapiens left the Middle East

and settled in Central Europe

around 45,000 years ago.

Later, around 42,000 years ago,

another wave of Homo sapiens migration

settled around the Mediterranean Basin

and began to inhabit

almost the whole of the European area.

(majestic music)

42,000 years ago,

that's the date attributed to Pierrette,

the Neanderthal female

with the fatal head wound

found at Saint-Cesaire.

This clue could well prove

that there'd been a clash

between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

Could we then infer

that there was already such a thing as war

in prehistoric times?

(birds chirping)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The conditions of life at the time,

the low population,

the vast areas of land,

the abundance of animals,

the ample amount of food and so on

all show that there were no conditions that we're aware of

that would have provoked violent outbreaks.

- [Narrator] So if there hadn't been any warlike clashes,

what could the visible injury

on the Saint-Cesaire fossil mean?

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] When there's a mark of a blow to the head,

a single blow,

it's impossible to know if this blow

was delivered deliberately by someone else

or if it came perhaps from a hunting accident.

There's also the possibility,

and it occurs from time to time,

of it being interpersonal violence.

But then, it's just between two people

and doesn't constitute a massacre.

(fighters yelling and grunting)

(punch thudding)

(fighters yelling)

- [Narrator] Sporadic clashes

took place between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals,

but the evidence of the first mass conflicts

date back to the Neolithic Era,

that's to say between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago,

which is well after Neanderthals died out.

Pierrette's cranial injury

is only a reflection of the difficult living conditions

of archaic humans.

The genocide theory,

that is the deliberate annihilation

of Neanderthals by sapiens,

doesn't hold up.

Hunting accident,

fall, interpersonal violence,

there were many causes of injury and death

in prehistoric times.

Nevertheless, analysis has shown

that certain bone wounds healed and recovered.

(birds chirping)

It would seem that these injured men and women

survived and got better.

Through luck or know-how?

Did Neanderthals know how to look after their loved ones?

Did they know anything about treating their sick?

Or did they abandon them?

At the Natural History Museum in Zagreb,

one particular skull

amongst those excavated at Krapina

display some fascinating signs of having healed.

- Neanderthals suffered from

a lot of various kinds of injuries.

That was a normal part of their life.

Certain injuries were very dangerous.

From this injury,

we know that the person was even in coma.

(Neanderthal groaning and coughing)

The person, even in this really serious medical problem,

survived long enough

that we see the healing process.

So that means some kind of care of the community

that this person was a part of.

- [Narrator] And there's another case

which the Croatian scientists got excited about.

An arm amputated from below the elbow

showed signs that the muscles

hadn't actually got weaker.

(Neanderthal yelling)

The Neanderthal's arm

had not only healed after this terrible injury,

but it had almost recovered full use.

It had obviously been treated.

But what sort of remedies did Neanderthals use?

In the calculus of a decayed tooth

in a fossil from the Sidron site,

Australian researchers found traces

of an antibiotic fungus

capable of destroying bacteria,

as well as traces of willow bark,

which is a natural pain killer.

Neanderthals had medicinal knowledge

for curing the aches and pains that they suffered from.

They mastered nature's secrets (Neanderthal inhaling deeply)

like witch doctors.

(suspenseful music) (Neanderthal exhaling deeply)

So perhaps Neanderthals were confronted

with an illness from outside,

and to which they weren't able to develop any resistance.

A disease from another continent, such as Africa,

which Homo sapiens might have brought with them

when they migrated to Europe.

(Homo sapiens chanting) (Neanderthal screaming)

Could an epidemic have been the cause

of the extinction of our protagonists?

At Oxford Brookes University in England,

Professor Simon Underdown

found traces in fossil DNA

of infections that Homo sapiens could have transmitted

to Neanderthals.

Could these diseases,

carried by Homo sapiens,

explain the disappearance of our victim?

- Some of the examples that we've been able to identify

by looking at the genetics

are the diseases or the bacteria that cause stomach ulcers,

some rather nasty parasitic infections,

things like hookworm,

also potentially diseases such as genital herpes,

and also a possibility that tuberculosis

might have accompanied Homo sapiens out of Africa.

These would all have been things

that the Neanderthals would not have encountered before.

- [Narrator] Could these infections carried by Homo sapiens

explain the disappearance of Neanderthals?

(suspenseful music)

- One of the problems the Neanderthals

would have encountered

when these diseases started to take hold

is it would have had a real impact on population size.

Populations have to have a viable number of individuals

in order to be able to reproduce.

If they don't have that,

it starts to knock out those populations,

ultimately leading to either localized extinction events

or a much wider process of extinction

on a continental scale.

The narrow genetic diversity of Neanderthals

meant a large number of individuals were vulnerable,

and the reduced size of their population

was a major handicap in fighting infections.

(birds cawing and chirping)

(Neanderthal speaking foreign language)

Certain illnesses transmitted by sapiens,

such as tuberculosis,

clearly wreaked havoc on whole clans.

(somber music)

Unwittingly, contact with modern humans

meant that Neanderthal tribes succumbed to infections.

(Neanderthal yelling)

Their population decreased over the course of time.

(Neanderthal screaming)

(Neanderthal crying)

Across the whole continent,

the small numbers in the Neanderthal clans

pushed them towards extinction.

But even if diseases contributed

in making our victims more vulnerable,

this alone cannot explain Neanderthals' disappearance.

So was it the ingenuity and creativity of Homo sapiens

which hastened Neanderthal's exit

from the path of evolution?

During the 5,000 years' cohabitation with sapiens in Europe,

the last Neanderthal tribes were also developing

new ways of doing things.

This was proof of their incredible capacity to adapt,

even if by that stage, it was too late.

(insects chirping)

At Saint-Cesaire in Charente

or at Arcy-sur-Cure in Burgundy,

Neanderthals crafted ornaments

like necklaces made out of the teeth of wolves,

foxes, or bears,

or out of perforated shells.

This was a surprising evolution in their way of life.

(Neanderthal and Homo sapiens speaking in foreign language)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Once they came into contact,

whether their interactions were positive or negative,

exchanges clearly took place.

They could have been biological

and they could also have been behavioral,

because innovations created by neighbors

are always interesting to adopt.

From that moment on, these changes spread

into the Neanderthal world as well.

(serene music)

- [Narrator] So did the Neanderthals also develop

their own artistic skills?

These knives, discovered at Chatelperron

in the center of France,

are very similar to knives made by sapiens.

Are they simply the signs

that the Neanderthals and sapiens exchanged know-how?

Because Neanderthals certainly didn't wait

for sapiens to arrive

to develop their own aesthetic values.

They weren't the stereotypical crude beings,

insensitive to the beauty of the world.

For example, they crafted this fragile rock crystal,

excavated from Abri des Merveilles in the Dordogne.

(electronic beeping)

At the back of a cave,

180,000 years ago in Bruniquel in the south of France,

they put together unusual stalagmite structures.

(electronic beeping)

In Gibraltar, 40,000 years ago,

they carved a mysterious symbolic shape on a rock.

In the Krapina Caves in Croatia,

Davorka Radovcic found,

amongst the other 130,000-year-old remains,

claws belonging to three different eagles.

- We noticed that there is

eight talons in the Krapina collection.

And we noticed that all of them

have some kind of a human-made modification.

- [Narrator] These traces are the proof

that plant fibers or animal tendons

were cleverly tied around the eagle's claws.

- And because there's some modification

that indicated they were

somehow rubbed against each other,

some kind of polishing of these talons,

we think they were using these claws

as some kind of a ornament.

- [Narrator] The great animals of nature

were given meaning and value by archaic man.

(bird screeching)

In Italy and in Spain,

the remains that have been found

of the wings of golden eagles and black vultures

prove that their feathers were used as ornaments.

(bird screeching)

In the imagination of Neanderthals,

these large birds of prey

weren't just ordinary birds.

Neanderthal art expressed itself in many ways.

They wore trinkets made out of shells.

They used ochre and manganese pigments

to decorate their bodies.

And they wore animal skins and other objects.

(fire crackling)

Well before the arrival of sapiens in Europe,

these humans knew perfectly well

how to create aesthetically pleasing things.

They were the first exponents of prehistoric drawings.

(electronic beeping)

At Roche-Cotard in the center of France,

Neanderthals used their fingers

to paint on the cave walls.

They carved out this stone

and inserted a piece of bone to make a face.

(Neanderthal grunting)

These flashes of Neanderthal creativity

paved the way for the great artistic works

of sapiens to come. (Neanderthal grunting)

(paint squishing)

Neanderthals and sapiens exchanged their know-how.

(dramatic music)

But did they go further than that?

Did they have intimate relationships

which produced children?

And did these children of mixed species

themselves have descendants?

(tool hissing)

(electronic beeping)

In 2010, Professor Svante Paabo and his team

pulled off the amazing feat

of deciphering the genetic sequences

found in Neanderthal remains

in the Vindija Cave in Croatia.

(electronic beeping)

Thanks to the progress of molecular biology,

these scientists at Max Planck in Leipzig

sequenced this 47,000-year-old DNA.

(suspenseful music)

What these tests highlighted

is that Neanderthal DNA

is as close as 98.5%

to our own DNA.

So is it the blood that runs in our veins

that can help solve some of the mysteries

surrounding the disappearance of Neanderthals?

Scientists now have a vital piece of evidence

at their disposal.

Neanderthals and sapiens

share more or less the same genome.

So it's entirely possible

that the union of these two species could have happened.

And in order to confirm this theory,

scientists compared the genes of Europeans,

Asians, Africans,

Oceanians, and Americans

with those of Neanderthals.

The whole world was staggered by their conclusions.

(researchers chattering quietly)

- What we found when we first sequenced

the first Neanderthal genome was that

people that live outside of Africa today

all carry small amounts of the Neanderthal genome.

In the range of 2% of the genomes

of all people outside of Africa

come from interbreeding with the Neanderthals.

And we estimate that that happened somewhere between

50,000 and 70,000 years ago.

(thunder rumbling)

- [Narrator] Neanderthals and sapiens had coupled together.

Since African populations did not inherit Neanderthal genes,

this interbreeding took place in the Middle East

or in Eurasia.

(rain pattering) (thunder rumbling)

(couple grunting)

Genetic research has proved that Neanderthal blood

runs in our veins.

All we need is the archeological proof.

(eerie music)

(electronic beeping)

In the spring of 2002,

at Pestera cu Oase,

in the heart of a Romanian forest,

a team of forests entered a small cave

into which a river disappeared.

In one of these deep galleries,

the researchers dug up human remains.

After tests,

they turned out to be fossils of Homo sapiens.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The first thing we found

was a jawbone, which we called Oase 1.

And it turned out to be the jawbone of a sapiens.

We then found remains

from at least two other individuals.

One had a skull,

which was almost completely intact,

not the other one.

We were able to carbon date these fossils straightaway.

(ominous music)

- [Narrator] These Homo sapiens' fossils

came from the first modern humans

to have crossed over into Europe.

They date back 42,000 years.

(speaking in foreign language) - Fortunately,

and this is what's so wonderful about the discovery,

we were able not only to carbon date the fossils,

but we were also able to test the DNA.

These tests showed

that part of this sapiens' fossil's genome

came from Neanderthals.

- [Narrator] This Homo sapiens

had around 6% of Neanderthal DNA,

which is much higher than in humans today.

This implies that this individual

had a Neanderthal ancestor

going back eight generations

or no more than 200 years.

But this is not the oldest proof of interbreeding.

DNA samples from Siberian Neanderthals

have shown other evidence of the hybridization.

(speaking in foreign language) - The Neanderthals in Denisova

contain several genetic markers of modern-day humans

that European Neanderthals, for example, don't have.

So it's likely that there was an influx of genes

from modern-day humans

to the Neanderthals in Denisova,

either from the Middle East or from Africa.

- [Narrator] These genetic clues confirm

that Neanderthals and sapiens

first came into contact with each other

around 120,000 years ago in the Middle East

as sapiens migrated from Africa.

(female screaming)

(baby crying) (female gasping)

The fossil remains in Romania and in Siberia

proved that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens coupled

during at least two periods

in the course of history.

Once, around 120,000 years ago,

and a second time around 60,000 years later.

These two periods of genetic intermingling

took place in the Middle East and in Central Asia.

Neanderthals transmitted a part of their genome.

Outside of Africa,

every human possesses about 2% of Neanderthal genes,

and they are never the same ones.

Put all together,

there is more than 30% of Neanderthal genetic material

which lives on in us.

So what is the genetic material that we inherited?

(baby crying)

(speaking in foreign language) - Fair skins,

which we see in Asia and Europe

are genetic elements

that come from the Neanderthals.

There are also genetic elements in our immune systems

which come from them.

- [Narrator] So geneticists have uncovered a vital gene

in our defense system

passed down by Neanderthals.

It helps to fight infections,

and it's called the HLA gene.

Neanderthals have helped us to protect against illnesses.

- Humans carry a lot of variation in their genomes,

and some of that variation comes from Neanderthals.

And some of it is positive and some of it is negative.

So we have alleles from Neanderthals

that protect us against some diseases,

and we have alleles from Neanderthals

that increase our risk for some diseases.

For example, our risk of

type 2 diabetes is increased by a Neanderthal variant.

- [Narrator] The process of analyzing

Neanderthal inheritance is far from over.

Genomics, the science of sequencing and mapping genomes,

is only just beginning to give us an overall view

of what our ancestors have passed down to us.

(Neanderthal grunting)

This genetic input is like a memory of our past,

the history of our species,

(Neanderthal growling playfully)

and also the history of the encounter

between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

(Homo sapiens speaking in foreign language)

(child giggling)

- The fact that all people outside of Africa

have a small proportion of Neanderthal DNA

floating around in our genome,

this really makes us question

how far the Neanderthals have really become extinct.

We can clearly say that they've disappeared

as a living, breeding species.

But the fact their genes survive inside of us

really poses some quite interesting questions

about what extinction does and does not mean.

- [Narrator] Those Neanderthals who chose to interbreed

and share with sapiens

have passed on a precious legacy to us.

(baby cooing)

- We accumulate new genetic variation

driven by changes in our environment,

and we also gather new genetic variation

by interbreeding with closely related groups

like the Neanderthals.

I think no one had thought

that that was a very important feature

in human evolution.

(baby crying)

- [Narrator] Both modern-day humans and Neanderthals

have a common heritage.

And even if they're no longer around

as a related species,

the memories of the journey that we made together

live on.

- I don't make a sharp distinction

between Neanderthal and modern human.

Those are two hominin groups,

and I tend to put them together.

It's not just we are carrying certain amount of

Neanderthal genes.

In a way, we are all Neanderthal,

as we are all modern human.

- [Narrator] The Neanderthals,

our human siblings,

children of Africa and of Europe,

(Neanderthal speaking in foreign language)

(water splashing)

(Neanderthal grunting)

prehistoric athletes,

skilled hunters,

(spear whooshing) (bison grunting)

pioneering artists and outstanding craftspeople,

inventors and ingenious engineers,

tireless travelers, exploring their limits,

healers, doctors, and herbalists,

(baby crying) carers of children,

families and clans to the end of their days,

their heritage goes beyond the genes

that they passed down to us.

No one killed off the Neanderthals.

Neanderthals live on in us.

(dramatic music)

(singing in foreign language)

(serene music)