Neanderthal - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Neanderthals have been portrayed in popular culture including appearances in literature, visual media and comedy, often in an unflattering and inaccurate light.

Early artistic reconstructions mostly presented Neanderthals as beastly creatures, emphasizing hairiness and rough, dark complexion. More recent reconstructions acknowledge that due to the lineage evolution in European latitude there is reason to believe that Neanderthals were fair-skinned and probably with no more facial hair than modern man. Also, archaeological evidence exists indicating that they may have communicated by speech, used tools and engaged in artistic endeavours. Reconstructions of Neanderthal men, women and children have become much more intelligent-looking and pleasing to the modern eye.


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