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Neanderthals, who lived in Europe between 200,000 and 30,000 years ago and then disappeared (or interbred with modern man) were not the dumb brutes that we think of when we use the term as an unflattering description of someone. Actually, it should be a compliment: They were sensitive creatures who buried their dead in elaborate (for that time) ceremonies.

Many of us may be part Neanderthal: When scientists reconstructed the Neanderthal genome in 2010, they found that that between 1 and 4% of the genome of non-African humans is derived from Neanderthals.
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