Nova Online: Dig And Deduce

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Uncover bone fragments and artifacts at three Neanderthal excavation sites, then step into the morass known as archeological interpretation. It's only natural that we're curious about Neanderthals, our hominid kin who, on an evolutionary time scale, died off so recently. How intelligent were they? Did they interact with Cro Magnons? How closely related were they to us? And then there's the big question: What was their ultimate fate? For answers, we rely on the world's archeologists, who do their best to interpret evidence found at various Neanderthal sites. But it's not easy to give definitive answers to questions about life in the Paleolithic. You'll find this out for yourself in the following feature as you uncover bones and artifacts and then try to figure out what the evidence suggests.