Neanderthals
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2022
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Neanderthals are stereotypically viewed as thoughtless savages - but is this an accurate depiction or was there more to Neanderthal society?
Discovered only 160 years ago what can they tell us about the Palaeolithic past? In this episode, Tristan is joined by archaeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes to help dispel some of these myths. Using cutting edge technology and looking at recent discoveries, archaeologists are able to give a clearer picture of what Neanderthal life was actually like. With evidence of seafood in their diet, the advanced use of tools and managing to survive for 300,000 years - there's more to Neanderthal's than meets the eye.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the entrance on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and today we're talking |
| 0:17.9 | with the brilliant archaeologist Dr. Rebecca Ragh-Sykes all about Neandertals. That extinct |
| 0:25.9 | hominin that coexisted with early humans with homo sapiens. What do we know about the Neandertals? |
| 0:32.2 | Well today Rebecca is giving us a lovely 40 minute overview of the latest research into |
| 0:38.4 | Neandertals for instance what we know about what they ate their diet their communities their |
| 0:43.3 | daily tasks their origins and so on and so forth. So without further ado talk all about |
| 0:49.9 | Neandertals to give you an overview a starting guide to Neandertals here's Rebecca. |
| 1:08.8 | Rebecca it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. Thank you very much for having me. |
| 1:13.7 | You are more than welcome for a topic like this Neandertals we're only going to be scratching |
| 1:19.0 | the surface today but this really feels like such an exciting area of prehistory to study to |
| 1:25.1 | focus in on this hominin because it almost feels like in the last few decades like with the origins |
| 1:32.0 | of homo sapiens we're learning so much more about Neandertals. Yeah absolutely I mean they really |
| 1:37.8 | are the ancients so they are quite well suited to your podcast I think I find Neandertals interesting |
| 1:43.9 | are so many different levels for themselves but also they are a really good sort of case study |
| 1:50.0 | for how archaeology as a discipline has actually developed and how different the way that we do |
| 1:58.2 | things is now compared to the early days of prehistory which in fact is over 150 years ago |
| 2:04.8 | and that sort of prehistory and started doing their thing and I would love to sort of see their |
| 2:09.5 | faces if they went onto a modern excavation see the meticulousness with which we work now. |
| 2:15.7 | And so how have scientific advances how have they really helped us and technology and the like |
| 2:21.9 | learn more about these Neandertals? Well there's loads of different things I mean archaeological |
| 2:28.1 | science is like its own sort of sub discipline basically and there's just an immense amounts of |
| 2:34.8 | different sort of methods and techniques that we can use for anything from sort of dating so you |
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