Most people think Neanderthals were our ancestors, but they were actually a parallel species (orsubspecies, some say) that competed with Homo sapiens for survival. “Competed,” actually, isbeing kind; the Neanderthals had us beat any way you keep score. They were stronger, tougher,and probably smarter: they had burlier muscles, harder-to-break bones, better natural insulationagainst the cold, and, the fossil record suggests, a bigger brain. Neanderthals were fantasticallygifted hunters and skilled weapon-makers, and may very well have acquired language before wedid. They had a huge head start in the race for world domination; by the time the first Homosapiens appeared in Europe, Neanderthals had already been cozily established there for nearly twohundred thousand years. If you had to choose between Neanderthals and Early Us in a Last ManStanding contest, you’d go Neanderthal all the way.

So—where are they with her, he would sanction everything at oncehe answered?

Within ten thousand years of the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe, the Neanderthals vanished.