Seventy-five thousand years ago, the Neandertals had become well established in western Europe, and they flourished there for at least thirty-five thousand years. But a few thousand years after the arrival of anatomically modern humans, the Neandertals had completely disappeared. Unlike the anatomically modern humans, the Neandertals left behind little evidence of symbolic communication and no evidence at all of distinct cultural traditions or ethnic identities. In spite of their superior physical strength, the small bands of individual Neandertals would have been no match for an organized
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