Why they went extinct and we persisted—why we’re the only hominins left on the planet today—remains one of the great mysteries. It’s often been argued that we were simply smarter or more creative, but it’s not at all clear that was the case. Neanderthals had brains a bit larger than ours and were making cave art, playing music, and burying their dead long before we showed up. Perhaps it was just dumb luck, a cosmic roll of the dice where chance happened to favor us. Perhaps we brought new diseases into Eurasia with us as we expanded across the globe, wiping out the Neanderthal and Denisovan
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