Health Care Let Neandertals "Punch above Their Weight"

[Judi Lynn]

By Christopher Intagliata on October 17, 2018

By caring for their sick and injured, Neandertals were able to expand into more dangerous environments and pursue more deadly prey. Christopher Intagliata reports.

Health care isn't just a benefit of the modern human age. It goes way back. All the way, even, to the Neandertals.

"We imagine they would have been cleaning wounds, dressing wounds." Penny Spikins, a paleolithic archaeologist at the University of York in the U.K. "They may have used things like splints when you've got broken limbs. We know they had some forms of painkillers."

And they most likely needed them. Because remains of Neandertals show that most individuals seem to have suffered a serious injury at least once. The key detail being that those injuries didn't always kill them.

More:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/health-care-let-neandertals-punch-above-their-weight/