Paleontologists discover what Neanderthal fashion looked like 44 thousand years ago

A Neanderthal burial site in Italy reveals hundreds of bird bones mixed in with those of our hominid cousins. The bones had the feathers scraped off, as though the Neanderthals had removed them on purpose – and the only plausible reason they would do that is to wear the feathers. It’s more evidence that Neanderthals were just as cultured as own ancient ancestors.

Obviously, there are some pretty big jumps from “hundreds of bird bones” to “sophisticated ancient culture”, so let’s examine this a bit more closely. Marco Peresani of Italy’s University of Ferrara discovered 660 bird bones among the Neanderthal bones in northern Italy’s Fumane Cave. A significant number of the wing bones had been cut and scraped where the feathers would have once been, which indicates they were intentionally removed.

Paleontologists discover what Neanderthal fashion looked like 44 thousand years ago