And because some of those people are our ancestors in the literal genomic sense, the question is not merely academic.

The Mousterian World: What Neanderthals Made

Any full account of the Shanidar Z discovery needs to address the material culture that surrounded her, because tools are the most direct evidence of what Neanderthal communities were doing and how they thought.

The stone tool technology associated with Neanderthals — the Mousterian industry — is more sophisticated than popular accounts often suggest.

The defining technique is the Levallois method, in which the stone knapper carefully shapes a core before removing a primary flake, so that the shape, size, and edge geometry of the removed flake are predetermined.

To execute this technique successfully, a person must visualize the finished product before beginning work, plan the preparatory steps in the correct sequence, and execute a series of precise controlled strikes — each one aimed at creating the correct geometry for the next.