Neanderthals Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
49 free Neanderthals trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Neanderthals trivia quiz covers the archaic humans who lived across Europe and western Asia until about 40,000 years ago. It starts with the discovery story: the 1829 Engis skull nobody understood, the Gibraltar skull mistaken for a modern human, the 1856 bones from the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte, the hymn writer the valley was named after, William King's species name, Rudolf Virchow's diagnosis of disease and Marcellin Boule's slouching Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. The science questions cover the long low skull, brow ridge and occipital bun, brains bigger than ours, the hyoid bone and FOXP2, Mousterian tools and the Levallois technique, birch tar glue, wooden spears, elephant hunts, seals and dolphins at Gibraltar, cannibalism, the Shanidar flower burial, the disputed Divje Babe flute and the golden eagle. The genetics questions cover Svante Pääbo's 2010 genome, the Vindija bones, Denisovans, how much Neanderthal DNA modern Eurasians carry and why the species vanished. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our human evolution and prehistory quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly when did Neanderthals become extinct?
About 40,000 years ago
About 40,000 years ago Neanderthals died out, within a few millennia of modern humans' arrival in Europe; a few Iberian refuges may have held on somewhat longer.
Q 02In which country was the first recognised Neanderthal fossil, Neanderthal 1, discovered in 1856?
Germany
Neanderthal 1 came from the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte in the Neander Valley, a limestone gorge east of the Rhine in Germany, where quarrymen dug it out in August 1856.
Q 03After whom was the Neander Valley named?
A hymn writer
A hymn writer, the 17th-century pastor Joachim Neander who composed 'Praise to the Lord, the Almighty', loved walking in the gorge, which took his name in the early 19th century.
Q 04The Neander Valley that named the species lies near which German city?
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf lies just west of the Neander Valley, a limestone gorge of the little Düssel river near Mettmann where the 1856 fossil turned up during quarrying.
Q 05Which year's German spelling reform changed 'Thal' to 'Tal', renaming the Neander Valley?
1901
The 1901 orthographic conference dropped the silent h from native German words, so Neanderthal became Neandertal; the scientific name Homo neanderthalensis keeps the th under the principle of priority.
Q 06Which Irish geologist proposed the name Homo neanderthalensis in 1863?
William King
William King, a geologist at Queen's College Galway, proposed Homo neanderthalensis at an 1863 meeting; a year later he suggested a separate genus, judging the creature incapable of moral conceptions.
Q 07Which pathologist argued in 1872 that Neanderthal features were signs of disease, stalling research for decades?
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Virchow, the era's leading pathologist, declared in 1872 that the bones came from a diseased modern human with rickets and old injuries; his authority stalled Neanderthal research for decades.
Q 08Which French palaeontologist described the La Chapelle-aux-Saints "Old Man" as a slouching, ape-like creature?
Marcellin Boule
Marcellin Boule's 1911-13 monograph on the La Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton portrayed a stooped, bent-kneed brute; the individual's severe arthritis helped mislead the reconstruction, and the image stuck for half a century.
Q 09In which country were the very first Neanderthal remains, the Engis 2 skull, found in 1829?
Belgium
Philippe-Charles Schmerling dug the Engis 2 child's skull from a cave near Liège, Belgium, in 1829 and saw that it lay with extinct animals, but it was recognised as Neanderthal only in 1936.
Q 10A Neanderthal skull found at Forbes' Quarry in 1848 came from which British territory?
Gibraltar
Gibraltar 1, an adult female skull, was found at Forbes' Quarry in 1848, before the Neander Valley find, but its importance was not grasped until decades later.
Q 11What is the bony projection at the back of a Neanderthal skull called?
An occipital bun
An occipital bun is the rounded bulge at the rear of the Neanderthal braincase; other hallmarks are the long low skull, heavy rounded brow ridge, wide chest and short limbs.
Q 12What was the estimated average height of a Neanderthal male?
165 cm
Neanderthal males averaged about 165 cm, a little shorter than the modern humans of their time, with a stocky, barrel-chested build suited to cold climates.
Q 13How did average Neanderthal brain volume compare with people alive today?
Larger than any current population
Q 21In which French cave did Neanderthals arrange broken stalagmites into rings 176,000 years ago?
Bruniquel Cave
Bruniquel Cave in southwest France holds rings of broken stalagmites built about 176,000 years ago deep inside the cave, showing Neanderthals ventured far underground with fire long before modern humans reached Europe.
Q 22Which transitional tool culture of France is linked to the last Neanderthals?
Châtelperronian
The Châtelperronian, known from Arcy-sur-Cure and Saint-Césaire, is the culture of the last French Neanderthals, with blade tools and pierced animal-tooth pendants, dating to roughly 45,000-40,000 years ago.
Q 23What percentage of Neanderthal specimens show evidence of healed major trauma?
79–94%
Larger than any current population: Neanderthal males averaged about 1,640 cc, above today's means, though the brain's organisation differed in areas linked to cognition and language.
Q 14Which Neanderthal specimen had the largest recorded brain, at 1,736 cubic centimetres?
Amud 1
Amud 1, an adult male from Amud Cave in Israel found in 1961, had a cranial capacity of about 1,736 cc, among the largest ever recorded for any human.
Q 15Which stone tool industry are Neanderthals associated with?
Mousterian
The Mousterian industry, named after Le Moustier in France, is the Neanderthal toolkit; it relies on the Levallois technique of preparing a core so flakes of predetermined shape can be struck off.
Q 16What adhesive did Neanderthals produce by the earliest known dry distillation process?
Birch tar
Birch tar, made by heating birch bark without oxygen, was used by Neanderthals at least 200,000 years ago to glue stone points onto wooden hafts; it is the earliest known synthetic substance.
Q 17Which Croatian rock shelter, dug from 1899, yielded some 900 Neanderthal bones?
Krapina
Krapina, a rock shelter in northern Croatia, was excavated by Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger from 1899 and produced roughly 900 Neanderthal bones from dozens of individuals, about 130,000 years old.
Q 18Which wood was chosen for the Clacton and Lehringen spears for its useful properties?
European yew
Both spears were carved from European yew, a dense, springy wood prized for bows; the Lehringen spear, about 120,000 years old, is roughly 2.4 metres long.
Q 19At the 125,000-year-old Neumark-Nord site, which animal did Neanderthals hunt every five or six years?
Straight-tusked elephants
The kills may have happened roughly every five or six years.
Q 20Which marine animals were eaten by Neanderthals at Vanguard Cave on the Rock?
Dolphin and monk seal
Dolphin and monk seal bones with cut marks at Vanguard Cave show Neanderthals exploited the sea; at Figueira Brava in Portugal they also roasted brown crabs to crack the shells.
Healed major trauma shows on 79–94% of specimens, a rate put down to dangerous close-quarters hunting or animal attacks; men and women show similar injury patterns.
Q 24Which Neanderthal from an Iraqi cave survived an arm amputation and possible hearing loss?
Shanidar 1
Shanidar 1, an older male from Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan, lived years after losing his lower right arm and probably much of his hearing, suggesting others in his group cared for him.
Q 25Ralph Solecki's famous claim about a Shanidar Cave burial involved what grave offering?
Flowers
Flowers: pollen clusters around the Shanidar 4 skeleton led Ralph Solecki to argue in the 1970s that the man was buried with blooms, though burrowing rodents may have carried the pollen in.
Q 26The disputed 43,000-year-old Divje Babe "flute" from Slovenia is made from the femur of which animal?
A cave bear
A cave bear femur with two complete holes is the Divje Babe 'flute'; many researchers think a carnivore's teeth made the holes, though Slovenian archaeologists maintain it was a Neanderthal instrument.
Q 27How many evenly spaced hearths may Neanderthals have kept in a row at Abric Romaní rock shelter in Spain?
Eight
Eight hearths, evenly spaced along the rock wall at Abric Romaní near Barcelona, were probably for warmth while sleeping, one person on either side of each fire.
Q 28Which bone that supports the tongue is almost identical in Neanderthals and modern humans?
The hyoid
The hyoid from the Kebara 2 skeleton, found in Israel in 1983, is almost identical to a modern human's, supporting the view that Neanderthals could produce complex speech.
Q 29In which year was the first Neanderthal genome sequence published?
2010
The draft Neanderthal genome appeared in Science in May 2010, sequenced mainly from three bones over 38,000 years old; it showed non-Africans carry a small Neanderthal contribution, the first strong genetic evidence of interbreeding.
Q 30Bones from which Croatian site provided the specimens for the first Neanderthal genome?
Vindija Cave
Vindija Cave in northern Croatia supplied the three bone fragments for the first draft genome, and in 2017 another Vindija bone yielded the second high-coverage Neanderthal genome.