50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly when did Neanderthals become extinct?
About 40,000 years ago
Populations in Gibraltar and southern Spain may have held on for several thousand years longer.
Q 02In which country was the first recognised Neanderthal fossil, Neanderthal 1, discovered in 1856?
Germany
Schoolteacher Johann Carl Fuhlrott recognised the bones from the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte as distinct from modern humans.
Q 03After whom was the Neander Valley named?
A hymn writer
Joachim Neander's grandfather had changed the family name from Neumann to its Greek form, meaning "new man".
Q 04What did the family name Neander originally mean before it was Hellenised from Neumann?
New man
That makes "Neanderthal" a fitting name for a newly recognised kind of human.
Q 05Which German spelling change explains why the valley is now Neandertal while the species keeps the "th"?
The one of 1901
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
A year later he suggested Neanderthals belonged in a different genus, judging them incapable of moral conceptions.
Q 07Which pathologist argued in 1872 that Neanderthal features were signs of disease, stalling research for decades?
Rudolf Virchow
He objected to defining a new species from a single find.
Q 08Which French palaeontologist described the La Chapelle-aux-Saints "Old Man" as a slouching, ape-like creature?
Marcellin Boule
He also drew a lineage from the Piltdown hoax to modern Europeans, with Neanderthals as a dead end.
Q 09In which country were the very first Neanderthal remains, the Engis 2 skull, found in 1829?
Belgium
Philippe-Charles Schmerling recognised they lay with extinct animals, but their significance went unappreciated.
Q 10A Neanderthal skull found at Forbes' Quarry in 1848 came from which British territory?
Gibraltar
Gibraltar's caves later yielded evidence of Neanderthals eating dolphins, seals and 143 bird species.
Q 11What is the bony projection at the back of a Neanderthal skull called?
An occipital bun
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
Specimens range from 147.5 to 177 cm, and the average male weighed about 75 kg.
Q 13How did average Neanderthal brain volume compare with people alive today?
Larger than any current population
Males averaged 1,640 cc, but the organisation differed in areas linked to cognition and language.
Q 21How many bird species have butchered remains at Neanderthal sites on the Rock?
143
Many were ground-dwellers such as quail, corn crake and larks; golden eagles were butchered disproportionately.
Q 22At Kebara Cave in Israel, how many species of seeds, nuts, fruits and cereals did Neanderthals consume?
Over 50
At El Sidrón in Spain they may have flavoured or medicated with yarrow and camomile.
Q 23What percentage of Neanderthal specimens show evidence of healed major trauma?
79–94%
The high rate is put down to dangerous hunting or frequent animal attacks; men and women show similar injury patterns.
Q 14Which Neanderthal specimen had the largest recorded brain, at 1,736 cubic centimetres?
Amud 1
That is one of the largest brains ever recorded in any human.
Q 15Which stone tool industry are Neanderthals associated with?
Mousterian
They used the Levallois technique of preparing a core so flakes of predetermined shape could be struck off.
Q 16What adhesive did Neanderthals produce by the earliest known dry distillation process?
Birch tar
They may have used it to haft stone tips onto spears, and it also had medicinal uses.
Q 17How old are the German Schöningen spears, among the oldest wooden spears known?
300,000 years
The British Clacton Spear is even older at 400,000 years, and the Lehringen Spear is 120,000 years old.
Q 18Which wood was chosen for the Clacton and Lehringen spears for its useful properties?
European yew
Neanderthals seem to have selected particular woods deliberately.
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
Other coastal groups ate fish and shellfish, and at Figueira Brava brown crabs were roasted to soften the shells.
Q 24Which Neanderthal from an Iraqi cave survived an arm amputation and possible hearing loss?
Shanidar 1
His survival suggests others in his group cared for him.
Q 25A grave at the Iraqi cave that yielded the badly injured survivor was associated with the pollen of what?
Flowers
Ralph Solecki argued that yarrow, centaury and hollyhock showed the buried man had "soul".
Q 26The disputed 43,000-year-old Divje Babe "flute" from Slovenia is made from the femur of which animal?
A cave bear
Many researchers think the holes were made by a carnivore chewing the bone.
Q 27How many evenly spaced hearths may Neanderthals have kept in a row at Abric Romaní rock shelter in Spain?
Eight
They were probably for staying warm 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
Neanderthals had the speech-linked FOXP2 gene too, but not the modern human variant.
Q 29In which year was the first Neanderthal genome sequence published?
2010
It strongly indicated interbreeding between Neanderthals and early modern humans.
Q 30Bones from which Croatian site provided the specimens for the first Neanderthal genome?
Vindija Cave
They contained almost 4% archaic DNA, enough for near-complete sequencing.