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The behaviours that the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens sapiens had in common could have made their interaction more advanced and deeper. Ever since Richard E. Green et al’s discovery in 2010 that a lot of the modern day population have inherited about 1-4 % of the genome from Neanderthals, the assumption that Neanderthals are primitive beings lacking advanced cognition has changed. For H. Sapiens to interbreed with Neanderthals one could argue that they could not have been that dissimilar. Since the modern day population inherited parts of the Neanderthals it could be very interesting to bring more insight into how their relationship and interaction would have looked in relation to H. Sapiens. In this thesis some behaviours will be analysed and compared that existed among them both. In this remark it will be about behaviors of a symbolic nature, indicating a more advanced thinking. These are the usage of personal ornaments, the burial practice, and lastly language and speech. The personal ornaments they used are in some instances very similar, but there is also variation in what they put value in as personal ornaments, later H. Sapiens put a lot of energy into making beads of different types, and Neanderthals having a focus on birds of prey. The burial practice is in general nothing that is too common among either of them during the middle palaeolithic or African Middle stone age. Before the upper palaeolithic there is not too much evidence indicating that they had a tradition of burying their dead. In cases they did bury their dead there is evidence of places with multiple burials, maybe working as grave centers. The anatomical capacities for speech existed among them both. When it comes to language it is harder to discern, since it does not fossilise, but since language is symbolic it could be argued that evidence of symbolism among them could indicate that they had language as well. In the discussion and conclusions it is argued that these common behaviours could

The behaviours that the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens sapiens had in common could have made their interaction more advanced and deeper. Ever since Richard E. Green et al’s discovery in 2010 that a lot of the modern day population have inherited about 1-4 % of the genome from Neanderthals, the assumption that Neanderthals are primitive beings lacking advanced cognition has changed. For H. Sapiens to interbreed with Neanderthals one could argue that they could not have been that dissimilar. Since the modern day population inherited parts of the Neanderthals it could be very interesting to bring more insight into how their relationship and interaction would have looked in relation to H. Sapiens. In this thesis some behaviours will be analysed and compared that existed among them both. In this remark it will be about behaviors of a symbolic nature, indicating a more advanced thinking. These are the usage of personal ornaments, the burial practice, and lastly language and speech. The personal ornaments they used are in some instances very similar, but there is also variation in what they put value in as personal ornaments, later H. Sapiens put a lot of energy into making beads of different types, and Neanderthals having a focus on birds of prey. The burial practice is in general nothing that is too common among either of them during the middle palaeolithic or African Middle stone age. Before the upper palaeolithic there is not too much evidence indicating that they had a tradition of burying their dead. In cases they did bury their dead there is evidence of places with multiple burials, maybe working as grave centers. The anatomical capacities for speech existed among them both. When it comes to language it is harder to discern, since it does not fossilise, but since language is symbolic it could be argued that evidence of symbolism among them could indicate that they had language as well. In the discussion and conclusions it is argued that these common behaviours could