Paleoanthropologists have confirmed that Neanderthals actually possessed cranial capacities significantly larger than those of modern humans, meaning they had physically bigger brains.

A closer look

Paleoanthropologists have confirmed that Neanderthals actually possessed cranial capacities significantly larger than those of modern humans, meaning they had physically bigger brains. While we spent centuries characterizing them as grunting, dim-witted brutes in popular culture, fossil evidence suggests they created complex tools, buried their dead, and possessed a highly developed visual cortex to survive in low-light ice age environments. They simply allocated more of their massive brains to processing vision and controlling their stocky bodies rather than developing complicated social networks. It is deeply ironic that modern homo sapiens used our slightly smaller brains to write the history books, entirely slandering our big-headed cousins to boost our own species' ego