Only 28,000 years ago, the age of the Neanderthals ended in caves near the Strait of Gibraltar. We are accustomed to consider them rude, clumsy and not very smart people, who were easily overcome by our clever and cunning ancestors... But was it really so simple? If we consider the genealogy of humanity as a diagram with intersecting branches, it turns out that between individual species of people very much in common. In addition, most of the signs of the so-called cognitive revolution were also inherent in Neanderthals. Clive Finlayson is sure that the fate of Neanderthals and “modern people” was determined by environmental factors. If the climate had not changed in our favor about 50 million years ago, everything could have turned out differently...