Built for the Ice Age

Neanderthals were the original cold-weather specialists. Short, thick limbs and a barrel chest held in body heat. A wide nose warmed freezing air before it hit the lungs. Even their eyes were tuned for the gloom of long northern winters, with extra brain space given to vision.

They were also astonishingly strong, well beyond a modern gym regular. They hunted mammoths and rhinos up close, jabbing with heavy thrusting spears instead of throwing from a distance. Every hunt was a brawl with a giant. Their bones back this up: many show old healed fractures, the kind you would expect from a life of slamming into huge, struggling animals.