Answer:
Homo neanderthalensis or Neanderthal Man is an extinct species of the genus Homo, whose existence is linked to the evolution of modern man. Its existence is proven by means of several fossils found in Europe and Asia dating from the Pleistocene period (about 2 million and 500 thousand to 12 thousand years ago).
The Neanderthal was possibly the most carnivorous form of the human being that has ever lived. They were generally around forests where they hunted large animals such as deer, horses and wild cattle. In addition, forests provided firewood and material for building shelters and spears. For most of their existence, Neanderthals experienced an environment where the climate was mild, sometimes even hotter than today, but it is certain that they also lived with long periods of intense cold.
But around thirty thousand years ago, Neanderthals had already disappeared, just when the first modern human beings appeared in Europe. The environment experienced very sudden changes between hot and cold temperatures, which led to changes in the Neanderthal way of life. The forests on which they depended began to recede, giving way to open plains, where their hunting strategies did not work so well. As a consequence, Neanderthals retreated along with forests, and their population declined as their hunting grounds shrunk.
Cro-Magnon's man (also known as Homo sapiens - wise man) resisted and survived thanks to his nomadic characteristic, as he always moved, trying to protect himself from the physical and climatic changes that occurred during the fourth ice age. Even today we can still find physical traces of the ancient prehistoric men, but we are still faced with the scarcity of historical sources to learn more about our ancestors, such as the origin of these primates.
Around 40000 B.C., the Cro-Magnon man appeared. This man had high stature, great physical similarity with the current man and cranial capacity approximately equal to the modern average. They showed to have a satisfactory intelligence, because he sewed his clothes, made with animal skins, with bone needles and cooked some food. He built houses in the regions where there were no natural shelters, and his beautiful creations indicated the existence of a certain division of labor.
The first religious manifestations of prehistoric man concern the period of the Cro-Magnon man. Through the supernatural attributed to the paintings in their caves, the Upper Paleolithic man symbolized his wishes engraved or painted on the rocks: they were scenes of hunting or animals. According to the interpretation of archeology and anthropology, these men believed that the drawings could help them in hunting and, therefore, they would obtain animals more easily. In that phase, prehistoric man was a born hunter. Their religion and art were clear examples of a hunter culture.
