Our thuggish cousins

Neanderthals apparently had the same violent tendencies as their cousin Homo sapiens. A recent study of a Neanderthal skull found in 1979 near St Césaire in France suggests that the original owner was whacked very hard just above his forehead. The injury was probably not the result of a fall, as accidents tend to affect the sides of the head and not the top. The researchers, headed by Christoph Zollikofer at the University of Zurich, believe that the 36,000-year-old injury was probably caused by a blow from a sharp weapon (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 99, p…