What can we learn from Neanderthals?

Professor Penny Spikins, Professor of the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of York, will be honoured with the Europa prize for her contributions to European prehistory, and the conference will explore issues salient to Professor Spikins’ work.

The lives of Neanderthals have fascinated us since the earliest finds of these ancient humans in the nineteenth century. Discoveries continue to surprise and intrigue us, alternately encouraging us to see our nearest cousins as just like us, or subtly different. 

Over the past few decades our knowledge of Neanderthal lives and behaviours has expanded at a remarkable rate, yet if anything more and more questions have emerged. This session will combine some of the latest archaeological evidence and research on Neanderthal behaviour with a sense of reflection on what this evidence and how we understand it continues to tell us about ourselves. From pressing us to reflect on how we decide what makes us human, how our preconceptions affect our judgements of people, why we fail to live sustainably or the downsides of global connections, we will uncover how Neanderthals help us know what it means to be ourselves. 

Europa Programme 2026:

13:00-13:10: Welcome and Introduction

13:10-13:30: Richard Wilson - Bear-like Forms at Fontmaure? Testing Figurative Constraint in Neanderthal Lithics

13:30-13:50: Robert Ashby - A stone face tells its story: The role of narrative in the cognition, communication and culture system of hominins as reflected in the archaeological record of Acheulean handaxes in the Palaeolithic period.

13:50-14:10: Break

14:10-14:40: Jenni French - Neanderthals as non-analogue hunter-gatherers: what can Neanderthals tell us about forager (and human) diversity?

14:40-15:10: Chris Stringer - Still ‘In Search of the Neanderthals’

15:10-15:20: Break

15:20-15:50: Matt Pope – Neanderthal People as Domestic and Monumental Engineers

15:50-16:20: Silvia Bello – The ephemerous evidence of Neanderthal behaviour

16:20-16:30: Questions

16:30-17:10 – Prehistoric Society AGM

17:10-17:30: Break

17:30-18:30: Penny Spikins – KEYNOTE

18:30-19:00: Wine reception