Ella Al-Shamahi

And we were all kind of just like, feathers will hit it home to people.

Because if the Neanderthals were picking out feathers, so we know this, we know it from Italian assemblages, we know it from so many different assemblages in Europe, that the Neanderthals seem to be collecting birds, specific birds.

You know, they weren't just after any birds.

They seem to favour birds with iridescent feathers, the kind of feathers which are more attractive, look more beautiful, shinier, that kind of thing.

And that...

you know, that takes your breath away.

And as a team, we were like, yeah, we think for an audience, this challenges that assumption of the Neanderthals being knuckle-dragging ape men.

Because we today know of so many cultures where they still use feathered headdresses.

But not just that, like, you know, teenage girls, I, as a teenage girl, and when I say teenage, I mean yesterday, like, you know, just feathers in, like, ornaments for your hair.

I

you kind of like it.

You know, it's considered to be very beautiful.

It's whatever.

It's attractive.

There's something shiny about it.

And to think that, you know, these Neanderthals who, the way we've told their story, they're just uninterested in survival and procreating.

They're doing that.

And then they're building these strange structures in Brunekel in France.

I think it forces us to re-evaluate the way we see the Neanderthals.

Yeah, yeah.