Neanderthalian (Homo neanderthalensis) skulls from three different periods, at the Natural History Museum in London, England -- Emőke Dénes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Peter Sahlins Why are we so obsessed with a group of prehistoric humans who disappeared some 40,000 years ago? Ever since the discovery of the first named Neanderthal fossils in 1856, scientists have struggled to make sense of them in tens of thousands of books and articles. But the never-ending Nea