I suppose “Neanderthal delicacy” may sound like an oxymoron. Most people think of Neanderthals and other ancient people as cave men, brutes capable of little more than smashing and grunting. To the extent you’ve ever thought about what they ate, you probably assumed it was, well, whatever they could get their dirty hands on.

Or maybe you remember The Clan of the Cave Bear, the 1980 bestseller that helped shape Neanderthals in the popular imagination. In the book, a Homo sapiens girl named Ayla is adopted by Neanderthals who communicate mainly through hand signals and seem incapable of learning.

Yet the more we learn about our ancient cousins, the more sophisticated we find them to be. Amazing work on Neanderthal genetics by Svante Pääbo