One of the key matters to be addressed in comparing Neanderthals to H. sapiens lies in assessing the intelligence of the former. Paleoanthropologists have long sought clues to Neanderthal cognition in the fossilized skulls they left behind. By studying casts of the interior of the braincase, known as endocasts, researchers can recreate the external form of an extinct brain, which reveals the overall size as well as the shape of certain of its regions. But those analyses have failed to render much evidence in regard to distinct differences between Neanderthal brains and those of H. sapiens. While Neanderthal brains were a little flatter than those of H. sapiens, they were just as large, indeed, in many cases they were larger. Their frontal lobes,
