It's harder to believe that Neanderthals didn't have fire than that they did. In fact as the article points out, there are heaps of evidence that show the prese

It's harder to believe that Neanderthals didn't have fire than that they did. In fact as the article points out, there are heaps of evidence that show the presence of fire at Neanderthal sites. One mentioned there even has evidence of fire used for tool making [0]. The research presented is more about looking at discrepancy between the dating of the evidence that shows gaps in the geological record of fire use at sites, and presents several hypotheses about why that is the case - some of it is paradoxical, where colder time periods showed less or no fire use. They then present the idea that naturally occurring fires that could be collected and maintained are less likely during those cold periods, and this could help explain the gaps. It's a very interesting article and I don't think human exceptionalism is a takeaway here, but rather that we have a lot of evidence in the similarities of our species and it's more surprising how our technology evolved differently under different circumstances. Personally I think a lot of the success of our species has been luck. There's a lot of evidence of things being lost and rediscovered prior to agriculture and the development of writing and preservation of information. [0] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/9/1959 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/9/1959