Scientists bone up on Neanderthal theory New evidence suggests Neanderthals invented specialised bone tools to smooth and prepare animal hides - implements still used by leathersmiths today - more than 50 thousand years ago. An international team of archaeologists uncovered four bone tools, known as lissoirs, in two well-known Neanderthal sites in south-western France. The specialised tools, made from deer ribs, had previously only been linked to modern humans, who replaced Neanderthals about 40,000 years ago. The new finding suggests Neanderthals invented the tools independently of their modern cousins. "It looks like a technology invented by Neanderthals might still be in use more than 50,000 years [later]," said the only Australian involved in the study, geochronologist Zenobia Jacobs. The bone tools also provide the first possible evidence that behaviours were transferred from Neanderthals to our direct ancestors, said the study's lead author, Marie Soressi, from Leiden University in the Netherlands. Dr Jacobs, from the University of Wollongong, used several techniques to determine the approximately 51,000-year-old age of the bones, including dating the sediments surrounding the lissoirs, animal teeth and charcoal. "We wanted to see if the timing of these bones coincided with when Homo sapiens were in contact with Neanderthals or whether they already made [the tools] before Homo sapiens got to Europe," she said. The age of the bones preceded the earliest evidence of modern humans in this part of Europe, around 43 thousand years ago, by several thousand years. "Based on current evidence we think Neanderthals were there on their own, and they developed this technology on their own," she said. When Neanderthals came into contact with Homo sapiens several thousand years later it was the modern humans who borrowed that technology off the Neanderthals, Dr Jacobs said. The study was published in the Proceed-ings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.