Neandertals lived in family groupings. This was more for survival than for companionship. The male and female mated, and the female would have a child. She would stay with the child until it was old enough to cope without her, and then she would leave the family and mate with another male, and repeat the process. The male would take care of the child, teach it to hunt and forage, and make sure it was fed and knew how to make tools. The female would have a superiority when she was close to giving birth, or had a small child. That shows that even then, our ancestors had respect for a female with child, or a youngster itself.

The family looked after it's sick, and buried it's deceased. A sick person would usually watch the youngsters while the rest went out hunting or foraging for food. The most common way for a Neandertal to die was from nutritional stress. Neandertals didn't get near the amount of nutrition they needed, and their eating patterns were hardly patterns at all. For a week there would be nothing to eat, not even plants, and the children would almost starve, and then a huge herd of buffalo would trample past the family, and so, with the help of their sharp spears, the family would have buffalo meat for two weeks. This was not a good way to get nutrition, and many of the weaker Neandertals never got into the pattern of starving for a bit, and then eating the same type of meat for a week or so. Some Neandertals also had some diseases we have today. The first Neandertal that was found had a horrible case of arthritis, and was a cripple.