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In May 2016, a great discovery brought to light the rearmost evidence about art ever made. The circular structure made with stalagmites and fragments of stalactites fallen to the ground of Brunique Cave, in France, was interpreted as the oldest art ever registered, made 176,000 years ago [1]. This kind of discovery, although apparently another source in order to think of the birth of symbolic thought and also in other dimensions of the mind, which include the aesthetic world, revealed a new problem. In the primordial truth, this problem is constituted as a paradigm perhaps not yet systematized by most scientists involved in such discovery.The very early age found, together with its insertion within the continental local context, guides all the problems not relative to one of our creations, but indeed, to other species: the Homo neanderthalensis. In this sense, how to make something in short, human, thus made by a being not absolutely human?The problem is dense and deep, because art would involve categories of thought beyond an event resulting from purely technical nature and manipulation of surroundings. It would be rather, a phenomenon arisen from inside and exposed before our eyes, ears, mouths and hands, not just in accordance with each culture and its rituals, but also according to each individual.

Genetic studies have presented increasing indications about the complexity of the interactions between Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans, during Pleistocene. The results indicate potential replacement or admixture of the groups of hominins that lived in the same region at different times. Recently, the time of separation among these hominins in relation to the Last Common Ancestor – LCA has been reasonably well established. Events of mixing with emphasis on the Neanderthal gene flow into H. sapiens outside Africa, Denisovans into H. sapiens ancestors in Oceania and continental Asia, Neanderthals into Denisovans, as well as the origin of some phenotypic features in specific populations such as the color of the skin, eyes, hair and predisposition to develop certain kinds of diseases have also been found. The current information supports the existence of both replacement and interbreeding events, and indicates the need to revise the two main explanatory models, the Multiregional and the Out-of-Africa hypotheses, about the origin and evolution of H. sapiens and its co-relatives. There is definitely no longer the possibility of justifying only one model over the other. This paper aims to provide a brief review and update on the debate around this issue, considering the advances brought about by the recent genetic as well as morphological traits analyses.