Fred H. Smith placed a hat atop a neandertal sculpture and leaned in, looking at the sculpture eye-to-eye to illustrate how similar neandertals and modern humans are.

Smith, former NIU professor and current professor and head of the anthropology department at Loyola University, spoke Sunday at the Midwest Museum of Natural History in Sycamore.

The presentation, “The Neandertals: Understanding the Quintessential Cave People” explained how the study of genetic material helps decode information like the biological and cultural features of the neandertals and their disappearance.

“One of the things that always impresses me is the solid scientific interest of this community,” Smith said.

Smith expressed three main points that he wanted the audience to get out of the presentation.

First, that present-day humans know neandertals very well both in terms of biology and their behavior; second, that neandertals are distinctive from humans biologically, but they do share a lot of traits; and third, that there is solid biological evidence that they are contributing to modern human populations, to a certain extent.

St. Charles resident Glenda Alar attended the presentation because her husband is interested in prehistoric humans because of his career as a flint knapper.

“I thought it was great, especially how they are doing DNA and figuring out how neandertals were bred out more than pushed out,” Alar said.

Batavia resident Chuck Bauer learned about the presentation from a newspaper, and his general interest on the subject motivated him to attend.

“I enjoyed it very much,” Bauer said. “I thought it was an excellent presentation. I had heard about the museum, but I hadn’t been here before, and I’ve been wanting to come.”

Dan Mitchell, Sycamore resident and science teacher at Hiawatha High School, attended because of his interest in human evolution.

“Human evolution has been a high point with me since high school all the way through college,” Mitchell said. “It brings out some of the elite concepts that you don’t read up on about the new things that have happened.”