In the summer of 1926, British archeologist Dorothy Garrod made a historic find at the Devil's Tower cave site in Gibraltar.
She uncovered five fossil fragments of a four-year-old Neanderthal child, playfully nicknamed Flint, that would become more officially known as the "Gibraltar 2 skull," following the discovery of an earlier one ("Gibraltar 1") in 1848. Next month, September 2nd through the 5th, the University of Gibraltar will host its 30th evolutionary get-together known as the Calpe Conference, dubbed this year also as a centenary "Neanderthal: The Conference," and will kick things off on opening day with the international premiere of a 60-minute Spanish documentary at the Gibraltar National Museum titled The Last Traces of the Neanderthal.
Let's be honest. The above poster might go down as one of the best of 2026, featuring an absolute specimen of the race, which lived from 400,000 to 40,000 years ago in Southwest Europe and parts of Asia.
The documentary, which sounds even more majestic under its original title Las Últimas Huellas del Neandertal and will have an English-language version shopped in the near future, was first screened this spring at an equally unusual premiere in the heart of Spain's Doñana National Park. Per the official synopsis:
The film examines the final Neanderthal groups from a new perspective: that of a coastal human species, adaptable and closely tied to a territory of great ecological richness. The documentary addresses key questions such as the role of the coastline as a bioclimatic refuge, their relationship with megafauna, the occupation of open landscapes and the development of tools and a glue.
Another reason the academic community is excited about the Gibraltar international premiere is that Neanderthals lived on the 2.6-square-mile British Overseas Territory longer than anywhere else in Europe. As the Minister for Heritage John Cortes put it ahead of the screening: ‘This reinforces the Rock's status as one of the world's most significant Neanderthal research sites... It is particularly significant that it should be launched here on the Rock of the Neanderthals in this most significant year.'
All kinds of other elements have been put in place to commemorate the centenary year. A children's book, Flint Wants to Play, has been authored by University of Leicester professor Geraldine Finlayson. There is also Dorothy Garrod and the Devil's Tower Skull, a coffee table book by Dr. Alex Menez of the Gibraltar National Museum.
Meanwhile, to put our shorter, modern human history in perspective, the top films from Hollywood the year Garrod unearthed Flint were Buster Keaton's The General, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s The Black Pirate, Ronald Coleman's Beau Geste and Greta Garbo's Flesh and the Devil.
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