Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Neanderthals ( Homo neanderthalensis ) were once considered to have been extremely primitive and unsophisticated compared to us humans ( Homo sapiens ). However, continued research into our long-lost cousins has revealed that these extinct hominids were not quite as archaic as they seemed to early anthropologists.  While archeologists have found that Neanderthals pulled out food from their teeth with toothpicks and may have even used medicinal plants as antibiotics , researchers still aren’t sure about the extent of their medical care abilities. Now, new research published in the journal PLOS One indicates that they were capable of complex dental interventions, which adds a series of cognitive and physical updates to the Neanderthal story.  A team digging in Chagyrskaya Cave in southern Russia’s Altai region found a single Neanderthal molar that is approximately 59,000-years-old.…