08.03.09
Blitzkrieg over neanderthals? 15000 yr coexistence
The Mysterious Downfall of the Neandertals
Paleoanthropologists know more about Neandertals than any other extinct human. But their demise remains a mystery, one that gets curiouser and curiouser
It is of great interest to see the ‘natural selection/competition’ perspective fall by the wayside here.
Over the past decade, however, two key findings have shifted the fulcrum of the debate away from the question of whether Neandertals and moderns made love or war. One is that analyses of Neandertal DNA have yet to yield the signs of interbreeding with modern humans that many researchers expected to see if the two groups mingled significantly. The other is that improvements in dating methods show that rather than disappearing immediately after the moderns invaded Europe, starting a little more than 40,000 years ago, the Neandertals survived for nearly 15,000 years after moderns moved in—hardly the rapid replacement adherents to the blitzkrieg theory envisioned.
These revelations have prompted a number of researchers to look more carefully at other Âfactors that might have led to Neandertal extinction. What they are finding suggests that the answer involves a complicated interplay of stresses.