The Neanderthals have survived a lot shorter than we thought:they died out about 40,000 years ago. The Homo sapiens however, also appeared on the scene earlier, meaning the two have lived side by side in Europe for thousands of years. This is apparent from a new dating method.
The Neanderthals lived in Europe between 2600 and 5400 years with the Homo sapiens, or modern man. In one place the two were neighbors for a little longer than in the other. For example, the Neanderthals in Fumane (Italy) managed to survive up to 44,000 years ago, while the populations in L'Albreda, Catalonia, survived for 3,000 years longer.
These two sites are examples of forty archaeological sites, which have been explored by a team of international scientists. During the six-year study of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens in Europe, they studied more than 200 bone and artifact remains.
New date
With the new AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) method, the researchers were able to perform a much more precise C14 dating than before, as AMS can separate old remains and younger 'contamination'. This research shows that this mixing of old and younger remains has often influenced the test results in the past. The dating came out of the test a lot younger than the remains actually were.
The archaeological sites viewed all contain tools by Neanderthals or early Homo sapiens created. Or the sites had some other connection with the Mousterien. (The Mousterian is an archaeological name for a period when flint tools were predominately made, especially by Neanderthals.) The AMS study shows that at all 40 sites the Mousterian ended about 40,000 years ago and the Neanderthal disappeared. This is 10,000 years earlier than previously estimated.
Professor Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford explains how the AMS method works:“We used ultrafiltration methods, which purify the extracted collagen from bone, to avoid the risk of modern contamination.”
Belgian youngest Neanderthal
However, this is not to say that Neanderthals have not had contact with the Homo sapiens. The same new dating method also shows that modern humans appeared in Europe 45,000 years ago. This is 5000 years earlier than initially believed, so the two species have coexisted for several millennia.
For years, scientists assumed that the Iberian Peninsula was the last place where Neanderthals managed to survive. However, the previously examined remains from these areas turned out to be contaminated after recent research with the AMS method, making them younger from the C14 dating than they actually were. The fossils from a cave in Spy, Belgium, are now the youngest Neanderthal remains in Europe. After re-dating, they appear to be between 42,500 and 40,000 years old.
Fraternization
Exchanging knowledge and having contact was perfectly possible in those five millennia of living together. Hard evidence for this conclusion, however, is not to be found in the archaeological remains examined; well in man himself. We know for sure that the two species had sex:about 2% of human DNA (except for Africans) consists of Neanderthal DNA. Whether humans and Neanderthals had sex regularly or incidentally, however, cannot be deduced from the research.
Why Neanderthals eventually became extinct is still unclear. Climate change and competition from the more advanced Homo sapiens played a role in this, but the latter did not take over Neanderthal territory in one fell swoop.