Have there ever been any contacts between modern man and his furry congener the Neanderthal? This question has long been debated in science. Results of new research indicate that Neanderthals may have died out much earlier than previously thought. And never had sex with modern humans or had other contacts.
Well, no, well, no; A lot of research has been done into (sexual) interaction between modern humans and their furry counterpart Neanderthal, but hard evidence is lacking. The Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis ) was a human species that was dominant in large parts of Europe for about 300,000 years.
From about 40,000 years ago, modern humans (Homo sapiens ) from the Middle East into Europe. Around the same time, Neanderthals began to gradually disappear. Neanderthals gradually retreated to southern Spain (south of the Ebro River) and later to the southern coast, where a small population survived until about 30,000 years ago. At least, that's what many paleontologists think because of the dating of Neanderthal remains found in that area.
If the Neanderthal has been able to survive for some time in southern Spain, there is a good chance that he had contact with modern humans there. There is a good chance that sexual relations have also taken place or that the two species have adopted lifestyles or techniques from each other. Understanding this is important to better understand the development of our own species.
Unreliable
But Spanish researchers report this week in the journal PNAS that these dating of Neanderthal remains tend to be rather unreliable and problematic. The age of organic remains such as bones can be determined using the C14 method. In doing so, researchers look at the decrease in carbon (due to radioactive decay). However, the bones are easily contaminated with new carbon. A 1 percent contamination is enough to make a 50,000-year-old fragment appear 37,000 years old in the results, the scientists write in their paper. Quite a difference.
The researchers treated a number of samples of Neanderthal bones from several southern Spanish sites with a new method to filter out virtually all the contaminated carbon. One of the bones previously dated to about 33,000 years old now turned out to be about 46,000 years old. Other remains from southern Spanish caves may even be older than 50,000 years. These results make all previous dates used to show that Neanderthals lived for a long time in southern Spain unreliable, the researchers said.
The results of the first measurements with the improved cleaning method indicate that the prehistoric owners of these bones were long extinct by the time modern humans arrived in the area. According to the researchers, the Spanish Neanderthal bones are not yet any evidence that there were contacts.
Still, the researchers argue that Neanderthals may well have coexisted with modern humans in southern Spain. All kinds of scenarios are possible. But the big problem is that in the warm climate of southern Spain, organic material is too poorly preserved. There is simply not enough reliable material available at the moment to be able to say anything meaningful about it.
An episode of Magic of Science about whether we could share the world with Neanderthals.