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February 22, 2006
The Demise of the Neanderthal
Paul Mellars from Cambridge University claims in a new paper in Nature that it may have taken only 5000 years for our ancestors to colonize Europe from Africa instead of the 7000 usually envisioned. And that the indigenous Neanderthal population also declined more rapidly than previously thought.
“Evidently the native Neanderthal populations of Europe succumbed much more rapidly to competition from the expanding biologically and behaviourally modern populations than previous estimates have generally assumed,” Mellars wrote.[snip]
“There are increasing indications that over many areas of Europe, the final demise of the Neanderthal populations may have coincided with the sudden onset of very much colder and drier climatic conditions,” Mellars wrote.
“This could have delivered the coup de grace to the Neanderthals in many parts of western and central Europe in their economic and demographic competition with the incoming modern groups,” he added. [MSNBC]
According to the Reuters article on the Mellars' work,
The reassessment is based on advances in eliminating modern carbon contamination from ancient bone fragments and recalibration of fluctuations in the pattern of the earth's original carbon 14 content.[snip]
Previously it was thought that this spread took place between 43,000 and 36,000 years ago, but the re-evaluated data suggests that it actually happened between 46,000 and 41,000 years ago -- starting earlier and moving faster.
I haven't read the Nature article as yet. I did try to buy it but Nature seems to have forgotten my password and setting up a new one so I could pay $30.00 for the article just seemed like more effort than I wanted to expend at the time. I'll take a look at the article as soon as it becomes available in the library and let you know if there are other important details or errors in reporting.
Via ArchaeoBlog
Posted by Duane Smith at February 22, 2006 3:53 PM | Read more on Paleoanthropology |
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