Neanderthal theory challenged
Updated on 13 September 2007
Scientists have ruled out climate change as a possible cause of extinction in the Neanderthals, research reveals.
The Neanderthals, recognised as an archaic form of human since their discovery in the early 19th century, inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia for more than 100,000 years, but their extinction has been a contentious issue among scientists.
Some believe that competition with modern humans led to their extinction, whereas others maintain that climatic conditions were to blame.
Now scientists at the University of Leeds have ruled out catastrophic climate change.
The study, published in the journal Nature, has shown that the Neanderthal extinction did not coincide with any of the extreme climate events that punctuated the last glacial period.
Professor Chronis Tzedakis, a palaeoecologist at the University of Leeds, said: "Until now, there have been three limitations to understanding the role of climate in the Neanderthal extinction - uncertainty over the exact timing of their disappearance, uncertainties in converting radiocarbon dates to actual calendar years, and the chronological imprecision of the ancient climate record."
The research team's method - mapping radiocarbon dates of interest directly onto a well-dated palaeoclimate archive - circumvented the last two problems, providing a much more detailed picture of the climate at the possible times of the Neanderthal disappearance.
The researchers applied the new method to three alternative sets of dates for the timing of the Neanderthal extinction from Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar - a site which is thought to have been occupied by some of the latest surviving Neanderthals.
The three alternative sets of dates for the timing of the Neanderthal extinction have been narrowed down to a set of generally accepted but older dates - around 30-32,000 radiocarbon years ago; newly-suggested younger dates - around 28,000 radiocarbon years ago; and more contentious dates - around 24,000 radiocarbon years ago.
Palaeonthropologist Katerina Harvati, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said: "Our findings suggest that there was no single climatic event that caused the extinction of the Neanderthals. Only the controversial date of 24,000 radiocarbon years for their disappearance, if proven correct, coincides with a major environmental shift. Even in this case, however, the role of climate would have been indirect, by promoting competition with other human groups."
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