Because the Neanderthals petered out around the same time that climate changed, some researchers have concluded that harsh weather was responsible for their demise. However, the species had survived through a number of earlier cold snaps, Banks pointed out, suggesting that cold wasn't what killed them after all. "It is clear from this paper that the ecology that supported a big population of Neanderthals 40,000 years ago would have supported a big population of Neanderthals 30,000 years ago," said John Hawkes, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. "This is not an issue of climate." Instead, the new data show that, when weather grew wetter and milder again after Heinrich Event 4, Cro-Magnon populations were able to expand into many areas that Neanderthals previously had all to themselves. And, it appears, the Cro-Magnon people were better at exploiting the region's resources than Neanderthals were, probably because these anatomically modern humans had more refined technologies and social networks, Banks speculated. Debate is sure to continue, said anthropologist Henry Harpending of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, because that's what scientists do. But in his mind, the new study paints a clearer-than-ever picture of what happened in Europe tens of thousands of years ago. "I don't foresee it being a lively issue for very long," he told Discovery News. "In my mind, this puts it to rest." Related Links: French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique |
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