SCIENCE FILE: An exploration of issues and trends affecting science, medicine and the environment. : Neanderthals Survived Longer Than Once Thought, Report Says
<i> From Times staff and wire reports</i>
New dates from Zafarraya Cave near Malaga in southern Spain prove that Neanderthals survived for 10,000 years after modern humans appeared in Western Europe, 6,000 years after scholars assumed they had become extinct. The radioisotope dates from Neanderthal fossil remains in the cave indicate that the group persisted until at least 33,400 years before the present, the most recent date known for the group, anthropologists at the Museum of Man in Paris and the University of Malaga report in the current edition of Archaeology.
The Neanderthals, stereotyped as hulking brutes lacking a chin, were an offshoot of the current human lineage who lived side by side with human ancestors in Europe for 50,000 years before becoming extinct.
