Neanderthal’s Cousin Raced Across Europe

The ancestors of modern humans moved into and across Europe, ousting the Neanderthals faster than previously thought, a new analysis of radiocarbon data shows.

Rather than taking 7,000 years to colonize Europe from Africa, the reinterpreted data indicated the process might have taken 5,000 years, Paul Mellars, a professor of prehistory at Cambridge University, said in the current issue of the journal Nature. The Neanderthals coexisted with their modern cousins for a much shorter time than previously thought, he said.

“The same chronological pattern points to a substantially shorter period of chronological and demographic overlap between the earliest

The reassessment is based on advances in carbon-14 dating.

Populations of modern humans first appeared in the Near East 45,000 years ago and slowly made their way into southeastern Europe. Previously it was thought that this migration took place between 43,000 and 36,000 years ago, but the reevaluated data suggest that it happened between 46,000 and 41,000 years ago -- the modern humans started their migration earlier and moved faster.

“Evidently the native Neanderthal populations of Europe succumbed much more rapidly to competition from the expanding biologically and behaviorally modern populations than previous estimates have generally assumed,” Mellars wrote.

He said a major change in the climate, which modern humans would have been technologically and culturally better equipped to adapt to, could also have contributed to Neanderthals’ extinction.

“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.”