Neanderthals and modern humans ‘did not co-exist’

A LONG-HELD conviction that Neanderthals and modern man co-existed for thousands of years has been discounted in a study led by scientists at University College Cork (UCC).

Dating of a Neanderthal fossil suggests they died out earlier than previously thought, according to research directed by UCC and the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Laboratory of Prehistory at St Petersburg in Russia.

Using a new dating technique on the Neanderthal fossil, which was discovered in a cave in Russia in the northern Caucasus, researchers found it to be 10,000 years older than previous studies had suggested.

“It now seems much clearer that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans did not co-exist in the Caucasus, and it is possible that this scenario is also true for most regions of Europe,” said Dr Ron Pinhasi of UCC, the lead author of the research paper.

The findings challenge the theory that Neanderthals and modern humans interacted for thousands of years.

Instead, the researchers believe any co-existence between Neanderthals and modern humans is likely to have lasted for a few hundred years at best. It could mean that in some areas Neanderthals had become extinct before modern humans moved out of Africa.

The research, funded by Science Foundation Ireland, was published in PNAS Early Edition, an online journal of America’s National Academy of Sciences.

The research centres on Mezmaiskaya Cave, in the northern Caucasus, where the team dated the fossil of a Neanderthal infant. They found the fossil was 39,700 years old, which implies Neanderthals did not survive at the cave site beyond this time. This finding challenges previous claims that late Neanderthals survived until 30,000 years ago in the northern Caucasus.