The extinction of the Neanderthals

Scientists found new evidence related to the extinction of the Neanderthals.

>>>It's hard to have a "story" between Neanderthals and modern people

The results of DNA analysis show that the Neanderthals in western Europe died almost 50,000 years ago, before modern humans appeared for several thousand years. Subsequently, a small group of Neanderthals attempted to recapture parts of Europe, extending their existence for another 10,000 years before completely disappearing, according to the Journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

This is the result of a study by an international team of experts, who have collaborated to analyze DNA extracted from fossil bones from 13 Neanderthals scattered in Asia and Europe, from 100,000 to 35,000 years ago. before. The results show that fossils in Western Europe dating back to more than 48,000 years are less diverse in genes, six times less than those of older fossils and compared with Neanderthals in Asia. Experts hypothesize that some events, such as climate change, may have occurred at the time, causing the Neanderthal population to drop sharply in the West 50,000 years ago. However, the group in the warmer south continued to survive, allowing them to reproduce again before extinction.

Neanderthals soon stood on the brink of extinction in Europe
Europe before modern people appeared - (Photo: Max Planck Institute)

Low genetic diversity can make a species less able to cope with changes in its environment and face the threat of extinction . 'It is too surprising to know that Neanderthals in Europe are near genocide, but then recover, and all this happened many years before this human race came into contact with modern people,' BBC quoted. Love Dalen team leader of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. This suggests that Neanderthals may be much more sensitive to climate change.

The emergence of modern humans in Europe at the time of the extinction Neanderthal provided an indirect evidence that Homo sapiens had an unspecified impact on this process. However, experts believe that changes in weather and other factors may also play an important role. The loss of genetic diversity in Western Europe coincides with the period of climate called the oxygen 3 isotope, when the temperature plummeted at some point. Neanderthal is a close relative of the evolutionary scale with modern people. This person once settled in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. The reason why they were swept away from the earth's surface is still a controversial topic in the scientific world.