The Neanderthals were a hominin species that inhabited Eurasia for around 300,000 years before disappearing soon after the arrival of anatomically modern humans, somewhere around 39,000 years ago. What the cause of this extinction might have been is a subject of heavy debate, the two main theories currently splitting between a climatic and a competitive focus. One of the most important components of being able to properly evaluate these propositions is to answer the question of whether modern humans actually could have come into contact with Neanderthals at all. According to Green et al. (2010), the chronology of the spread of Neanderthals across Europe and Western Asia means that contact with anatomically modern humans could have been possible
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Even very limited events of gene mixture and hybridisation can have long reaching effects; it has been postulated that successful interbreeding could have happened as few as 430 times over a spread of hundreds of generations (Currat and Excoffier, 2011). There has even been a suggestion that this interbreeding incidence might have only happened once before Homo sapiens properly entered Europe, and dating has shown contact between the two species before Neanderthals died out could only have been 5,400ka at most (Higham and Douka, 2014). The traditional view was that modern humans and Neanderthals might have overlapped by as much as 10,000 years, but Pinhasi et al. (2011) findings suggest that most dates have actually been underestimated, and there’s actually a lack of reliable dating for anything younger than 40ka BP. Between the sides of Ortvale Klde and Mezmaiskaya Cave, they put forward the time frame for that region to 38-34ka BP, which supports both the very small contact window suggested above and the genetic
Even very limited events of gene mixture and hybridisation can have long reaching effects; it has been postulated that successful interbreeding could have happened as few as 430 times over a spread of hundreds of generations (Currat and Excoffier, 2011). There has even been a suggestion that this interbreeding incidence might have only happened once before Homo sapiens properly entered Europe, and dating has shown contact between the two species before Neanderthals died out could only have been 5,400ka at most (Higham and Douka, 2014). The traditional view was that modern humans and Neanderthals might have overlapped by as much as 10,000 years, but Pinhasi et al. (2011) findings suggest that most dates have actually been underestimated, and there’s actually a lack of reliable dating for anything younger than 40ka BP. Between the sides of Ortvale Klde and Mezmaiskaya Cave, they put forward the time frame for that region to 38-34ka BP, which supports both the very small contact window suggested above and the genetic