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What caused the Neanderthals to go extinct is one of the greatest mysteries in human history.
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A new book, “The Naked Neanderthal,” says humans were the real cause, thanks to their superior weapons.
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Author Ludovic Slimak thinks humans had less creativity and intelligence than Neanderthals.
“Who was this? neanderthal?”
This is the question archaeologist Ludovic Slimak asks in his new book “The Naked Neanderthal.”
Neanderthals were humans’ closest relatives. But something happened thousands of years ago that destroyed them.
There are 8.1 billion modern humans and 0 Neanderthals on Earth today.
“Why aren’t they here anymore?” This is one of the biggest questions researchers always ask about Neanderthals, University of Victoria archaeologist April Nowell told Business Insider.
In the past, scientists described Neanderthals as less intelligent than humans. But according to Slimak, an ancient Homo sapien “could probably not have matched it” in terms of creativity. Neanderthal populations and was most likely intellectually inferior,” he wrote.
Many scientists suggest that a combination of factors such as climate change and low fertility rates wiped out the Neanderthals. However, Slimak thinks that the first humans were to blame, despite their intellectual inferiority.
So if it weren’t for us, Neanderthals might still be here.
Who were the Neanderthals?
Humans and Neanderthals share common ground common ancestor It dates back to 550,000 to 750,000 years ago. Neanderthals compared to early humans there was muscular, with prominent eyebrows and less pronounced chin.
Long before Homo sapiens, Neanderthals spread into northwestern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and southern Siberia. They lived in some of these areas for hundreds of thousands of years until they became extinct about 40,000 years ago.
Did humans kill Neanderthals?
Slimak suspects humans are responsible for what he discovered in a cave in southern France in 2008.
By dating the work where various artifacts were found, he determined the following: humans and Neanderthals overlapped It was there about 54,000 years ago.
He wrote that there was evidence of the first encounter between humans and Neanderthals.
There is no evidence of direct conflict between the two species, Slimak said.
“To find archaeological traces of the Neanderthal-Sapiens war, we need to uncover many more archaeological sites from this important period,” he wrote.
But in this particular cave, Neanderthals come backThis is followed by humans about 44,000 years ago. Slimak suggests that since humans were the last species to occupy the cave, this was because they had wiped out the Neanderthals and replaced them.
Direct competition or conflict between the two species may have caused humans to take over the area Slimak studied, but “this may not be true everywhere,” Nowell said.
Humans’ superior weapons
Scientists have found relatively few Weapons of NeanderthalsSlimak wrote. But Neanderthals were “excellent craftsmen” and made tools with “ingenuity beyond our own.”
But according to Slimak, this ingenuity was not enough to overcome humans’ regular weapon making, ultimately leading to the extinction of Neanderthals.
This was because “the modern humans who colonized Europe were both more numerous and produced more effective weapons,” he wrote.
Humans’ insistence on standardization led to uniform flints, and the uniqueness of Neanderthals could not compete.
Neanderthals in our genes
Archaeologists haven’t found much direct evidence that the two species lived together, but genetic sequencing shows humans and Neanderthals interbred.
The data show that in some populations the two species have mated many times over thousands of years.
But genes can’t tell us much about the nature of these interactions or how close or friendly humans and Neanderthals lived. For this, archaeologists need more evidence, such as Slimak’s French cave.
Even with existing sites this is difficult.
Difficulty making connections first appearance of man and the last appearance of Neanderthals in Europe radiocarbon datingsaid Nowell.
Scientists use this technique to measure the amount of carbon remaining in a substance and calculate its age based on the rate at which carbon isotopes decay.
That’s the most accurate result until about 50,000 years ago, Nowell said.
Carbon-14 dating puts “Neanderthals on the brink of extinction,” Nowell said. “And that’s exactly the time period we’re interested in.”
There are areas in France and Spain where humans replaced Neanderthals. But with current technology, it’s hard to tell whether they lived together for 1,000 or 5,000 years first.
If humans and Neanderthals had coexisted for several thousand years, their interactions might have been more complex than the “full-fledged conquest” that Slimak describes.
Neanderthals may have already been in decline
Nowell thinks many archaeologists view creativity differently than Slimak. “The claim is often made that Homo sapiens are more creative,” he said. They were able to move and adapt to new environments.
Moving to new areas could have caused conflict, according to Nowell, but human colonization is far from the only explanation for the Neanderthal extinction.
“I think there are as many theories about what happened to them as there are paleoanthropologists,” Nowell said. “Most people see this as a more subtle model.”
He noted that when humans arrived, the number of Neanderthals was already declining and there was a lack of genetic diversity. Along with the changing climate, people may also have increased stress.
“There’s a lot going on, of course,” Nowell said.
According to Slimak, these other stresses are not as important as humans. “We can argue endlessly about dates, climate, or this or that other factor, but we must recognize that we are facing a clear and radical change of population,” he wrote.
“The Neanderthal disappeared from the archaeological record when Sapiens emerged.”
Read the original article on Business Insider