Last-stand
Neanderthals queried
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
We may need to look again at the idea that a late
Neanderthal population existed in southern Spain as recently as 35,000 years
ago, a study suggests. Scientists using a "more reliable" form of
radiocarbon dating have re-assessed fossils from the region and found them to
be far older than anyone thought. The work appears in the journal PNAS. Its
results have implications for when and where we - modern humans - might have
co-existed with our evolutionary "cousins", the Neanderthals."The
picture emerging is of an overlapping period [in Europe] that could be of the
order of perhaps 3,000-4,000 years - a period over which we have a mosaic of
modern humans being present and then Neanderthals slowly ebbing away, and
finally becoming extinct," explained co-author Prof Thomas Higham from the
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford, UK.
Read rest here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21330194
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