Neanderthals declined apace and to extinction just a few thousand years afterreaching their top . Why ? It ’s a mystery we ’re still piecing together . Now , an clause recently published inProceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciencesprovides yet more evidence thatclimate change is ( at least partially ) to blame .
" The Neanderthals were the human species closest to ours and live in Eurasia for some 350,000 years , " carbon monoxide gas - source Vasile Ersek , a aged lector in physical geography in Northumbria University ’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences , explained in astatement .
" However , around 40,000 years ago – during the last Ice Age and shortly after the arriver of anatomically modern humanity in Europe – they became out … Our study suggests that clime alteration may have had an important function in the Neanderthal extinguishing . "
A squad of external researcher reached this conclusion after examining stalagmites , a type of rock music organization receive in caves . They grow extraordinarily easy – roughly tantamount to a width of composition every year – trapping within their many layers a scrupulous record of the changing clime over the millennia . This is because even a small-scale drop cloth ( or rise ) in temperature can change their chemical physical composition .
The study includes two stalagmite - containing cave in Romania , which offer the most encompassing and elaborate records of mood alteration in continental Europe .
Importantly , the composition of these stalagmites unveil a stop of recur go of inhuman , dry weather between 44,000 and 40,000 year ago , ie exactly when the oafish population plump ( according to current archaeological evidence ) . During this clock time , weather would remain icy for centuries or millennium before uprise rapidly .
While this is correlational rather than causal , it seems to suggest that changing temperature could , at least in part , be responsible for for the Neanderthal ’s gruesome fate .
Then again , Neanderthals were a robust species . They had existed for more than 350,000 old age and withstood late ice age . What made this special weather practice so different and how were our ancestorsHomo sapiens , who had only very of late go far on the scene , able-bodied to last when the Neanderthals were not ?
The subject area source think it may come down to the intellectual nourishment supplying . They say the Neanderthals may have been successful Orion but their diet was less various than those ofH. Sapiens . In fussy , their reliance on meat could have leave them vulnerable to food scarcity as animal - derived food generator would have dropped off during the cold weather . In dividing line , H. Sapienswere supplementing their dieting with Pisces and plants , help them to weather the storm .
Not everyone has been persuaded . forcible anthropologist Israel Hershkovitz from at Tel Aviv University told Ariel David atHaraatzthat this still does n’t sufficiently explain why this particular slew of cold weather condition outcome was so dissimilar from earlier ones . Neither can it prove the stalagmites in Romania represent the weather patterns in the rest of Europe . ( In fact , he added , there is some grounds that other parts of Europe were relatively mild during this catamenia . )
Still , the authors say this is the most concrete grounds to colligate Neandertal decay to climate change so far .
" Before now , we did not have clime phonograph recording from the region where Neanderthals lived which had the necessary age truth and resolution to show a liaison between when Neanderthals died out and the timing of these utmost inhuman periods , " Ersekadded .
" When temperatures warmed again , their smaller populations could not expand as their habitat was also being occupy by modern humans and this facilitated a staggered expansion of modern mankind into Europe . "
