Neanderthals
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Context
- Nobel laureate Svante Paabo and his team have published genetic studies of Neanderthals.
Neanderthals
- Neanderthals are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago.
- Together with an Asian people known as Denisovans, Neanderthals are our closest ancient human relatives. Scientific evidence suggests our two species shared a common ancestor.
- Current evidence from both fossils and DNA suggests that Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago.
- While the causes of Neanderthal disappearance about 40,000 years ago remain highly contested, demographic factors such as small population size, inbreeding, and random fluctuations are considered probable factors.
- Other scholars have proposed competitive replacement, assimilation into the modern human genome (bred into extinction), great climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors.
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