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London: Climate change may have played an important role in the extinction of Neanderthals, say scientists who found that a complete absence of archaeological artefacts from the species during cold periods.
Researchers including those from the Northumbria
University in the UK produced detailed new natural records from stalagmites
that highlight changes in the European climate more than 40,000 years
ago.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings
of the Natural Academy of Sciences, found several cold periods that coincide
with the timings of a near complete absence of archaeological artefacts from
the Neanderthals, suggesting the impact that changes in climate had on the
long-term survival of Neanderthal man
Stalagmites grow in thin layers
each year and any change in temperature alters their chemical composition. The
layers, therefore, preserve a natural archive of climate change over many
thousands of years.
The researchers examined stalagmites in two
Romanian caves, which revealed more detailed records of climate change in
continental Europe than had previously been available.
The layers of the stalagmites showed a series of
prolonged extreme cold and excessively dry conditions in Europe between 44,000
and 40,000 years ago. They highlight a cycle of temperatures gradually cooling,
staying very cold for centuries to millennia and then warming again very
abruptly.
The researchers compared these palaeoclimate
records with archaeological records of Neanderthal artefacts and found a
correlation between the cold periods known as stadials and an absence of
Neanderthal tools. This indicates the Neanderthal population greatly reduced
during the cold periods, suggesting that climate change played a role in their
decline.
"The Neanderthals were the human species
closest to ours and lived in Eurasia for some 350,000 years. However, around
40,000 years ago during the last Ice Age and shortly after the arrival of
anatomically modern humans in Europe they became extinct," said
Vasile Ersek, senior lecturer at Northumbria University.
For many years scientists have wondered what
could have caused their demise.
"Our study suggests that climate change may
have had an important role in the Neanderthal extinction," he said.
The researchers believe that modern humans
survived these cold stadial periods because they were better adapted to their
environment than the Neanderthals.
Neanderthals were skilled hunters and had
learned how to control fire, but they had a less diverse diet than modern
humans, living largely on meat from the animals they had successfully pursued.
These food sources would naturally become scarce during colder periods, making
the Neanderthals more vulnerable to rapid environmental change.
In comparison, modern humans had incorporated
fish and plants into their diet alongside meat, which supplemented their food
intake and potentially enabled their survival.
The findings had indicated that this cycle of
"hostile climate intervals" over thousands of years, in which the
climate varied abruptly and was characterized by extremely cold temperatures,
was responsible for the future demographic character of Europe
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