How or when Neanderthals became extinct is not easy at all. In fact, the fate of our evolutionary cousins has sparked an interesting debate among experts for decades. Until now, some evidence suggested that they could have survived until between 32,000 and 39,000 years ago. The discovery of different pieces in the Gorham cave, on the Rock of Gibraltar, in which the technical characteristic that they used when they made their tools can be observed – their lithic industry is known as Mousterian, since it takes the name of the Le Moustier site, in France; that of modern humans, called Aurignacian, does that of Aurignac, in that same country – seems to support this hypothesis.
However, a new study promoted by a team of researchers from different British, Japanese and Spanish institutions maintains that modern humans could have replaced them in this region at least 5,000 years earlier, that is, about 44,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating of a series of carved stone objects found in the Bajondillo cave, near the town of Torremolinos, in Malaga, show that at that time the aforementioned Mousterian industry was replaced by the Aurignacian one. However, it will be necessary to carry out new examinations to confirm if a similar process occurred in other nearby enclaves, since, in our peninsula, this last culture is confined almost exclusively to the northern regions; for the moment, the case of Bajondillo is unique.
The Mediterranean corridor
This phenomenon occurred in other parts of Western Europe, but, according to the authors of this work, and contrary to what has been believed so far, it happened at a very early time. So much so that it significantly advances the presence of our ancestors in what is now southern Spain and, furthermore, calls into question one of the most widespread ideas about the disappearance of the Neanderthals, that is, that their last strongholds were precisely in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula.
In an essay published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution , the scientists also point out that all this reinforces the idea that modern humans could have followed a route through the Mediterranean coast to penetrate Europe and that they dispersed throughout the Old Continent. very quickly.
Even so, the aforementioned transition between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens was not caused by a sharp drop in temperatures, as some of the most widely accepted hypotheses have been raising. “The Heinrich events – episodes of extreme cold that occurred during the last ice age – represent the most intense and variable climatic conditions in Western Europe on a millennium scale, but in this Mediterranean region they do not seem to be involved in this transition from Mousterian to Aurignacian” , points out Francisco J. Jiménez-Espejo, a researcher at the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences, who has participated in this work, in a statement from the Higher Council for Scientific Research. This does not coincide with the dates of the most recent event, which took place about 39,500 years ago.
Referencia: An early Aurignacian arrival in southwestern Europe. Miguel Cortés-Sánchez et al. Nature Ecology & Evolution (2019).
Image: Allan Henderson via Flickr / CC
