About 40,000 years ago, the last Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) came to live with modern man (homo sapiens), as shown by the latest dating made in the cave of La Güelga (Asturias) by researchers from the UNED.
The scientists, who publish their results in a book published by the Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann (Germany), have used a radiocarbon dating technique that previously performs ultrafiltration. This methodeliminates material contamination, and allows for more accurate dates, and reveal that the fossils are older than previously used techniques suggested.
Specifically, scientists have found levels of archaeological deposits belonging to modern man during the Aurignacian, between layers with materials produced by Neanderthals, relative to the Mousterian and Chatelperronense periods.
“It would be a kind of sandwich in which the slices of bread would correspond to the layers of materials used by Neanderthals and the filling would be made up of layers with technological remains made by modern humans,” explained Jesús F. Jordá, one of the authors. That is, “modern humansthey occupied the same cavity for a timethat, before and after, it was inhabited by groups of Neanderthals ”, summarizes the researcher.
The Güelga cave is located in the Picos de Europa, in the town of Cangas de Onís (Asturias), an area in which the water, as it passes through the limestone rock walls, has generated a multitude of terraces and holes. In the so-called “zone D” of one of these terraces an archaeological and paleontological site of the Upper Pleistocene has been found, a time of transition between the populations of Neanderthals and modern men. The dating and study of the samples found will continue to shed light on the way of life of our ancestors.
