Better bone dates reveal bad news for Neanderthals
Modern humans took over Europe in just 5,000 years.
Advances in the science of radiocarbon dating — a common, but oft-maligned palaeontological tool — have narrowed down the overlap between Europe's earliest modern humans and the Neanderthals that preceded them.
Comments
Findings that suggest modern humans needed only about 5,000 years to displace Neanderthals are interesting.
However the relationship of modern humans to Neanderthals remains puzzling.
About the only way in which there could have been no progeny or genetic exchange of some type during possible sexual interaction between these two cultures was for Neanderthals not to have 23 chromosome pairs. Chimpanzees for example have 24 chromosome pairs despite having about 98% of the same genomes as humans.
If Neanderthals did not have 23 chromosome pairs, can they be considered humans even if they had 99.99% of the same genomes as modern humans?
Posted by: Douglas Corey | February 23, 2006 12:49 PM
5,000 years is being called "rapid" colonization of Europe; yet the "Clovis first" paradigm in the Americas relied on the assumption that a bunch of mobile big game hunters could storm down the supposed "ice free corridor" to Tierra del Fuego in around 500 years.
Well, it's all relative, and refining data is good. Besides, the Clovis First dates have been falsified and we now know we have no idea how long humans have been in the Western Hemisphere. Still, at a human scale the difference between 5,000 and 7,000 years isn't that big a speed-up.
Posted by: Peni Griffin | February 23, 2006 02:18 PM
Has any researcher looked into whether modern humans carried diseases that Neanderthals lacked immunity to? The native populations of North and South America were decimated when the European explorers brought smallpox to the New World. Could disease have played a role in the demise of the Neanderthals?
Posted by: Dan Hennelly | February 23, 2006 07:12 PM
Interesting article. Are attempts being made to get an incorrupt sediment sample closer to Europe (than Venezuela) to get an even more accurate picture of how environmental carbon-14 levels have fluctuated closer to the site of habitation?
Posted by: Mary Kemper | February 23, 2006 09:11 PM
If you examine the Nature review article by Paul Mellars that Michael Hopkin’s News article is based on, you will discover that the curve Mellars used to “calibrate” the radiocarbon ages is not the Cariaco Basin data alone, but a modeled estimate called NotCal04. The NotCal04 estimate was modeled using a number of radiocarbon records including speleothems, varved lake sediments, corals, and the Cariaco Basin foraminifera data. The “Not” in the name means it is not a calibration curve because these records disagree considerably in places. A second NotCal model, which predicts where new “calibration” records are likely to lie, produces a much wider uncertainty envelope. The example of the Chauvet cave paintings which were radiocarbon dated to 31,000 to 32,000 yr BP would yield a “not-calibrated” age of about 33,000 – 38,000 yr BP. However, there are still potential problems with using even this predictive estimate for calibration. Real fluctuations in the radiocarbon content of the atmosphere, and to a lesser extent the ocean, are expected to have occurred in the past due to changes in the Earth’s geomagnetic field, but unless they were detected in a number of the radiocarbon records used, the model would have smoothed them out. Such fluctuations, if real, could cause even wider uncertainty in the conversion of the radiocarbon ages in this period. It is definitely premature to be talking about the speed with which modern humans colonized Europe.
Posted by: Paula Reimer | February 25, 2006 01:47 PM
At some point in the past five years, I recall reading a research publication that used genetic data to support a hypothesis of hybridization between neanderthals and anatomically modern humans. The finding was coupled with extraction of neanderthal DNA from fossil remains (and was, as I recall, working with several short gene fragments).
Has this since been overturned by new evidence?
Posted by: Greg Farley | February 25, 2006 01:55 PM
The story isn't clear about the source of material for dating. If it was the paintings themselves Is anybody looking into the possibility that Neanderthal where the Artists? that would redefine the role of Neanderthal and not the dominance of Sapiens.
Posted by: Peter Lee | February 27, 2006 12:27 AM
I think the main meaning of the relationship among Sapiens and Neanderthals is an ethical meaning. Scientists are suposed to be impartials all the time. But, often they read the data in order to confirm their hypothesis. I ask for ethical responsability and honesty to show the incertitude of your research and conclusions. Thanks.
Posted by: Valter Tadeu Dubiela | February 28, 2006 03:39 PM
I think that there are remnants of Neanderthals in today's modern humans. I am sure they were absorbed into our population through interbreeding. The evidence against this, or for this, is practically non-existent or very shoddy and speculative. But this is by far the most logical explanation.
Posted by: Jeff Schnader | February 28, 2006 07:43 PM
I have several problems with these articles. First to use the word neanderthals is misleading, since humans came from Adam and Eve. Secondly to suggest that a gene can suddenly "drift" and a lizard can become a monkey, or a monkey to a human is outrageous. I remember sitting in a physics class where the professor brought up the big bang theory, to this day it is still a theory since there is no evidence to support such a claim. No one had a stop watch to start when time begin. I simply stand in amazement at the order in which our earth operates. Humans, since our creation are finite beings, we have a beginning and and end, to understand the infinite has always been beyond the scope of the human mind. Humans were created not mutated over many years. This would lay to rest many issues we have today. 1) There is no missing link 2) Since we came from Adam and Eve we are of one race the human race 3) The big bang theory is still a theory just like star trek in unrealistic. True science simply shows validity of a hypothesis, not streching to a conlclusion. My friend, study the facts and realize we have a designer. I enjoy studying the sciences, but it brings me back to amazment in my Creator.
Posted by: Miles Lindsay | October 4, 2007 03:18 AM