
Neanderthals might have gone extinct because of the human population migrating from Africa.
Neanderthals or the Homo neanderthalensis have and are still raising questions. Despite the stereotype of them being stupid, they were actually quite sophisticated for their time period. They were noted to have left behind tools and jewelry, to have made cave paintings and seem to have had rudimentary medical and dental skills.
Still, after 300,000 years, they vanished around the time that modern humans started migrating from Africa. The two shared the Eurasian landscape from about 51,000 years until 39,000 years ago. During this period, they interbred and possibly fought, before one simply vanished.
The Neanderthals Went Extinct Because of the Migrating Populations?
After hundreds of thousands of runs through the simulation, the vast majority showed modern humans winning, simply because they kept coming and eventually overran the competition.
“It’s not that Neanderthals were these brutish, wide-shouldered, sort of advanced apes that roamed the land until we came over and beat them,” Kolodny explained. “It’s more that it was a companion hominin species that was very similar to us.”