RESEARCH: OUTCOMES, VIEWPOINTS & PERSPECTIVES

Living in the Far West - rapid ecological turnover and its impact on Neanderthal and other human populations

The latter part of the last glaciation between 50 and 12 thousand years ago was characterised by rapidly changing climate and increasingly cold conditions over much of the Palaearctic. This period coincided with the Neanderthal extinction and the expansion of modern human populations. Their degree of interaction is the subject of debate and controversy. On the one hand is the traditional view that the archaic Neanderthals were supplanted by the advanced modern humans. On the other is the view that Neanderthals were capable of symbolic thought and sophisticated technologies. Their extinction was a long-drawn affair, related to the general climate instability and the progressive impoverishment of the Middle Pleistocene mammalian fauna that they exploited.

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FINLAYSON, C. & CARRIÓN, J.S. 2007. Rapid ecological turnover and its impact on Neanderthal and other human populations. Trends in Ecology and Evolution (Reviews) 22: 213-222,