Neanderthal interaction with Cro-Magnons

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This section repeats, in whole or part, the text of other article(s) or section(s). Please discuss this issue on the talk page and conform with Wikipedia's Manual of Style by replacing the section with a link and a summary of the repeated text, or by spinning off the repeated text into an article in its own right.

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Neanderthal extinction hypotheses. (Discuss)

Neanderthals co-existed with anatomically modern Homo sapiens until at most 30,000 years ago. The nature of interaction and dividing lines between both populations remain largely unknown,^[1] and are uncertain afterwards. The first attested archaic Homo sapiens outside Africa are found at Skhul and Qazfah (Israel) and are dated about 100 kya, though afterwards the Middle East seems to have been occupied by Neanderthals until 40 kya, when the Cro-Magnons appeared again in the region and flowed into Europe.

Interaction may have occurred at any time along the fringes of the Neanderthal expanse, and ultimately anywhere they met with the Cro Magnon advance. As for now, the expansion of the first anatomically modern humans into Europe can't be located by diagnostic and well-dated anatomically modern human fossils "west of the Iron Gates of the Danube" before 32 kya.^[2] No Neanderthal skeletons of younger dating have been found, though it has been suggested that Neanderthals survived longer in Southern Iberia.^[3][4]There is considerable debate about whether the advent of Cro-Magnon accelerated the demise of the Neanderthals. Anthropological and genetic indications allegedly pointing to a certain degree of interbreeding are not generally accepted. While the Mousterian culture is essentially associated with Neanderthal, there is no agreement on the association of early Aurignacian culture to any specific physical human type, including figurative art found at Vogelherd.^[5] In between, ca. 45 kya, Neanderthal remains became increasingly associated with cultural artifacts such as perforated animal-tooth pendants (known as the Châtelperronian culture) and traditionally this has been regarded evidence of acculturation of the Neanderthals, in a process where Neanderthal populations may have come to adopt, or were increasingly influenced by, the cultural behaviours of nearby Cro-Magnon populations. However, this view has been criticized for insinuating an unjustified lack of intellectual ability to develop such modern features as personal ornaments. New assessments are consistent with the hypothesis of an original and independent cultural evolution of Western Europe's late Neanderthals, without any necessity to assume acculturation with "superior" Cro Magnon populations beforehand. As such, initial contacts between Neanderthals and modern humans are thought to have triggered a rise in the use of symbols and ornaments on both sides, perhaps to deal with the problems of identity when they met, what would make independent invention a more satisfactory explanation than acculturation, and important social changes the result of parallel developments.^[6]

As for now, direct evidence of contemporary Neanderthal interaction with anatomically modern humans is still missing, and all alleged cultural, anthropological and genetic indications to this extent are contested.

[edit] Footnotes