Neandertal debate goes south
By Bruce Bower
Neandertals lived on southwestern Europe’s Iberian coast until about 24,000 years ago, sharing the area for several thousand years with modern humans before dying out. This new finding indicates that Neandertal extinction occurred surprisingly gradually, at least near the Mediterranean Sea, says a team led by Clive Finlayson of the Gibraltar Museum.
In contrast, many other researchers suspect that Neandertals hit an evolutionary dead end 30,000 years ago, succumbing to competition from Homo sapiens who arrived in western Europe 32,000 years ago.