European Neandertals (i liked older spelling better)

Im puzzled, a bit, from Science, Mellars and French, chracterization of Neandertals as europeans: (or at least this bunch).

outcrowding

Abstracto: “European Neandertals were replaced by modern human populations from Africa ~40,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence from the best-documented region of Europe shows that during this replacement human populations increased by one order of magnitude, suggesting that numerical supremacy alone may have been a critical factor in facilitating this replacement.”

A coment from Science editors:

“Modern humans migrated into Eurasia about 40,000 years ago and rapidly replaced the existing Neandertal populations, driving them to extinction. Genetic data imply that one reason modern humans were so successful is that their populations were greater—although better tools and different social structures also may have been important. Mellars and French  (p. 623) analyzed the archaeological records in one well-studied region of France to better assess population changes. The number of sites, density of food processing at the sites, and extent of occupations imply that after the transition, modern humans were 10 times as abundant as the preceding Neandertal population. Thus, the rapidity and success of the transition may have been largely a matter of numbers.”

 

Tags: french, mellar, neandertal, obliteration