Last edited Fri Jun 15, 2012, 03:44 PM - Edit history (1)
Over just the last few months, there's been a rapid shift in the dating of when modern humans arrived in Europe. The upshot is that they showed up a whole lot earlier than previously thought, that the Neanderthals were already nearly extinct even before then, and that any evidence of advanced symbolic behavior previously attributed to Neanderthals is turning out to be associated with modern humans instead.
Most European Neanderthals died out 50,000 years ago.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120225110942.htm
Carvings from a German cave, definitely made by modern humans, have been redated to 43,000 years ago.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120524092226.htm
Recent dating of some teeth and a jaw fragment shows modern humans were in both England and Italy between 41,000 and 44,000 years ago. This suggests they must also have reached France and northern Spain no later than 40,000-41,000 years ago (and perhaps earlier), which exactly matches the new date for the Spanish cave art of 40,800 years ago.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15540464
http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2011/11/uluzzian-was-sapiens-not-neanderthal.html
The redating for Italy specifically upsets the assumption that the Uluzzian culture -- which included the use of personal ornaments and pigments -- can be attributed to Neanderthals.
http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/11/2011/new-dating-of-cave-site-upsets-neanderthal-theory
In addition, it was always assumed in the past that that Neanderthals made some kind of cultural leap in the last couple of thousand years before they went extinct as a result of contact with modern humans. But DNA studies have now shown that although there was interbreeding when modern humans first arrived in the Middle East from Africa, present-day Europeans show at most a minutely greater percentage of Neanderthal DNA than people in East Asia do. This further supports the new scenario in which there were very few Neanderthals left in Europe when modern humans arrived there and little to no contact between the two groups.
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