London: Scientists have found the last refuge of the Neanderthals, revealing how they eked out an existence for thousands of years longer than had been thought, according to research published on Friday.
The evidence from a Gibraltar cave that they were much more tenacious than previously believed adds some support for a controversial claim that this earlier kind of human may have interbred with our ancestors.
Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) once inhabited a zone stretching from Asia to Western Europe from as much as 300,000 years ago, thriving on the cold of ice ages in forests where they hunted with heavy spears.
But as a result of dramatic climate swings and the retreat of the forests, they would have had to have survived in ever-smaller groups, becoming confined to bolt holes on the coast of the Mediterranean.
The story has it that our ancestors, modern humans, spread out of Africa about 100,000 years ago with better brains and more sophisticated tools.
As they entered Neanderthal territory, they simply out-competed their primitive cousins, driving them to extinction around 30,000 years ago.
But a study published in the journal Nature by Prof Clive Finlayson of The Gibraltar Museum and colleagues challenges this picture. They produce dating results that suggest that a lucky group survived extinction in this part of southern Iberia until at least 28,000 years ago, perhaps even 24,000 years ago. They clung on in this outpost for several millennia after the arrival of modern humans, around 32,000 years ago, according to excavations from what seems to have been their last refuge, at the very southern tip of the continent. "Here, at least, the moderns occupied the cave some time after the last Neanderthals so they were not the cause of their extinction," Prof Finlayson told The Daily Telegraph.
"There is some evidence of early modern humans in the region from 32,000 years ago so there was a period when shrinking Neanderthal populations and pioneer moderns were in the same geographical area without a clear outcome."
The new findings come from Gorham's Cave, in which stone tools were first discovered more than 50 years ago.
Dating of more recently uncovered artefacts, including a series of hearth places all created at the same location within the cave, leaving charcoal remains, now show just how long-lasting the Neanderthal settlement was.
People living there would have had access to diverse plants and animals, sandy plains, woodlands, wetlands and coastline a rich environment that probably helped the Neanderthals to persist for so long.
The animal remains represented at Gorham's Cave were brought from the surrounding area and butchered inside the cave.
"Olives and other Mediterranean plants grew here. There were many animals but not the cold fauna of northern Europe dominated by reindeer, woolly mammoth, and so on. Those just never got down this far," said Prof Finlayson.
