Neanderthals and Humans Interacted for Thousands of Years

The idea that the Neanderthals went extinct is actually a serious error. They never did at all and their presence in our genome fully confirms just that. As well, I have one clear old report of a small extant village of these peoples that is confirmed by recent knowledge.

What did happen is that burgeoning human populations simply absorbed this unique bloodline through the sheer weight of numbers. Without significant conflict at all, this was then inevitable. Their own natural economy simply failed to produce larger communities and any raiding would produce forced matings as happened recently with an Altai wild woman.

This must also apply in other species as well and needs to be looked for and noted. In fact I want to state that this mechanism is a powerful engine to produce ethnic characteristics as well. A successful group will preserve their special features even as they expand through the production of large numbers of hybrid children back mating into the growing tribe.

Neanderthals and humans interacted for thousands of years

by Aileen Graef

London (UPI) Aug 21, 2014

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Neanderthals_and_humans_interacted_for_thousands_of_years_999.html

A new study from Oxford University reveals Neanderthals and humans interacted for up to 5,000 years, 10 times longer than previously thought.

Researchers from across Europe found that humans' ancestors exchanged ideas and culture as well as competed for food.

"I think we can set aside the idea of a rapid extinction of Neanderthals caused solely by the arrival of modern humans. Instead we can see a more complex process in which there is a much longer overlap between the two populations where there could have been exchanges of ideas and culture," said Professor Thomas Higham.

Researchers formerly thought humans and Neanderthals only co-existed on Earth for about 500 years.

"They were hunting the same animals, collecting the same plants and wanting to live in the best caves. So there would have been an economic competition," said Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London.

It had been previously proposed that Neanderthals had been wiped out by humans in interspecies conflict or had been decimated by human disease.

Rather than disease or conflict, scientists think the Ice Age 40,000 years ago may have been the cause of extinction.