THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE NEANDERTHALS AS PART OF THE LATE PLEISTOCENE MEGAFAUNAL EXTINCTIONS OR DUE TO COMPETITION WITH MODERN HUMANS?

It has been suggested recently that the Neanderthals went extinct as a result of the deterioration in climatic conditions and the accompanying ecological changes that occurred in Europe as the Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) approached. To evaluate this hypothesis, I compiled information about European hominid specimens, archaeological assemblages and non-hominid mammalian fossils that are absolutely dated between 60 and 20 Kyr.

Thereafter, I carried out a two-part analysis. In the first part of the analysis, I evaluated the frequencies of 40 large non-hominid mammalian taxa in three time periods that were delineated on the basis of climatic and dating considerations: 60-37 Kyr, 37-28 Kyr and 28-20 Kyr. In the second part of the analysis, I examined the geographic distribution of these taxa in the three time periods.

The frequency and geographic distribution data for the Neanderthals indicate that they retreated westwards and possibly southwards before going extinct some time before 20 Kyr. Thus the Neanderthals are most similar to the extinct species Elephas antiquus and Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis as well as the smaller canivores which simply decreased in numbers towards the LGM. This supports the hypothesis that the Neanderthals became extinct because they were unable to cope with the extreme deterioration in environmental conditions associated with the LGM. The results of the analysis suggest that there may have been a marked decline in carrying capacity between 28 and 20 Kyr, which may have contributed to the disappearance of the Neanderthals. The alternative hypothesis that Neanderthals became extinct due to competition with Modern Humans was discounted because recent ecological studies show that competition does not generally lead to extinctions.