At https://www.sciencealert.com/we-may-have-found-where-modern-humans-and-neanderthals-became-one … modern humans, in the Out of Africa hypothesis, are said to have explored outside Africa on several occasions, and encountered other human species. In the Zagros Mountains of Mesopotamia, on the border between Iraq and Iran, they may have shared genes with Neanderthals. New research claims the Zagros served as a corridor where modern humans moved northwards and Neanderthals went southwards. Hence, it was an ideal location for them to mate with each other – which resulted in a shared genome. The researchers made use of genetic, archaeological, topographical, and ecological data to run down the location of the mating point. This area provides some archaeological support as it is the location of the Shanidar Cave. The remains of ten Neanderthals were discovered in the cave. They arrived in the region between 120,000 and 80,000 years ago. This was, we are told, a place of interbreeding as we have not inherited earlier Neanderthal DNA. Other research, we may note, has found facial similarities between Neanderthals and modern humans living in the Zagros. We are also told – curiously, while we have ample evidence of Neanderthal DNA in humans we have yet to find an example of modern human DNA in Neanderthals.
At https://phys.org/news/2024-09-archaeologists-ancient-neanderthal-lineage-isolated.html … a fossilised Neanderthal found in a cave system in the Rhone Valley of France is said to be an ancient and previously undescribed lineage that diverged from other Neanderthals around 100,000 years ago. It is thought it remained genetically isolated for the following 50,000 or so years. Which brings us down to the Laschamp Event around 42,000 years ago. The Neanderthals became extinct, or their numbers drastically declined, at this moment in time. We are also told, to emphasize the point, these Neanderthals lived in a genetically isolated place between 50,000 and 42,000 years ago. The remains were found in Grotte Mandrin and the cave also included two modern humans – in a layer above the Neanderthal specimens.
At https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240830110919.htm … we are back in another cave. This one on the island of Mallorca in the Balearics. It seems humans settled the western Mediterranean much earlier than hitherto allowed. Long held assumptions are under pressure – especially when it comes to humans on Mediterranean islands [both east and west regions]. A 25 feet submerged bridge in the cave became the object of interest. Presumably it was to bridge an underground stream. Nowadays, and for a long time, the passages in the cave were flooded due to rising sea levels in the Mediterranean. There are distinct calcite encrustations that formed during periods of higher sea levels. It seems the bridge was constructed around 6000 years ago – older than expected. See also https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01584-4 … for more information.
To close this post, at https://phys.org/news/2024-09-lack-death-neanderthals.html … which links to another new study that suggests a lack of get up and go amongst Neanderthals led to their extinction. Sounds like desperate stuff when it can easily be explained by the catastrophism inherent in the Laschamp Event.
A day later Current World Archaeology 127 dropped through my letterbox – and it was a very rainy day. Chris Gatling is always an interesting read – worth going to first of all. He brings us up to date on Neanderthal research – cutting through the fluff. He asks – could the Neanderthals have simply interbred with modern humans rather than dying out as a species – becoming extinct. Do Neanderthal people still live amongst us – in Europe and western Asia. Did they merge into a single species, as the Guanches did with the Spanish newcomers in the Canaries? It is generally thought there was a period of co-existence, an idea derived from dating methodology which is both out of date and modernised, depending on how recent the remains were subject to C14 laboratory treatment. Is there any actual proof that they co-existed as usually we are told the Arignacian newcomers are in separate layers to the Neanderthals. In Gatling’s scenario it doesn’t really matter as somewhere along the line Neanderthals became modern humans [the Aurignacians]. And they still survive within our genome. The problem not mentioned by Gatling is the population crash coinciding with the Laschamp Event – around 42,000 years ago. However, Gatling in a succinct comment, says ‘perhaps all of the ingenuity deployed is an attempt to prove Homo sapiens did not commit genocide was not necessary.’ Scientists are now asking if the Neanderthals were assimilated by modern humans – their genes gradually diminishing over the course of time. Chris Stringer from the Kensington Natural History Museum, with colleague Lucille Crete, have an article on just this at https://doi.org/10.48738/2022.iss2.130 … and the idea appears to be gaining traction. It is, after all, both simple and more realistic than some of the earlier ideas aired in journals.