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Acting as a last bastion opposed to the immediate expansion of fashionable humans (Homo sapiens), the Iberian Peninsula (now containing Spain, Portugal and a small region of southern France) was considered the last place where Neanderthals settled before human occupation. Some 37,000 to 30,000 years ago, all other Neanderthal populations had disappeared from the rest of Europe.
When the Iberian Peninsula was nevertheless invaded by Homo sapiens, it was claimed that this was the definitive blow for Neanderthals and the ancient species of hominids no longer existed; however, new studies published on PNAS are provoking this trend by suggesting that fashionable humans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula earlier than previously thought.
“I’ve been looking for Picareiro for 25 years and just when you start to think it can be done by simply revealing its secrets, a new wonder is uncovered,” said Jonathan Haws, professor and director of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Louisville, said in the press release: “Every few years, something extraordinary happens and we continue to research. “
Stone equipment such as blades and scales, probably used for cooking and hunting, was discovered in the cave of Lapa do Picareiro, Portugal, suggesting that Homo sapiens had settled in the domain 41,000 to 38,000 years ago, some 5000 years earlier than in the past. This not only replaces our understanding of how temporarily fashionable humans expanded Europe, but also suggests a potential 1,000-year-old balance between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
Prior to this discovery, researchers had already discovered a multitude of archaeological artifacts, adding animal bones, chimney ash and bone/shell fragments.
While humans dispersed throughout northern Europe, their advance in the southwest was destined to stop through major Neanderthal populations because no evidence of their presence in the region was discovered. Following this discovery, researchers now that fashionable humans have spread unhindered across Europe.
“Modern humans may have encountered some remaining Neanderthal groups, but it seems that most of the Iberian peninsula south of the Ebro is already depopulated,” the authors explain.
Cold and dry periods of incredibly low water materials could also have depleted many populations of Neanderthals, allowing the dispersal of fashionable humans, who have probably moved away from the arid regions of the Iberian Peninsula and followed the drainage of rivers as they spread throughout the peninsula. occupying the remaining lands. Neanderthals.
Although fashionable humans were most likely to live near Neanderthals, the authors claim that there is still no evidence that the two species interacted; in fact, a higher festival for the same resources would possibly have led to the fall of neanderthals.
As the article says: “The presence of overlapping humans over time supports competitive exclusion as an explanation of the extinction of Neanderthals. “
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