In 2015, archaeologists They unearthed five teeth in a cave located in the Rhône Valley of France, which quickly confirmed that they belonged to a Neanderthal.
Almost 10 years later, this Wednesday, September 11, the investigation of said discovery was published, which could be the explanation for Why did Neanderthals disappear?.
Through the article “Long genetic and social isolation of Neanderthals before their extinction” published in Cell Genomicsa group of archaeologists who They worked 10 years in the discovery nicknamed “Thorin” in honor of a character from “The Hobbit,” he found that it was due to the Isolation among groups of Neanderthals that the population disappeared.
“The Thorin’s population spent 50,000 years without exchanging genes with other populations Neanderthals“, explained archaeologist Ludovic Slimak.
“So we have 50 millennia during which two Neanderthal populations, living about ten days’ walk from each other, coexisted while completely ignoring each other“, he added.
According to Slimak’s research, they were small, island communities of Neanderthals who lived “happily in their valley and did not need to move.”
“While the Homo sapiens all the time wants exploresee what is after this river, after this mountain. (We have) this needthis need to move and this need to build a social network,” he added.
The team of researchers analyzed chemical isotopes in the bones and teeth to infer what type of climate the person lived in based on the water they drank, since a Neanderthal who lived in Europe 105,000 years ago had a warmer climate than one 45,000 years ago during the Ice Age.
Researchers added that investigations in the cave are continuing, as there is still more to explore.
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