A specialist in radiocarbon dating from Oxford University, Thomas F. G. Higham developed a new method of radiocarbon dating with ultrafiltration which is able to remove contaminants to better receive an accurate dating. Radiocarbon dating measures a radioactive isotope carbon (carbon 14) which decays at a predictable rate after death. In specimens older than 30,000 years, very little carbon remains.
Higham, along with archaeologist Ron Pinhasi from University College Cork in Ireland examined the bones from a Neanderthal child found in the Mezmaiskaya Cave location in the northern Caucasus Mountains. Their new radiocarbon dating method put this fossil at 39,700 years old. A previously found fossil at this site had been dated at 29,000 and was being re-examined with the new method.
Higham is re-dating Neanderthal sites throughout Europe and believes all remains will be changed with none begin younger than 39,000 years old. Because of this new find, he believes there is now no evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans were co-existing in Europe for very long at all, and that there is even the possibility that the Neanderthals demise was at the hands of the modern human.
This is where the debate begins, as geneticists reported last year that 2.5 percent of the modern human genome is derived from the Neanderthal genome. There is evidence of Neanderthals co-existing in the Near East some 100,000 years ago, as well as in Europe 40,000 years ago. With the new carbon dating timeline, it is now believed that interbreeding between the two did not occur in Europe but rather during that first encounter.
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Scientists redate Neanderthal fossils
More information: Revised age of late Neanderthal occupation and the end of the Middle Paleolithic in the northern Caucasus, PNAS, Published online before print May 9, 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1018938108
Abstract
Advances in direct radiocarbon dating of Neanderthal and anatomically modern human (AMH) fossils and the development of archaeostratigraphic chronologies now allow refined regional models for NeanderthalAMH coexistence. In addition, they allow us to explore the issue of late Neanderthal survival in regions of Western Eurasia located within early routes of AMH expansion such as the Caucasus. Here we report the direct radiocarbon (14C) dating of a late Neanderthal specimen from a Late Middle Paleolithic (LMP) layer in Mezmaiskaya Cave, northern Caucasus. Additionally, we provide a more accurate chronology for the timing of Neanderthal extinction in the region through a robust series of 16 ultrafiltered bone collagen radiocarbon dates from LMP layers and using Bayesian modeling to produce a boundary probability distribution function corresponding to the end of the LMP at Mezmaiskaya. The direct date of the fossil (39,700 ± 1,100 14C BP) is in good agreement with the probability distribution function, indicating at a high level of probability that Neanderthals did not survive at Mezmaiskaya Cave after 39 ka cal BP ("calendrical" age in kiloannum before present, based on IntCal09 calibration curve). This challenges previous claims for late Neanderthal survival in the northern Caucasus. We see striking and largely synchronous chronometric similarities between the Bayesian age modeling for the end of the LMP at Mezmaiskaya and chronometric data from Ortvale Klde for the end of the LMP in the southern Caucasus. Our results confirm the lack of reliably dated Neanderthal fossils younger than ∼40 ka cal BP in any other region of Western Eurasia, including the Caucasus.
Millanm
In the other hand, all those "conclusions", about the big behavioural gap between Neanderthals and AMH are just no sense, can't really be "deduced" or inferred from the new datation and their REAL scientific meaning.
Skeptic_Heretic
Reducing the amount of time that we see shared land between homosapiens sapiens and homo neaderthalensis only tells me that assimilation and genetic intermixing occured far faster than previously believed. Having two small populations surviving in tandem with no interbreeding for extended periods of time is ludicrous. The shorter the cohabitation time period appears to be, the more likely to me it is that interbreeding occured.
that_guy
Creationists coming to rant about all radiocarbon dating to be flawed and the earth being 6000 years old in 5...4...3...2
J-n
J-n
We're all Hopi right? Of course you are, if you aren't i truly feel sorry for you as you do not get to witness the wonderful feeling of being a part of the One True Religion. I pray for your soul, you non-belivers, as you will suffer an eternity being forced to smell my stinky feet.
that_guy
TheGhostofOtto1923
Neandertal reproduction had most likely become seasonal as does most any temperate-dwelling animal and they could not make up battle losses as quickly as the tropical cro mags. The men were killed off (and eaten), the women were assimilated.
Cro mags had evolved in the context of endemic tribal warfare; they were used to this sort of thing. IMHO.
Beerbarian
DaveMart
ennui27
Hey - not to insult my ansesters, but they were probably no physical treats either ..... come to think of it, according to DNA evidence - the picture IS of one of my ansesters, by about 3%.
Lay off my family! (You probably come from that Asian branch of sapiens, well known for their snooty ways.)
that_guy
classic. I would get kicked out of the asian branch for my lack of math skills. Fortunately for them, I'm an insult to the white race instead.
Skeptic_Heretic
DNA evidence came back on that showing more hybridization than previously believed.
ennui27
classic. I would get kicked out of the asian branch for my lack of math skills. Fortunately for them, I'm an insult to the white race instead.
Ah ha - a black sheep of the white race.
I see no one has responded to the question aboutNeanderthalrthal evidence found Gibraltar. Anyone know anything about this? This wasthe most modern evidence of their survival.
Ethelred
The INCLUDING the Caucasus seems to be a bit propaganda like as they have NOTHING except the Caucasus. It looks like they are trying to claim far more than they have. They changed ONE date. So far. With no corroboration.
So this means NOTHING in regards to Iberian Neanderthals. C14 dating is subject to contamination from any ancient carbon sources such as coal or limestone. Thus if the Gibraltar Neanderthals were in a limestone cave they couldn't have been C14 dated in the first place.
Physical anthropology is rife with overstatements and extravagant claims in initial papers. I noticed this decades ago and it has not improved with time. Eventually it gets straightened out.
Ethelred
TheGhostofOtto1923
http://www.nytime...ogy.html
ennui27
EH? Contrary soul that I am, I refuse to see a degree in psychology as a science degree .... .sciences are PREDICTIVE, the discipline of psychology is RETRODICTIVE.
I, of course, also have a Master of Science degree .... in English and another in Education.
TheGhostofOtto1923
ennui27
Thanks TGoO - but I was being a tad ironic there - an arts student I was and an arts student I remain.
As for higher saleries - my pre-university profession of miner paid a lot more than anything I could command mentioning a degree.
So it seems that Uncle Neander and Auntie CroMag had some offspring. Is there any chance that the Neanderthals were just bred out of existence - the numerically superiour Cro Magnon's DNA relegating the other's to that of 'also run'.
TheGhostofOtto1923
We can see the tendency toward seasonal reproduction in higher latitudes, in the traditional June wedding. Whether a mating season emerged biologically in Neanderthal as opposed to culturally is a question. I don't know if this is being considered. I did read an article which suggested that small family groups would exchange females, by force or barter, to maintain genetic diversity.
Children born in early spring would have a better chance of surviving the next winter like any animal. But this would limit their recovery rate in conflict with tropical cromags who were used to unending reproduction and arguments over it. Neanders would have had long months of asexual peace to ponder the world; explaining their bigger brains perhaps
Astricus
Egleton
He was an obligate carnivore. I wonder if this is why we still exaggerate differences between people because our lives depended on recognising the carnivore.
ennui27
Been waiting for someone to say that.
Ethelred
I am sorry there are no words adequate to describe the gross incompetence and Political bastardization involved. Firebombs and perhaps even the Assassination Bureau Ltd are called for. All this over incompetent anti-science political head in the sand excrements that refuse to accept the FACT that murder is an adaptive characteristic amongst the Yanamamo, something has been clear for decades.
Like the Aztecs, the Conquistadors, the Carthaginians and the Marjon Fringe of the Lunatic Right the Yanamamo are culture that the can best improve humanity by disappearing forever. No idiotic Politicaly INCorrect short sighted foolish stupidity can ever change that.
Ethelred