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HUMANS AND NEANDERTHALS may have coexisted in Europe for more than 5,000 years, providing ample time for the two species to meet and mix.
Using new carbon dating techniques and mathematical models, researchers examined about 200 samples found at 40 sites from Spain to Russia, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
They concluded with a high probability that pockets of Neanderthal culture survived until between 41,030 and 39,260 years ago.
Although this puts the disappearance of Neanderthals earlier than some scientists previously thought, the findings support the idea that they lived alongside humans, who arrived in Europe about 45,000-43,000 years ago.
“We believe we now have the first robust timeline that sheds new light on some of the key questions around the possible interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans,” said Thomas Higham, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford who led the study.
While it’s known that Neanderthal genes have survived in the DNA of many modern humans to this day, suggesting that at least some interbreeding took place, scientists are still unclear about the extent of their contact and the reasons why Neanderthals vanished.
“These new results confirm a long-suspected chronological overlap between the last Neanderthals and the first modern humans in Europe,” said Jean-Jacques Hublin, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who wasn’t involved in the study.
Apart from narrowing the length of time that the two species existed alongside each other to between 2,600 and 5,400 years, Higham and his colleagues also believe they have shown that Neanderthals and humans largely kept to themselves.
“What we don’t see is that there is spatial overlap (in where they settled),” said Higham.
This is puzzling, because there is evidence that late-stage Neanderthals were culturally influenced by modern humans. Samples taken from some Neanderthal sites include artefacts that look like those introduced to Europe by humans migrating from Africa.
This would point to the possibility that Neanderthals, whose name derives from a valley in western Germany, adopted certain human habits and technologies even as they were being gradually pushed out of their territory.
“I think they were eventually outcompeted,” said Higham.
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The solution is obvious….. arm the doctors and nurses…….
@Jonny:
Too many doors.
@Jonny: Don’t forget the patients….
@iohanx: Arm the doors with semtex duh.
@Jonny: don’t forget the candy stripers.
Sounds like a bad B movie!
(Hospital volunteers, also known as candy stripers in the United States)
@Jonny: Arm the teachers and post them in hospitals. That’ll show them.
@iohanx: Which were NOT LOCKED! Insane!
@Jonny: or maybe dogs with bees in their mouth, and when they bark they shoot bees at you.
@A$AP Ragnick: Release the robotic Richard Simmons.
@Colm de Cleir: and the dogs outside
Oh but guns don’t kill people….people do right. The circus continues. What a messed up country!
@Warren kennedy: Yeeeehaw. The only thing that can git a bad guy with a gun, is good guy with a gun… yeeeeehaw… tighten those stirrups and let me take you for a ride. Yeeeehaw. Banjo music yippee dee doo.
They are absolutely p@thetic.
@Warren kennedy: I cannot believe this is after happening in America!!
The land of the free nope the land of the scared going school, work or play not sure if you or loved ones get home alive.
@Mick McGuinness: I am sorry you feel that way.
Feel free to live in Ireland. On the other hand I immigrated and never regretted it. To each his own.
@Dermot N Killian: You’re literally one in millions. Who cares if you’re happy.
It was unclear what prompted the deadly assault….. its a shame people/teenagers can’t use their assault rifles responsibly
Shoulder shrug…
America makes money on selling guns to anyone
Another mass shooting in America? Must be Thursday.
@Colin B: Could be a Tuesday, or a Saturday… Note that since the one at Uvalde, there have been over twenty mass shootings (at least four people hit by gunfire in the same incident). Their society is lost to guns now.
4…surprised it made the news…any other country this would be a tragedy…Will be for the people involved but for most of America another day another shooting, just part of life. Somebody please hold a big mirror up to America!
@Damien Leen: my guess is that it’s because it’s in a hospital and came soon after the school shooting.
It really feels like the NRA has declared war on America….
We’ve been cooking up the zeros. We’ve been doing all the sums. The outcome of this court is, we need more guns.
Another tragedy in America. At one of the recent school ones , the gun nuts were saying it wouldn’t have happened if the teachers were armed in the schools – and then called for teachers to be armed in the schools.
.
This latest mass shooting was at a medical facility. What’s next? A call to arm the doctors and nurses too? Let not discriminate? Let’s also arm the receptionist at their desk. What’s their preference? A semi-automatic or sub-machine gun? Doctors and nurses in an operating room, strapped with their weapons?
.
When does the NRA/Republican craziness end? No – wait. It’s all the open doors fault, of course! There’s a free gun for everyone in the audience. Let’s liven up the Late Late show with such madness? No. When does it all end for America? In more unnecessary deaths – that’s sadly where!
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* I make this post as NOT a fan of the Democrat party either!
@Jeff Rudd: it’s becoming like the old w6old west.. everyone armed … there will be duels next to settle disputes.
Only 4,chicken feed.not news worthy.
@Macus Mc Mahon: T’is practically good news.
The US Corporation lives on the sale of arms throughout the world and now the Irish ‘government’ and commentariat is willing to sign us up to the latest sales drive by the US’s Nato department.
@Bramley Hawthorne: any links to that?
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Only this morning “This Morning” RTE1 Radio show, was going on about NATO. Yesterday in the paper’s, Leo was advocating that he can convince us to join yet another military setup.
All this comes after two recent polls (that’s he’s deliberate ignoring) exposing quite clearly that the mass majority of Ireland people do NOT want to join further mass military setups.
Only 4? Sure that’s nothing.
The 19th mass shooting since the Uvalde.
The American public are ‘getting high on their own supply’ of guns.
It would be ok for them to use the guns to kill lesser armed people in far countries – not
The only way that gun laws will ever change in the US is when some maniac with a semi automatic gun enters a parliamentary building and shoots a number of the legislators. Only then, will the message sink in that their gun laws are so so wrong.
@Kárl: a congressman was shot dead at a baseball game for politicians a few years back. Nothing changed. Nothing will ever change until they stop letting special interest groups like the NRA buy and elect lawmakers. The people clearly don’t have the will to bring them to talk.
If only there was a way to stop the madness.
I hear the next one will be less than a week away….. how bad is it that I’m not even wrong :(
Very simple answer, machine gun turrets at the entrance to every medical facility shooting anyone dead if they get within 50ft of the facility!
Who the hell left the doors open??? They should be locked up!
@Andrew Lavelle: the person, or the doors?
have your say