Why Did the Neanderthal Populations Disappear?
Genomic evidence reveals Neanderthal extinction resulted from competitive exclusion, interbreeding, climatic stress, and inbreeding in tiny populations.
Introduction
The Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) occupied Europe and western Asia for approximately 400,000 years before vanishing from the archaeological record between roughly 40,000 and 39,000 years before the present. Their disappearance coincided with — and was almost certainly related to — the expansion of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) into the same territories. The question of what caused Neanderthal extinction has been debated since the first Neanderthal remains were recognised in the mid-nineteenth century, and the answer has shifted dramatically with each new generation of evidence.