The most comprehensive dating of Neanderthal bones and tools ever carried out suggests that the two species lived side-by-side for up to 5,000 years.

 

The new evidence suggests that the two groups may even have exchanged ideas and culture, say the researchers.

 

The study has been published in the journal Nature.

 

Until now, Neanderthal remains³ have been dated by a number of laboratories but many have been considered unreliable. 

 

Pallab Ghosh: "A more accurate dating method sheds new light on what happened when our two species first met"

 

Now an international team of researchers collected more than 400 samples from the most important sites in Europe. The samples were purified and analysed using state-of-the-art dating methods at Oxford⁴ University. 

 

The results provide the clearest insight yet into the interaction between our ancestors and Neanderthals, when they first encountered each other and why the Neanderthals went extinct, according to the lead researcher, Prof Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford.

 

"I think we can set aside the idea of a rapid extinction⁵ of Neanderthals caused solely⁶ by the arrival of modern humans. Instead we can see a more complex process in which there is a much longer overlap⁷ between the two populations where there could have been exchanges of ideas and culture."

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