'Human hunting weapons didn't kill Neanderthals'

The demise of Neanderthals may have nothing to do with innovative hunting weapons carried by humans from west Asia, a new research shows.

The findings mean that scientists may need to rethink the theory that humans survived Neanderthals because of modern hunting weapons.

"We are not so special, I do not think we survived Neanderthals simply because of technological competence," said Seiji Kadowaki, first study author from the Nagoya University, Japan.

For the study, researchers looked at innovative stone weapons used by humans about 42,000-34,000 years ago.

Traditionally, anthropologists believed that innovation in weapons enabled humans to spread out of Africa to Europe.

However, the new study suggests that the innovation was not a driving force for humans to migrate to Europe as previously thought -- they were no better equipped than the Neanderthals.

Previous models assumed that anatomically modern humans -- our direct ancestors -- were special in the way they behaved and thought.

These models considered technological and cultural innovation as the reason humans survived and Neanderthals did not.

"Our findings suggest that humans moved from west Asia to Europe without a big change in their behaviour," the authors noted.

The researchers studied stone tools that were used by people living in south and west Europe and west Asia around 40,000 years ago.

They used small stone points as tips for hunting weapons like throwing spears.

Researchers previously considered these to be a significant innovation -- one that helped the humans migrate from west Asia to Europe, where Neanderthals were living.

However, the new research reveals a timeline that doesn't support this theory.

If the innovation had led to the migration, evidence would show the stone points moving in the same direction as the humans.

But at closer inspection, the researchers showed the possibility that the stone points appeared in Europe 3,000 years earlier than in the Levant, a historical area in west Asia.

"Innovation in hunting weapons can be necessary, but it is not always associated with migration -- populations can spread without technological innovations," Kadowaki added.

The findings mean that the research community now needs to reconsider the assumption that our ancestors moved to Europe and succeeded where Neanderthals failed because of cultural and technological innovations brought from Africa or west Asia.

The study was published in the Journal of Human Evolution.