Modern humans are not responsible for the demise of the Neanderthals and in fact co-existed with their closest extinct relatives for several thousand years, a new study has found.
Researchers have accurately dated Neanderthal extinction across Europe, showing there was considerable overlap with early modern humans arriving from Africa.
By dating 196 samples of bone, charcoal and shell across 40 key European sites from Russia to Spain, researchers have found that Neanderthals were extinct by 39,000 years ago.
The first Homo sapiens, the early modern humans, arrived in Europe from western Asia, and ultimately Africa, around 45,000 years ago.
The two populations coexisted in Europe for several thousand years, allowing plenty of time for contact between them.
By dating samples from transitional sites, which contain tools either from the first early modern humans in Europe or the last Neanderthals, researchers found that the two groups overlapped for between 2,600 and 5,400 years.
The study shows Neanderthals did not all become extinct at the same time. Their disappearance was staggered, suggesting they were replaced by early modern humans as a result of local population extinctions, rather than being quickly overrun.
The research was led by Professor Thomas Higham from Oxford University and included work by Natural History Museum archaeologist Dr Roger Jacobi.
Rather than early modern humans rapidly replacing Neanderthals, Higham said that the study "supports a more complex picture, one characterised by a biological and cultural mosaic that lasted for several thousand years."
While no archaeological evidence has been found to show that the Neanderthals and early modern human groups lived closely together, modern human DNA proves that interbreeding took place.
Modern people descended from the early humans who arrived from Africa carry about 2 per cent Neanderthal DNA in their genomes today, researchers said.
Natural History Museum human origins expert Professor Chris Stringer said that Neanderthals in Asia probably interbred with early modern humans somewhere between 50-60,000 years ago, much earlier than the time of their overlap in Europe.
This means that the two populations potentially interacted for up to 20,000 years, starting in Asia about 60,000 years ago and ending about 39,000 years ago in Europe when the last Neanderthals went physically extinct.
The study was published in the journal Nature.
