
© Titian/Wikimedia
Cain killing Abel.
When modern humans arrived in Europe around 40,000 years ago, they made a discovery that was to change the course of history.
The continent was already populated by our evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals, which recent evidence suggests had their own relatively
sophisticated culture and technology. But
within a few thousand years the Neanderthals were gone, leaving our species to continue its spread to every corner of the globe.
Precisely how Neanderthals became extinct remains a subject of fierce debate among researchers. The two main explanations given in recent years have been competition with the recently arrived modern humans and
global climate change.
The persistence of
Neanderthal genetic material in all modern people outside of Africa shows the two species interacted and even had sex. But it's possible that there were other kinds of interactions as well.
Some researchers
have suggested that competition for resources such as prey and raw materials for stone tools may have taken place.
Others have proposed violent interactions and even warfare took place, and that this may have caused the Neanderthals' demise.
This idea might seem compelling, given our species' violent history of warfare. But proving the existence of early warfare is a problematic (although fascinating) area of research.
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