The physical, cultural, and bio-genetic landscape of the last Neanderthals

Introduction

Our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, abruptly disappeared 40 thousand years ago (ka) after having endured for 350 thousand years in a territory ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to southern Siberia. Decades-long research attempted to address the cultural aspects and the demographic and environmental factors that triggered their demise.

Research Limitations

Yet, there are no widely accepted scenarios that satisfactorily explain the extinction of the Neanderthal. These shortcomings are in part because the data available originated from a limited number of sites mainly in western and central Europe, which we now know were peripheral to the range of the last Neanderthals.

Need for New Data

To compellingly reconstruct the chain of events that led to Neanderthal’s extinction, the scientific community needs new extensive archaeological data, possibly from the core regions of the last Neanderthals’ range. Areas of western and central Asia and eastern and southeastern Europe were at the core of this range, served as gateways to marginal areas, and witnessed Neanderthals’ bio-cultural interactions with Sapiens and Denisovans.

Project Overview

For the first time, three PIs with vast expertise on Neanderthals’ culture, biology, and paleoenvironments will synergistically attempt to bridge the knowledge gap between the core and the periphery of their range at the time of their decline between 60-40ka.

Project LAST NEANDERTHALS Objectives

Project LAST NEANDERTHALS will:

1. Accurately collect, date, integrate, and model new high-resolution cultural, bio-genetic, and environmental data from understudied areas in western and central Asia and eastern and southeastern Europe.
2. Provide an unprecedented perspective on the last Neanderthals’ population dynamics.
3. Offer a comprehensive and compelling explanation of the mechanisms that led to their extinction by integrating data from their entire range and formulating and testing nuanced hypotheses using new models and simulations.
4. Serve as a proxy for the fate shared by all archaic human groups.