[Pharmboy]

Yeah...I imagine we wiped them out as soon our ancestors got to Europe.

[Pharmboy]

“Oh, the (near) humanity,” ping...

[csmusaret]

Earlier than who thought? Not me; I never thought about them at all.

[Dallas59]

A couple of them are still alive....and the live in house in Washington D.C....

[donhunt]

I once had a business partner who was a Neanderthal.

[LucianOfSamasota]

Not true. They remain among us today, and one of them writes a column concerning economics for the NY Times.

[Vaquero]

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was politically inspired faux science.

The left does not like the proven facts that Neanderthal and Cromagnun interbred to make the true European human. They want the African thing to be in the forefront.

[theBuckwheat]

I notice that this story is written with a theme that is the same as all similar stories- that the news today is being discussed in terms that now we understand and we are so certain that now we are correct and how could we possibly have believed what we said was the truth in the distant past, like last week. We are so much more advanced today and know so much more, don’t we?

Did I ask how we could have possibly believed all the stuff we said previously was the truth? Well it was, but everyone who knows better knows that we are telling the truth this time.

[bunkerhill7]

The CroMagnon men killed all the Neanderthal men and raped all the Neanderthal women. That is when paper bags were invented by the CroMagnons.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

The theory of interbreeding may be anachronistic thinking on the part of today's anthropologists and archaeologists. Just because at the present WEstern society obsessed with things sexual does not mean the Cromagnon and Neandethal were likewise obsessed. They may have thought each other as repulsive or as a danger to be immediately killed. A living growing people are by their very nature exclusive. It is only a dying people that are inclusive.

[njslim]

Nonsense - see them on GEICO commercials all the time.....

[AndyTheBear]

Scientists discover the ages of artifacts and fossils using a variety of techniques. For instance, radiocarbon dating determines the age of biological remains based on the ratio between the carbon isotopes (atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons) carbon-12 and carbon-14 it holds — this proportion changes as radioactive carbon-14 breaks down while stable carbon-12 does not.

Ok, so they used carbon dating on the bones to determine their age (as well as other techniques).

...and prior research had suggested the last of the Neanderthals held out in southern Iberia until about 35,000 years ago...

OK, So the results of this carbon dating of bones was over 35,000 years. But is carbon dating accurate that far back? I mean 35,000 years is about 7 half-lifes for the c14 isotope? Can we trust that what little is left is not just contamination?

[Jack Hammer]

Not true - there are several living in the White House at this very moment.

[ek_hornbeck]

If the Neanderthal remains are over 40K years old, you’re really pushing the limits of what C14 dating can do accurately (half-life is something like 8K, right)?

Of course, that won’t stop the flat-Earthers from saying that mistakes in earlier estimates invalidate the whole concept of radiometric dating!