Posted on 05/18/2007 3:13:47 PM PDT by blam
Dry period in Spain explains Neanderthals' last stand
18 May 2007
NewScientist.com news service
While modern humans were taking over the rest of Europe, Neanderthals were somehow able to cling on in southern Iberia. Now a climate model has helped to explain why. It suggests the region became desert-like around 39,000 years ago, making it undesirable for modern humans.
Pierre Sepulchre from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and colleagues modelled climate and vegetation patterns over the Iberian peninsula around 40,000 years ago. In particular they were interested in the impact of "Heinrich event 4" - an episode of sluggish circulation and falling temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean lasting around 2000 years.
The results show severe drying over southern Iberia, starting around 39,000 years ago and persisting for at least 1000 years (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2007.03.041). "Climate change reduced the resources, so that modern humans had no interest in continuing their expansion to the south," says Sepulchre. They did so only after conditions became favourable again.
The finding quashes the theory that rapid climate swings made Europe uninhabitable, but that southern Iberia remained a "Garden of Eden" in which the Neanderthals could still survive.
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
Great dye job on the hair.
blam: A 24,500 year old 'hybrid' Neanderthal skeleton was found in Portugal. Doesn't that find refute this theory?I don't regard this as a theory per se -- the claim that this particular drought delayed the Neandertal extinction just shows that those authors ignore the fact that Neandertal has descendants, and didn't go extinct anyway, so there isn't any reason to look for reasons for the extinction to have had a different end date. :')
Sepulchre needs to hook up with my coworker, whose last name is LaMorte.
My Theory:
7,600 years ago there were hundreds of thousands of farmers (Irrigation farming too) living around the fresh water Black Sea in an otherwise very arid region. When the 'dam' at the Bosporus broke and flooded (200-300 foot water rise) the Black Sea with salt water, these farmers became refugees and fled up the rivers leading into Europe taking their language (Indo-European) and farming skill all over Europe with them. They also fled toward the direction of China and are the Caucasian mummies found in the Tarim Basin.
Ryan and Pitman’s book is one of my favorites. Have there been any updates or other source studies done on that subject? It would seem that a hypothesis that important would have other researchers either supporting or disputing it.
Yes. Ballard went down and found what are believed to be some underwater manmade structures. There was a one hour documentary on his work. I don't remember any specifics...well, they did locate a very old ship too.
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