Neanderthal Murder Mystery

[Michael]

Why did Neanderthal man become extinct? Was it interbreeding with humans? Or did our ancestors wipe them out? Steve Connor reports on a fossil that may solve the puzzle.

Read More (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-neanderthal-murder-mystery-888276.html)

This is very interesting article about how scientists are seeking to answer this old riddle of paleoanthropology.

Personally, I've always believed that Neanderthal was 'exterminated with extreme prejudice' by our ancestors as this theory would seem to explain a lot about human society and racism and things like that.

[Michael]

Only one recovered post for this thread...

Good article. I didn't know Neanderthal mDNA had been fully sequenced.

It is definitely a possibility that our ancestors actively exterminated the Neanderthal. There is amble evidence of such tendencies in the descendants. Depending on the method of eradication, it would of course become more convincing if remains were found with signs of particular close encounters. Another possibility is that our ancestors indirectly caused an extinction, for instance, via competition. Or, if we still look at what the descendants have achieved, via missioning of some sort. They could also simply have been wiped out by things like infections. Though geographically dispersed, imagine a yellow fever type virus in populations of no more than 10,000 in total.

Anyhow, I'm pleased to see that the article doesn't pretend to shed new light on anything else than genetic relationship and, thus, the speculations regarding interbreeding.