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Article: Were Modern Humans Neighbors to Neanderthals?; Dating of Modern- Style Artifacts in Famed Neanderthal Cave in France Refuels Debate About Possible Coexistence
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- September 12, 2005
- Author:
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Sometime between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, the Neanderthals
abruptly disappeared after a run of perhaps 200 millennia in the Near
East, west Asia and, most notably, in the ice age caves of Europe. On
that score, there is no dispute.
How this happened, and why, is another matter. For years,
paleontologists have argued about whether anatomically modern humans
invading from the east either wiped out the Neanderthals or out-
innovated them; or, alternatively, whether Neanderthals and the
invaders simply interbred to create today's Homo sapiens.
This debate has taken on new virulence amid an accumulation of
new, but still inconclusive, evidence.
DNA analysis to date suggests that ...