You may be off by about 30,000 years. It is more than likely that Homo Sapiens caused the extinction of the Neanderthals, who lived some 400,000 years before us, apparently in harmony with nature.
Homo Sapiens has always been very good at waging war and causing extinction of the natural environment wherever we settle.
New archaeology dives into the mysterious demise of the Neanderthals
Char from ancient fires and stalagmites in caves hold clues to the mysterious disappearance of Neanderthals from Europe.
For more than 350 000 years, Neanderthals inhabited Europe and Asia until, in a sudden change by evolutionary standards, they disappeared around 40 000 years ago. This was at around the same time the anatomically modern human Homo sapiens emerged from Africa.
Through this approach, the SUCCESS project reconstructed the paleoclimate (prehistoric climate) between 40-60 000 years ago. In contrast to ice-core analysis from Greenland, there were no data indicating catastrophic climate change in Italy, making it unlikely to have killed off the Neanderthals.
They closely examined a period of around 3 000 years when populations of Neanderthals and humans may have co-existed by excavating seven sites they once inhabited. They investigated the cultural and tool-making differences between the last Neanderthals and the first Homo sapiens in Italy.
Homo sapiens in Italy used specific types of technology including artefacts such as shell ornaments and projectiles like arrowheads.
In fact, SUCCESS unearthed the earliest evidence for mechanically delivered projectile weapons in Europe.
Weapons mismatch
Neanderthals would have found themselves at a severe disadvantage to their Homo sapiens relatives in terms of weapons technology. However, that meeting in Italy may never have happened.
Recently discovered remains in southern Europe show that at least one Neanderthal had been alive 44 000 years ago while the oldest Homo sapiens remains have been dated to 43 000 years ago. It is possible that they overlapped, but none of the current evidence shows that, Benazzi said.