February 2007
An article in PNAS confirms that traces from Homo sapiens and H. sapiens neanderthalis are intermingled at the Chatelperron site in France, strongly suggesting that the two types of human met and interacted at the site.
What finally did for the Neanderthals? It may be that climate change, resulting in a nasty cold snap about 24,000 years ago, killed the last remaining group of them, huddled on the south of the Iberian peninsula, near Gibraltar.
BBC summary here, original article in Quaternary Science Reviews here.
I enjoyed your post!
Check out my archaeological blog post of the day. It refers to Neanderthals!
http://amirazara.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/new-manners-of-thinking/
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