Neanderthals sewed too little, too late

Friday, 21 December 2007

Anna Salleh

Neanderthals couldn't cope with the cold

Neanderthals probably froze to death in the last ice age because rapid climate change caught them by surprise without the tools needed to make warm clothes, says an Australian researcher.

Ian Gilligan, a postgraduate researcher from the Australian National University argues his case in the current issue of the journal World Archaeology.

By the time some Neanderthals developed sewing tools it was too little too late, says Gilligan.

Neanderthals began to die out just before the last glacial maximum, 35 to 30,000 years ago and were replaced by modern humans, say archaeologists.

Previous studies have argued that one of the key reasons for this is that modern humans had better hunting tools, providing them with the extra food they needed to survive the cold.

But Gilligan disagrees that the development of hunting tools was so important to modern humans' survival over the Neanderthals.

For a start, he says, Neanderthals were already successful hunters, surviving in Europe and Eurasia for over 100,000 years.

He says most of the tools supposed to have given modern humans the edge over Neanderthals were actually more useful for making warm clothes.

Full article here:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/12/21/2123174.htm?site=science&topic=latest