Neanderthals extinction might be due to temperature change, says study

New Delhi : When it comes to human family tree, there are many questions which are still left unanswered. One thing still knocks our grey cell that why our particular branch of human history was able to bear, while others like the Neanderthals were snuffed out. Neanderthals are subspecies of ancient humans in the genus Homo. In comparison to modern humans, Neanderthals were stockier, with shorter legs and bigger bodies. Now, a new study claims that the rising freezing temperature may contribute to the extinction of Neanderthals. 

The study has been conducted by a group of researchers from multiple institutions in the US and Europe and their work were published in Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. Researchers used observations of stalagmites that are tens of thousands of years old. The rocky formations are great source to know the change of climate condition for over thousands and thousands of years.

In the study, they attempted to explain that climate change might have started to take place somewhere around 44,000 years back. During this time, the climate might have started to grow colder over a period of thousands of years and remaining chilly for an extended period of time. 

However, temperature gradually might have returned to the original position, but archaeological record seems to indicate that many Neanderthals couldn’t bear the extreme cold time. These cold cycles repeated themselves, and each time the change created problem for Neanderthals survival.

“For many years we have wondered what could have caused their demise,” Dr Vasile Ersek of Northumbria University explains in a statement. “Were they pushed ‘over the edge’ by the arrival of modern humans, or were other factors involved? Our study suggests that climate change may have had an important role in the Neanderthal extinction.”

Besides, the study has draws a clear link between natural climate change and the affect it may have had on the extinction of Neanderthal population. The study also highlighted that tools made by this sub-species of human seems to have been very low and they had very tough time to sustain the changing climate condition. Finally, the race doomed to extinction sometime, 40,000 years ago.