Neanderthals | IAS GYAN

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Context

Nobel laureate Svante Paabo and his team have published genetic studies of Neanderthals.

Neanderthals

Neanderthals are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago.
Together with an Asian people known as Denisovans, Neanderthals are our closest ancient human relatives. Scientific evidence suggests our two species shared a common ancestor.
Current evidence from both fossils and DNA suggests that Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago.
While the causes of Neanderthal disappearance about 40,000 years ago remain highly contested, demographic factors such as small population size, inbreeding, and random fluctuations are considered probable factors.
Other scholars have proposed competitive replacement, assimilation into the modern human genome (bred into extinction), great climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors.