The Ancients - The Last Neanderthals

Episode Date: February 16, 2025

For hundreds of thousands of years Neanderthals have roamed the lands of what is today Europe and western Asia. But how did they survive, and what caused their decline?Tristan Hughes delves into the fate of the last Neanderthals and continues our Ice Age mini-series with Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum. They explore how Neanderthals thrived across diverse climates and investigate the intriguing story of Neanderthals' eventual decline alongside the arrival of Homosapiens 60,000 years ago. Professor Stringer also shares the fascinating evidence of interbreeding that has left traces of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans and groundbreaking insights from recent archaeological and DNA research, that shed light on why Neanderthals went extinct.Presented by Tristan Hughes. The audio editor and producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. and Malcolm Gladwell is just that. Unexpected success stories from unforgettable guests, like late nights TV host Jimmy Kimmel, award winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay, celebrity chef David Chang and rapper, producer and music executive Dr Dre to name a few. Their stories pulled me in and I was moved and completely absorbed. Listen to the new Audible original podcast The Un Unusual Suspects, with Kenya Barris and

Malcolm Gladwell. Go to audible.ca slash Unusual Suspects podcast and listen now. It's 55,000 years ago. For hundreds of thousands of years, Neanderthals have roamed the lands of what is today Europe and Western Asia. Over that time, they've been able to survive and thrive in a whole host of different climates and environments, stretching from the coasts of Iberia and southern Britain, to Iraq and western Asia and even Siberia. They lived in caves, these natural places of shelter.

They carved effective tools out of wood, ancillar, bone and stone. They made art. They lit fires. They had their own methods of communication, although what they were we don't know. And yet 55,000 years ago this was a species in decline and what's more a new species was about to emerge onto the scene, one that would come into direct contact and potentially conflict with Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, us. It's the Ancients on History hit.

I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Today we're continuing our Ice Age mini-series this February by exploring the enigmatic story of the last Neanderthals and why they ultimately went extinct. This is a really exciting field. Over the past few years, new information has come to light thanks to a mix of archaeological and DNA research, revealing how late Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred some 50,000 years ago. Many of us in the world today have Neanderthal DNA in our genomes.

Yet the Neanderthals themselves soon went extinct. Many reasons have been put forward as to why this occurred, closely linked with the arrival of modern humans in their territories. To talk through the possibilities, I was delighted to interview Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum. Chris is one of the leading lights in the field of human evolution. He has also been on the podcast several times before to talk about all things varying from the origins of Homo sapiens to the first Britons

to the mysterious story of a massive cranium discovered in China called Dragon Man. Now he's back to explain the story of the last Neanderthals. Enjoy. Chris, as always, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. It's a pleasure to be with you again. Now you're a very modest man, but you are one of, if not the oracle when it comes to

Neanderthals. You've been in this field of research for decades, so very, very grateful for your time. And to talk about this particular part of the Neanderthal story, one which still feels very mysterious yet one where there's a lot of research going into at the moment. I mean, what ultimately happens to the Neanderthals is quite the topic. Yes, it is. It's a topic that's obviously exercised scientists since they were first found. They're not here now, so what happened to them? And did we play a role in their extinction? And how rich a record do people like yourself and scientists have for wanting to try and

learn more about why they ultimately disappear? Well, yes. For this time period, if we focus on their last time, let's say between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago, we've got a lot of Neanderthal sites. We have a lot of them with archaeology. Neanderthals made characteristic stone tools, which we can recognize. We know that the Neanderthals spread all the way from Western Europe over to, at times, to Siberia. So they had a very wide geographic range. That's the length of Eurasia.

It's a huge area, absolutely. It's possible they even extended into places like China at times, but that's not so certain. But they had a very wide geographic range and they have a huge range in time. Of course, the Neanderthals are around for hundreds of thousands of years. Although we think of them as being cold adapted, we think of Neanderthals alongside mammoths and reindeer. They also lived in warmer conditions, so it was often very warm. In places like Europe, we find them alongside elephants and hippopotamuses in Italy 250,000 years ago. So they were wide-ranging and quite adaptable in the areas in which they lived. And of course, in terms of fossils, the best known ones are from Europe. That's where we have the

best evidence. That's where they were first discovered. As we move further east, there are less neonatars. We've got good samples from places like Israel, from Iraq. But as we go further east, there are less Neanderthals. We've got good samples from places like Israel, from Iraq, but as we go further east, the actual fossil sample runs out. But we've got DNA, of course, adding to the story now. Because we've got DNA as well for Neanderthals. Yes. So in 2010, we got the first high quality reconstruction of a Neanderthal genome. And now we've got several Neanderthal individuals with high quality genomes from Europe and from Asia. And of course, it's even now possible to get DNA from cave sediments. So this is a great thing for the future that even at a site where you haven't got a single

neonatol fossil, you could have a trace of those neonatols if they were at the site at all. Maybe they urinated in the cave, maybe a woman gave birth in the cave. That could have left a trace which can be picked up from DNA. So you don't even need Neanderthal fossils now. And this means in the future we'll have an even better picture of their range from looking at sites where we've just got Neanderthal archaeology. The sediments in those caves may well contain their DNA as well. I mean, it's so interesting, Chris, because I remember chatting to your colleague, Adrian Lister, and also David Meltzer about the woolly mammoth and that DNA evidence for these great

beasts of the Ice Age as well. And it seems similar with Neanderthals in the fact that there must be so much DNA out there from pee, from poo, from where they ate and stuff. So, so much more to gain to learn about them from just doing more studies of those sites that we know Neanderthals were once in. That's right. Yes. And so we've had an explosion of data in the last 10 years and that explosion is going to carry on. So, you mentioned 60,000 years ago Neanderthals, they occupy this huge geographic range stretching from modern day Europe all the way to Eastern Asia. Were there almost different lineages of Neanderthals by that time? You have Neanderthals as that wide-reaching name,

but almost as its subspecies beneath? Yeah. The Neanderthals, obviously, as I mentioned, they go back hundreds of thousands of years, and so they must have diversified in that time. But what's interesting is that the picture we have of the late Neonatiles is that there's actually quite low diversity. So a lot of those early Lineages have either disappeared or we haven't found traces of them yet. The Neonatiles are relatively, you know, compared with Homo sapiens today, the Neonatiles have much lower variation. Some of their populations in the last 20,000 years are even quite inbred. So

they're having to breed with close relatives, which is not good for the gene pool, of course. So we think that in the last 20,000 years, the Neanderthals were relatively low in diversity, probably relatively low in numbers. And those last 20,000 years, do you mean between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago when we have that last evidence from Neanderthals in the world? Yes, that's right. So at the moment, looking at radiocarbon dates or Neanderthal sites and where we have Neanderthal archaeology, at least in Europe, it's very difficult to find good evidence of them after 40,000 years ago. Now, we can't say the same as we go further east because the record

is much less well-dated. So in Iraq, they're around probably until 45,000 years ago, possibly younger. And even further east, I mentioned they were in Siberia, places like that. We don't have a good fix on how late they went in some of those other regions. So it's possible they extended and survived further east later. It's also possible that they died out across their range, you know, in quite a short time, around 40,000. We're not certain of that at the moment. So is it fair to say that even by 60,000 years ago, Neanderthals having already been around in the world for hundreds of thousands of years, have they already passed their peak at that time in terms of numbers across the world?

Yes, it's always difficult to estimate numbers. Obviously, we've got archaeological sites where you can attempt to estimate numbers, but the genetic data suggests, as I mentioned, that they were low in diversity in that period between 40,000 and 60,000. They were low in diversity, but we do have surviving Neanderthal DNA evidence of it that comes from earlier sites, and that suggests they were more diverse 100,000 years ago. Now, that's the last interglacial. I mean, the last interglacial, the warmest stage was about 120,000, 125,000 years ago when it was as warm or maybe even slightly warmer than today. We're coming back to those temperatures now, of course, unfortunately, with global warming. But that was a warm period.

And interestingly, the Neanderthals actually thrived, although, as I say, we think of them as cold adapted. Actually, that could have been their peak time in terms of numbers. Probably they were large numbers of Neanderthals 120,000 years ago. And then after that, with the decrease of suitable environments, with the decrease in temperatures, their numbers may have shrunk and their ranges perhaps shrank as well. And Chris, can you please explain why genetic diversity and studying it is so important for please explain why genetic diversity and studying it is so important for understanding whether species like Neanderthals are successful, they're enduring well or they are starting to decline? Yeah, so when we look at modern species that are threatened, of course, we think of

you know, particular groups of tigers, particular populations of elephants, populations of gorillas. Some of these are very threatened. They're low in number and they're low in diversity. And once a population gets down to a few thousand, it really is at risk from diseases, from very rapid climate change, from some kind of exploitation, some kind of competition can tip them over the edge to extinction. So we're aware of that today with people trying to save some of the last rhinos, for example, in certain areas. Well, the Neanderthals, probably in their last 20,000 years, we could say that they probably were a threatened species in the same way.

They were low in numbers and low in diversity. That's bad for the gene pool, of course, because if you've got low variation, you may get a buildup of what you can, in simple terms, bad mutations, may build up in the gene pool. It also limits your ability to adapt genetically to changing conditions if you've got low numbers and low diversity. So it was bad news for them and possibly they were already a species in trouble by 60,000 years ago, even before homo sapiens made a significant impact on them. So they'd be quite fragile to changing climates, for instance? Yes, rapid climate change have probably been pruning their numbers. So the climate from about 100,000 years ago, the climate in Europe was fluctuating dramatically.

Every few thousand years, it fluctuated from nearly as warm as today to bitterly cold. And that happened over and over again every few thousand years. And some of these switches in climate were very rapid. Probably even in the lifetime of a single Neanderthal, they might have seen the environment that they were used to completely changing. Perhaps from relatively benign woodlands and things to a glacial tundra. Or if they were adapting to cold conditions, they might see it suddenly change into much warmer conditions.

And that would be a challenge for them too, because they're adapted to one environment and then it rapidly changes. Let's talk about the intelligence and the lifestyle of these Neanderthals before we move on to the arrival of homo sapiens and that impact on the Neanderthal numbers. First of all, the toolkit. When we think of ancient human species alongside homo sapiens, we think of things varying from very simple stone tools all the way back in the Oldowan with very early human species to the handax axe of Homo erectus. With the Neanderthals and the late Neanderthals, how complex is their toolkit by then? Yeah, so well, you really need an archaeologist to answer that one properly. But from my point

of view, yeah, we know that the Neanderthals were capable technologically. They were more capable than probably, I would have said 20 years ago, I would have said that there was a big behavioral gulf between us and the Neanderthals, that we were making all these complex tools and making art and so on, and the Neanderthals largely weren't doing that. What we've learned in the last 20 years is the Neanderthals were doing a lot of the things that we used to think were probably unique to Homo sapiens. So this behavioral gap has considerably narrowed. Some people think it's disappeared completely. I don't go that far. But they were very capable technologically. So yes, they were largely making stone tools, of course, was their main way of making things for food processing and weapons. But of course, it wasn't the only material. And we've got to remember that wood would have been very important for them. And unfortunately, in most cases, the evidence of all that wood technology has disappeared. There are a few rare examples where we find wooden artifacts, but that must also have been important for

them. So for example, we know that they were making wooden spears and we know that some of their stone points must have been mounted on handles as spears, either throwing spears or for thrusting. And attached with like resin or something like that, some sort of natural glue. Yes, that's right. And some of these may just have been simply pushed into a wooden shaft, but in other cases it looks like they were even able to make resins, quite complex technology to treat tree material, tree resins and sap and so on. Treat these with heat to make them into a kind of glue which enables you to fix the head on

to the shaft. So they were capable of that. They certainly in many situations were capable of making fire, it seems it will, and that would have been very important for their survival. And even art, there's evidence now that Neanderthals were marking cave walls. They certainly were making marks on bones and things. And there's quite a debate about how much artistic expression Neanderthals had. In my view, we haven't yet got a representation by a Neanderthal of a person or an animal. That still seems to be unique to Homo sapiens. But in terms of their adaptations to different situations, we know now that they were in some cases adapted to living by the coast.

So from our excavations in Gibraltar 20 years ago or more, we were able to show that there they were adapting to coastal living. They were collecting and eating mollusks from the sea. They were even butchering at times dolphin and seal. Now the seals, they might well have been out and clubbed baby seals, but it's possible the dolphin was a stranding. But they certainly were very used to those coastal environments and they were exploiting them for food. And again, that's something that 20 or 30 years ago would have been much more debatable. And should we then imagine you've got these small groups of Neanderthals, some living by the coast,

others hunting mammoth or living further inland. So they've adapted even with this kind of low genetic diversity, they are still in pockets across Eurasia, surviving off different foods and drink and so on and so forth. But at the same time, there must be communication, maybe behavioral activities like burial as well. and so forth. But at the same time, there must be communication, maybe behavioural activities like burial as well. So these are intelligent, but isolated small communities throughout this

geographic landmass. Yes. I mean, it's difficult to really map how much these Neon Togruz were connecting with each other. So there are different views on this. Some people think that they did have quite wide communication networks. We can look at that to an extent with the movement of raw materials, for example, stone tool resources move across the landscape. And by and large, it looks like Homo sapiens extended the networks much wider. But the Neanderthals certainly were mobile, and they certainly must have been in contact with other groups because they were exchanging mates. So there are a couple

of sites where we can even look at the mating patterns of neonatal groups. And at least from the sites where we've got the data, it looks like the males were largely staying in one location and the females were coming into those locations from elsewhere. So what's sometimes called a patrilocal mating system. So within a particular neonatal site, in mitochondrial terms, which is the lineages inherited through mothers to their children, the mitochondria suggests that the males are closely related to each other, but the females are more diverse in mitochondria. So that must indicate there is movement of people, in this case the movement of women into particular Neanderthal groups.

People can deduce that from the surviving DNA or from the surviving remains. That's right, yes. So there are Neanderthal sites where even from the mitochondrial DNA preserved in the cave sediments, as well as in the individual's DNA themselves, you can show this pattern of small diversity in the males of the Neanderthals compared with large diversity in the males of the Neanderthals compared with large diversity in the females. So there's this Neanderthal world that's existing some 60,000 years ago. So let's introduce our other main protagonist into this story, protagonist species. Chris, when do we start to see Homo sapiens emerging onto the Neanderthal scene?

Well, yes. So that's an interesting question where again, we're getting new data all the time. So there seems to be an early incursion of Homo sapiens into Neanderthal areas even more than 200,000 years ago. So there's a site in southern Greece, Epidema cave. It's actually a complex of caves stacked vertically in a sea cliff in southern Greece. And in one of those caves, they found two skulls very close to each other, which for a long time were thought to be two Neanderthal skulls, maybe 150,000 years old. But I've been involved in work which has shown that, first of all, the skulls are not the same age. They seem to be brought together through deposition in the cave, but they don't actually belong together because they're not the same age.

And what's interesting is one of the skulls, it's only the back of a skull, looks like a homo sapiens. So it doesn't show any anatol features in the back of the skull, it shows homo sapiens features. And that fossil is at least 210,000 years old. So incredibly, if that data are correct, there was a Homo sapiens living in southern Greece more than 200,000 years ago. And what's interesting is, maybe 30 or 40,000 years later, you've got a Neanderthal fossil

at the site. So the sapiens seems to have disappeared and the Neanderthals are in occupation. So this could be an early and what you could call it unsuccessful dispersal of Homo sapiens from Africa through Western Asia, as far as Greece. Perhaps it went even further, we don't know. But it was one which then disappeared and the neonatars come back. But interesting, that presence of sapiens outside of Africa more than 200,000 years ago does square with genetic data that suggests that there was a rather mysterious interbreeding event between homo sap event between early homo sapiens and early

neonatols, maybe 300,000 years ago. So that again would imply there was either neonatols got into Africa, but more likely sapiens came out into neonatol territories, did some interbreeding with them, and actually affected their mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome diversity. They seem to pick up a sapiens like mitochondria and Y chromosome. And that estimate suggests that maybe 5% DNA was exchanged between the groups maybe 300,000 years ago. So that's still a mysterious and poorly understood time. But that epitome fossil from Greece is maybe a clue to the sort of movements, early movements out of Africa, which ultimately were not sustained by homo sapiens. But this is also important to highlight, isn't it Chris, that with the kind of focal area

of Neanderthals that we think of with Eurasia, Europe and so on, and the focal point for the evolution and emergence of homo sapiens, these were two completely different areas of the world. So for much of the time they were separate from each other. Yes, the fact that we and the Neodotiles developed these distinctive anatomies suggest that the evolution was largely separate over hundreds of thousands of years. Certainly at least half a million years on present thinking, we and the Neodotiles evolved separately, but being separate doesn't mean being completely separate. So within that separation and distinction of building up different characters, now and again these groups met and exchanged DNA.

And this is a pattern which we now know from modern species that are closely related. So when we look at birds and mammals, maybe 20% of these closely related species are doing a bit of interbreeding with each other. And so it seems that this is a way for those species to actually improve their genetic diversity because as they go their separate way, they take particular

genetic pathways and they may lose diversity. So by interbreeding with your neighboring species you may pick up some diversity that you've lost and that could be useful for you. So it looks like species do this. They largely closely related ones, at least for maybe a million years, maybe two million years, they may continue to be able to exchange DNA with their closely related species. And it looks like that's what happened, which certainly is what happened with us and Neanderthals. And also it happened with us and Denisovans. And even Denisovans and Neanderthals were interbreeding with each other. And I know we haven't talked about Denisovans yet, but they were a lineage that we know

about living over in the Far East. So there are actually these three major lineages evolving us in Africa for most of the last half a million years. Neanderthals in Eurasia, mainly the western part in the last half a million years, and over in the Far East, Denisovans also evolving in that time period over the last half a million years and over in the Far East, denisovans also evolving in that time period over the last half a million years. It is also really interesting just quickly this idea that maybe Neanderthals, when they were at their peak and had a lot of genetic diversity living in all these various different landscapes, if earlier on some Neanderthals had actually made it to Africa and met earlier homo sapiens, that's fascinating to consider. I know it's not proven, but still quite interesting to think about.

Yes, it's certainly possible. The Neanderthals reached right down in southern Israel. So they're only a few hundred kilometres from Cairo there. So of course, these populations wouldn't have known Africa was separate from Western Asia. For them, it was just a landscape that they might have traversed, maybe following their food, you know, migrating herds and so on. So certainly, it's not impossible that just as Sapiens came out of Africa several times, it's possible Neanderthals even came into Africa at times, and we can't map that at the moment. And then there are areas like Arabia. So you've got the huge area, the Arabian Peninsula, a massive area. We know that Sapiens were there about 95,000 years ago from just a single ham bone fossil, but Neanderthals were probably there as well some of the same

time. So that's a whole area again, where we have a lot to learn about when populations are in those regions. Just so you can also describe to us now, Chris, as you're here, so the differences in bodily structure between a Neanderthal, a late Neanderthal and a Homo sapien going out of Africa, let's say 60,000 years ago, what were the key differences in their structure? Yeah, so looking at the whole body skeleton, the Neanderthals were by and large, were shorter and wider, very wide shoulders, very wide pelvis. They've got a big almost bell-shaped rib cage. So it's a rib cage that's differently shaped to our own.

There's a suggestion that all the organs of the trunk of the Neanderthals were bigger. So the lungs might have been 20% bigger than our lungs. And that might have also applied to the kidneys, the liver, and so on. So their trunks were very bulky, and their pelvis is wide, partly to accommodate that extra bulk in the trunk. They're powerfully built, so the bones are strong and thick. They have large muscle insertions. The articular connections are quite wide. So the skeleton is built to withstand a very demanding lifestyle. Whereas in sapiens, we've got by and large a more lightly built skeleton, relatively taller, slimmer frame, maybe a bit less muscularity. So this partly is a reflection of genetic inheritance, partly the cold adaptation. So in colder conditions, it's good to have a short and wide body to minimize your skin surface area to maintain heat.

So that might partly explain the Neanderthals' overall difference. But also it could be a difference of lifestyle that possibly sapiens were increasingly using technology to take the weight off their skeletons. So using tools to do some of the heavy lifting, some of the heavy work rather than having to use muscles. So with sledges or something like that maybe? Yes, it could be. And the use of strings and nets and ropes and maybe having a more efficient weapon system, throwing spears largely compared

with thrusting spears, which the Neanderthals might have much more been inclined to use. The body shape is certainly distinct between us and the Neanderthals. That's also true for the cranium, for the head. Our brain case shape is high and rounded, whereas Neanderthal skulls, in keeping with most of these earlier humans, the skulls were high and rounded. Whereas Neanderthal skulls, in keeping with most of these earlier humans, the skulls were longer and lower and the brain within is longer and lower in shape compared with the Sapiens one. At the front, of course, there's a strong brow ridge for the Neanderthals, which again is a common feature of all these earlier humans to have a strong brow ridge over the eyes. The face in Neanderthals is very characteristic. Perhaps one of their most distinctive features is that the nose is very large and projecting,

but it's part of a complex in the face where the whole middle of the face is pulled forwards and the cheekbones sweep back. So that's very distinctive. That's found in Neanderthals for hundreds of thousands of years. And when we look at their teeth, they've got relatively large front teeth and they seem to have used their front teeth as a third hand to grip things in their mouths when they were manipulating food or other objects to maybe to work tools. They held them in their front teeth. So the front teeth are quite large and they've not got much of a chin on the lower jaw and the ear bones are even distinctive. So these tiny little structures, which we can't even see buried deep in our temporal bone, from CT scanning, we can look at the shape of those bones

that partly to transmit sound and also concern with balancing the head, they are different in shape from Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. And the differences between us and Neanderthals in those ear bone shapes is as great or even greater than we find between, let's say, gorillas and chimpanzees. So that's really quite a distinctive feature which is laid down before birth. So it's got to be pretty fundamental genetically. So the toolkit for the homo sapiens, as you've highlighted there, Chris, different lifestyle, different use of technology, presumably with homo sapiens. So when they are moving into Neanderthal territory,

would they also be bringing in their small groups their own technologies, their own toolkit with them? Yes, that's right. So we assume that homo sapiens was bringing its own technology and using perhaps a wider range of resources. Neanderthals did make use of quite difficult to work material like bone and antler and ivory. The Neontors did use those materials but to a lesser extent than Homo sapiens did. So we get a wider range of technology. Of course, again, all the wood technology that they would have had has disappeared, so we can't tell how different they were there. But it also seems that in some cases, Homo sapiens are even associated with bows and arrows. And that, of course, is really complex technology, where you've got to have careful selection of the wood to make the bow.

You've got to be able to make the bow and the right sort of strength and size. You've also got to make your arrow shafts in maybe the same wood or a different wood. You've got to make your string for the bow out of animal or plant tissue, and that's a complex task. And you've got to mount, of course, quite a light projectile head on the end of the arrow to make it effective. So it looks like bows and arrows were being used at least by some early homo sapiens groups. And that enables you,

of course, to do killing at a distance, which is a lot less dangerous than having to get close to your prey. It's thought that in many cases Neanderthals were what's called confrontational hunters. They were having to get close into their prey, requiring a lot of strength, of course a lot of courage as well, and then having to stab the prey with a thrusting spear. That's very effective of course, but it's also more dangerous and it requires a lot more physical strength. If you're like me and you love history, but in particular you love the smutty, salacious, gossipy history, then do I have the perfect podcast for you. If you fancy finding out about the slippery origins of lube, or how Vikings linked sex and magic together, then listen no further. Join me, Kate Lister, on Betwixt the Sheets, where I delve into the most outrageous, the

most taboo, and the downright sexiest parts of our history. It's the kind of history that you probably wouldn't bring up at a family lunch, but you might bring it up down the pub. From the history of swear words to answering important questions like just how incestuous were Neanderthals? And so much more. Listen every Tuesday and Friday wherever it is that you get your podcasts. A podcast by History Hit. Are there any key archaeological sites that highlight these Homo sapiens with the big successful

dispersal out of Africa some 60,000 years ago? Are there any key sites that show them finally reaching Neanderthal territories in Europe? Well, yes. There are an increasing number of sites showing this early penetration. So one of the most famous ones recently published is Grotte Monde Raine in Southern France in the Rhone Valley. And there you've got what's now a rock shelter, it's partly collapsed. But this has a long history of occupation by Neanderthals going back to at least 70,000 years. And the Neanderthals were there most of the time from 70,000 years down to probably 40 or 42,000 years ago when we get the appearance of Homo sapiens. But at about 54,000 years ago, there's one brief occupation by a completely

distinctive group based on their technology. So they're not making the typical Neanderthal stone tools, which are these quite larger flake tools. They're making, in this industry, you've got thousands of tiny little points which are interpreted by some people as being arrowheads. And this industry is completely distinct from anything known in Western Europe at the time. It's there briefly, maybe an occupation of less than 100 years, and there's just one fossil tooth from that level. There are teeth from other levels that show they were Neanderthals, but that one level with this industry called the Neuronian after a nearby site, this industry is associated with Homo sapiens. There's one tooth which is a deciduous tooth, a milk tooth, but it's a Homo sapiens child. So it looks

like Homo sapiens managed to come up the Rhone Valley, probably we assume travelled from further east along the Mediterranean coast up the Rhone Valley into this area where there are several sites showing this Neronian industry but only there for less than 100 years and then disappearing again. And Neanderthals come back. And that was all ascertained from one milk tooth that survived. Yes, that's right. There's just one tooth. There are several teeth in the other levels and one milk tooth, which you can show structurally. Unfortunately, I haven't got the DNA from it, but structurally, it's a Homo sapiens child. But interestingly, when we come into the later

Neanderthal levels, we've also got this wonderful skeleton of Thorin, nicknamed Thorin from Lord of the Rings. And this is a male Neanderthal skeleton. It's still being excavated. And this is in the levels after 54,000 years ago. And Thorin has even got DNA. And that DNA is distinct, not only from sapiens, but also from many of the other Neanderthals. So I talked about the low diversity of Neanderthals overall, but Thorin actually has a distinct lineage from most of the other late Neanderthals. So I talked about the low diversity of Neanderthals overall, but Thorin actually has a distinct lineage from most of the other late Neanderthals. And that suggests that

there were pockets of diversity surviving in Europe until less than 50,000 years ago. And Thorin represents one of those pockets. And interestingly, his closest relatives in Gibraltar, there's a Neanderthal from Forbes Quarry. It was found in 1848. It's one of the very first Neanderthal finds, even before the one from the Neanderthal valley in Germany. And that Forbes Quarry Neanderthal, we've got DNA from that, and the DNA is similar to Thorin's. So there is a similarity between Gibraltar and the Rhône valley in this late time, suggesting that there were surviving pockets of Neanderthal diversity, but Thorin's lineage too disappeared. So by 42,000 years ago, we've got Homo sapiens occupying Rotmanderans. So the Neanderthals have disappeared from there. But that's interesting also to highlight it is not just Homo sapiens arrive, Neanderthals disappear straight away. It's several thousand years that all of this is

happening in Western Europe as a good example. It must also be fascinating for you and others and just me thinking about it to consider those first meeting points some 60 or 50,000 years ago between groups of Homo sapiens and groups of Neanderthals already living in their isolated areas across Eurasia. And I'm guessing the variety of responses there must have been. It's not all the same everywhere that these first meeting points happen. Maybe there's cooperation or there's conflict straight away.

The language barrier, this is fascinating to think when these two types of humans meet. Yes, I mean, it must've been an incredible time and it's a shame we have a time machine to go back and see exactly what happened. But yes, you're right. I'm sure there were many different encounters, different kinds of encounters between these populations. So when they first met, and of course, we've mentioned that they could have met even more than 200,000 years ago, they also met, and we haven't talked about it. They also must have encountered each other in Western Asia

100,000 years ago, because we've got early homo sapiens at sites like Shkul and Kafze in Israel about 100,000 years ago, and we know Neanderthals were at least in the vicinity at that time. And what's interesting is that the industries at Shkul and Kafze, for some people, they even look a bit Neanderthal-like. People have speculated there could have been contact between the populations which even influenced them culturally. And so when we look at the situation after 60,000, yes, we've mentioned Grop-Monderan where there's this brief occupation by Homo sapiens. And when we come to 45,000 years ago, we've got better evidence of sapiens establishing themselves in places like Romania and Chechia and Germany and even Britain.

It looks like Homo sapiens were reaching these areas in probably small numbers, pioneering groups but encountering the Neanderthals. So possibly to begin with, the groups avoided each other. These were strange people not known to each other and maybe the first reaction would have been to try and keep apart. But obviously, as climates changed and moved them around, as population numbers maybe grew, it was more likely they were going to be in contact with each other. And of course, these could have been hostile encounters with actual warfare between them, but equally, they could have been more peaceful with evidence,

of course, that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens did interbreed. So that suggests direct contact. But at the moment with our knowledge, it's actually very difficult to know how often they're in the same place at the same time. We just don't have the precision of dating. And when there are sites with occupation by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, and I mentioned Epidema Cave, I mentioned Grop Mandran, of course, the occupations suggest separate occupations at the moment. But at Grop-Mandran, it's possible that you've even got occupation within a year or two by one group or the other. So they are very close to each other in time and space.

And obviously from the interbreeding, we know at times they were there at the same time. So we can't actually map how often they competed with each other. But clearly, there would have been economic competition, because of course course they're going to be wanting to hunt the same animals, they're going to want to collect the same plant resources and they're going to want to live in the best environments, the best cave sites, the best valleys for hunting and so on. I was going to ask that. I mean, when they are ultimately sharing that same environment, even if they are peaceful, is that competition for economic resources, is

it ultimately inevitable and one group will ultimately suffer more than the other? Well, yes, I think even when we look, unfortunately, at our own species today, you know, we have this competition between different groups of our species today and it can be fierce and it can be deadly. And so that must have happened at times. And so in terms of looking at why the neantiles disappeared, I tend to think it's going to be a combination of features rather than one single thing. But yes, I'm sure that the neantiles, as I mentioned, they already were potentially vulnerable in terms of their low numbers and their low genetic diversity. And it might not have needed much to tip them over the edge to extinction. And perhaps the appearance of another species that was even at times just a few percent

better at exploiting the environment could have tipped them over the edge. But it clearly wasn't all a one-way traffic of Neanderthals disappearing because I've mentioned Epidema Cave and I've mentioned Glockmandarin, where the Neanderthals came back and that's what happened in Israel too. So we have evidence of Homo sapiens at places like Shkul and Kafze 100,000 years ago. But when we move on in time, the Neanderthals are back in occupation of the area and sapiens seem to have disappeared for a while. So it wasn't all a one-way traffic and that changing environment, that changing landscape would have complicated the picture because some of those changes

of environments might have benefited Homo sapiens and other changes might have benefited the Neanderthals. Chris, what I also found so interesting there is amongst all of those things that potentially they were competing for would be the best cave sites. And I'm guessing maybe not limited number, but the best sites would have already been identified by Neanderthals. So could you imagine cave sites being a key area, either where there was competition or there were meetings between these two? Yes, certainly. Yes, these would have been in the landscape caves were important. They were important shelters, gathering points, points of safety, of course. And often these caves are very visible on the landscape because they're higher up, people can see them. Obviously, if people are

building a fire in there, you'd have had a smoke signal showing that there's someone in the cave. So yes, these would have been focuses of attention for both of the groups. So let's talk about interbreeding because this is the other amazing facet of research regarding this cooperation between homo sapiens and the ant tools when they start meeting each other. So what is this amazing research that has emerged revealing this mixing between the two species? Yes, so it's data from the last 15 years mainly. So we had the first bits of Neanderthal DNA, mitochondrial DNA, recovered back in 1997 incredibly from the skeleton from the Neander Valley in

Germany, the one that gave its name to the group, which was amazing. But that was only mitochondrial DNA and that had showed no signs of any mixture because it was from the mitochondrial DNA. The Neanderthals were distinct from anyone alive today. There was no sign of that Neanderthal kind of mitochondrial DNA in people today. So that reinforced the idea of a clear genetic separation between them. But as the data built up in the early 2000s, people started to reconstruct more of the whole Neanderthal genome. And in some of those, there was evidence of a greater complexity because it was clear that there were some populations of homo sapiens today, in fact, the ones outside of Africa. They seemed closer to the Neanderthal

in genomic structure than Africans did. And that's very strange to explain. If there was no interbreeding, why would people outside of Africa seem closer to the Neanderthals than people who came from Africa? And of course, that led to the suspicion that those people outside of Africa had some Neanderthal DNA in their genomes leading to this greater similarity. And in 2010, that was convincingly demonstrated because the first high quality Neanderthal genome was reconstructed, mainly based on material from Croatia, from Vindhya. And that showed that when we look at the genomes of people around the world today, people in Europe and Asia, Australia, the Americas, they have around 2% of Neanderthal DNA in

their genomes. And that is thought to be there because of interbreeding that happened maybe 50,000 years ago. That's interesting. So us today, you, me, in this room, we have Neanderthal DNA in our blood, in our body. That's right, in our genomes, yes. So around 2% of our DNA comes from that interbreeding, maybe 50,000 years ago. And it means that people in Africa, in a sense, are less closely related to the Neanderthals than we are. So even though I would say we did not evolve from Neanderthals, incredibly, the Neanderthals are still partly our ancestors. So it seems contradictory,

but we didn't evolve from Neanderthals, but they still partly our ancestors. So it seems contradictory, but we didn't evolve from Neanderthals, but they are partly our ancestors. Because today, people have calculated that there could be as much as 40% of the Neanderthal genome around. If you take all the Neanderthal DNA today, surviving in the world in our genomes, if you put it all together, it might reconstruct as much as 40% of the whole Neanderthal genome. And so, interestingly, there's far more Neanderthal DNA around today, because there are billions of us, than there was at the time the Neanderthals were alive. But Chris, it's also so interesting, because if it is not just conflict and competition

for resources, but as the science proves, there's evidently mixing and cooperation between Neanderthal groups and Homo sapiens when they're arriving. Why ultimately then do Neanderthals lose out in this interbreeding, in this cooperation element with early Homo sapiens? Yes. So of course that brings us onto the question of how the interbreeding happened. And obviously, if we go down to the details, we obviously know how it happened on a one-to-one basis and the out-of-town meeting with the Homo sapiens. But when we move on to how that was happening, what was the process before that happened? We don't know, of course, how many of these conflicts were friendly and how many might have been more hostile. And we will learn more about this, but it's quite possible, of course, that there were at times if the groups had been

on the landscape for long enough and adapted to the presence of the other groups, they might have exchanged partners in a peaceful way as modern hunter-gatherer groups do at times. They exchange partners peaceably and it's a kind of a negotiated thing to exchange partners. So that could be what happened in some places. But of course, the other possibility is what we see sometimes in hunter-gatherer groups and sometimes in, say, chimpanzees and so on, you will see a group of males who run out of female mates. They will raid another group and steal some females. And because that could have happened as well, maybe some of these pioneering groups, largely males, actually stole some Neanderthal females and brought them into their group, and then

they interbred with them, and thus Neanderthal DNA was introduced into Homo sapiens in that way. So not necessarily a nice start to the process, but certainly those babies were then successfully brought up in the Homo sapiens groups and ultimately integrated with the Homo sapiens groups. And through later generations, that Neanderthal DNA, a lot of it disappeared. So it seems that within a few thousand years, most of the Neanderthal DNA that had been acquired had been selected away, but bits of it were actually enhanced and became

more common. And that's a very interesting area, of course, but it suggests that some of these bits of Neanderthal DNA could have been advantageous for our Homo sapiens people 40 or 45,000 years ago. So it seems that the interbreeding is more successful within homo sapiens groups than within Neanderthal groups. And do we think that is just like, could there also be a physical bodily structure reason for that too? Yes. I mean, that's one of the interesting questions.

So obviously we know there was a two-way exchange of DNA maybe 300,000 years ago between us and Neanderthals. But at that time, the lineages, of course, were more closely related. They were closer to the common ancestor. But by the time we get to 60,000 or 50,000 years ago, the groups had diverged even further genetically and physically. And so it's possible, and this is one of the strange things, when we look at all the early homo sapiens fossils that we've got, all of them have signs of Neanderthal interbreeding in that period between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago, whether we're looking at China or whether we're looking at Europe. But when we look at the Neanderthals from the same time period, oddly, none of them show any signs of recent

homo sapiens interbreeding. Now, that might mean that it only went one way, that the groups for some reason didn't tolerate interbreeding with each other in one direction or the other. So whereas the sapiens were tolerant of Neanderthal interbreeding, maybe the Neanderthals were not tolerant of sapiens coming into their group and interbreeding with them. That's possible, but it's also possible there were incompatibilities, and these could have been genetic incompatibilities. There's some recent

work that suggests that Neanderthals had some distinct blood groups from Homo sapiens, including in the rhesus system. So possibly there were some genetic incompatibilities when a Neanderthal mother in her own group was trying to give birth to a hybrid baby, maybe those births were less successful. But there also could be physical reasons. The pelvic shape is different between Neanderthal females and Homo sapiens females, and the Neanderthal head shape of a baby is slightly different to a sapien's baby's head shape. So possibly the birth process is more complicated for a Neanderthal mother to give birth to a hybrid baby than from a Homo sapiens mother to give birth to a hybrid baby. So that also could have been part of the process. But ultimately, largely, it's movement of DNA in

one direction into homo sapiens. And that's also bad news for the Neanderthals because I've mentioned that they're low in numbers and they're also losing their prime age individuals, and we don't know if it's male or female or both, into the sapiens groups. So they're losing primate breeding individuals into the homo sapiens groups and that depletes their own gene pool. They can't be replaced. Yeah, that's right. They're losing people and they can't replace them.

So do you think that the arrival of homo sapiens on the scene is either the catalyst or the cause for the extinction of Neanderthals? Yeah, I think it's impossible to say how much of it was purely down to us, but I think it's a combination of things. There also was climate change going on and there were some severe cold shocks in this period between 40 and 50,000, which actually impacted both groups. But interestingly, there is some evidence of exchange of information between the groups as well, because some of those early Sapiens groups at 45,000 years ago seemed to be adapting quite well to cold conditions. There were already some of them

in really quite cold conditions, and it's possible that that is a sign that they picked up some Neanderthal adaptations. So the Neanderthals were, of course, well adapted to cold conditions culturally, the kind of stone tools you need, the best animals to get for skins to wear, how you process the skins, all of those things, perhaps, could have been useful. So by taking in Neanderthal members into their groups, they could have picked up some of that Neanderthal knowledge of how to live in the cold, and that would have been very useful for homo sapiens. And genetically, the genetic inheritance was also useful because it seems that a lot of our immune systems outside

of Africa have elements of Neanderthal DNA in them. That makes sense because, of course, we had evolved in Africa with African diseases and pathogens and so on. Coming out of Africa into Western Asia and then into Europe, we were going to be encountering new diseases, new pathogens and so on. The Neanderthals had evolved in those areas for hundreds of thousands of years. They would have had genetic defences to those diseases. We didn't have them. By interbreeding with Neanderthals, we got a quick fix to our immune system. So that was also an advantage for us. But on the flip side, maybe certain groups, homo sapiens, could they have been bringing diseases with them from Africa that Neanderthal groups who they encountered and maybe were cooperating with, but as a side effect, they were more vulnerable to those diseases. Yes.

I mean, it could have been a two-way process. Once they're mixing, of course, diseases will go either way. And in both cases, there could be immune problems that you won't have the immunity. So it could have affected Neanderthal numbers if they were also small in number and neonatal numbers were shrinking and homo sapiens numbers were increasing. Again, that would have had a bad impact on the neonatals. But as a parallel, some people have thought, yes, you think of the way smallpox decimated populations in the Americas and in Australia when it was brought there by people traveling from Europe. We tend to think of that, but of course, these were diseases that spread in large numbers of people in urban centers. So in those cases, the populations are closely packed together and it's much easier to transmit

the diseases. When we go back to 50,000 years ago, populations are more scattered and living in smaller numbers. So I think that purely disease is not going to be enough of an explanation in the situation we're in because these populations are smaller in number and they're spread out more. So let's go to the end. You mentioned Gibraltar earlier and I'd like to revisit Gibraltar now. Roughly 40,000 years ago, the Neanderthals have either gone or on their very, very last legs. But geographically, topographically, Gibraltar, this great rock, this fortress at the southern toe of the Iberian Peninsula overlooking the entrance into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean. As a story, people love this idea of Gibraltar as this stronghold, maybe like that last enclave for Neanderthals before they go

extinct. How credible is this and what information is there for Neanderthals in Gibraltar at this late stage? Niantal certainly thrived in Gibraltar for tens of thousands of years and we've got a number of sites where they were living and I've worked at Vanguard Cave and Gorham's Cave there and of course we've got DNA from the Forbes Quarry Neanderthal and the Devil's Tower. So, these are all sites in Gibraltar. So, Neanderthals certainly were thriving at times in Gibraltar. It's, of course, a relatively benign environment. While further north there would have been much worse conditions, much colder conditions, Gibraltar and the whole of the south of Iberia would have been at times a refugium in which Neanderthals could survive. And I mentioned the similarity between the DNA of the Forbes Quarry Neanderthal from

Gibraltar and Thorin's DNA. So there's that connection which we can pick up in Thorin maybe 50,000 years ago between Gibraltar and the Rome Valley. But although it's been claimed that Neanderthals survived even down to 30,000 years ago in Gibraltar, and my name's on a paper that suggested that 20 years ago, I think the data now show that there's no evidence Neanderthals survived any longer in Gibraltar than they survived anywhere else. And I think they were gone from there by 40,000 years ago. And I know it's claimed that this benign

environment in Gibraltar allowed them to survive longer. But of course, that benign environment would have been attractive to Homo sapiens as well. And we know there were Homo sapiens in southern Iberia 42,000 years ago. So I don't know what would have kept them from going to Gibraltar if it was such a nice environment. So I personally don't think Gibraltar has any evidence to be the last stronghold of Neanderthals. It could have been one of their last strongholds, but equally I've mentioned that we really don't have data from many areas further east for when the Neanderthals disappeared. So they could have survived longer there, but maybe they survived in pockets further east that we haven't yet discovered. I will ask about Britain last of all. I mean, do we have much

evidence for the last Neanderthals in Britain from the archaeological record? There's not as much evidence from Britain as we would like to have for the last Neanderthals. So we have evidence of their stone tools at sites that go back to probably, certainly, 45 or 50,000 years ago. In Jersey, there's intriguing evidence on the island of Jersey of a population that might even have mixed Neanderthal homo sapiens features. So there are some teeth which were thought to be Neanderthal teeth discovered more than a century ago in Lakota's Umbrella. But we studied them recently and intriguingly, there are two different individuals.

And both these individuals in their teeth show features that we think are typical both of Neanderthals and of Homo sapiens. And they're roughly 45,000 years old. So that's exactly the time when there might have been a mixed population. So not much evidence as we would like, but it's possible there was even a kind of mixed heritage population on Jersey about 45,000 years ago. And when we come back to mainland Britain, we've got evidence now from Wogan Cavern. So Wogan Cavern is a fantastic site situated under Pembroke Castle. It's quite a site. It is quite a site. And I think you've been there, haven't you? So you know what it's

like. But that site has evidence of early Homo sapiens occupation. So there's even an LRJ point. Now this industry, the Incumium Ranevitium, this is an industry which we know typifies a Homo sapiens expansion in Europe about 45,000 years ago, which is present in places like Chechia, is present in Germany, is present in Belgium, and it's present at Wogon cabin. So this was a spread of sapiens, previously undetected, probably about 45,000 years ago, reaching right over into Western Britain. And were the Neanderthals still there at that time? Well, we can't be sure, but I think Wogan Cavern will be one of the places that will show the evidence of that or not. Chris, this has been absolutely fantastic. Is there

anything else you'd like to mention before we wrap up about the last Neanderthals and this facet of Neanderthal history? I don't think there's anything particular, but obviously watch this space because in the next year we're going to see yet more fantastic publications about this period of time between 40 and 50,000 years ago. Brilliant. Chris, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, there was Professor Chris Stringer, Oracle of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens studies, explaining

all about the last Neanderthals. I hope you enjoyed the episode, thank you for listening. The fourth and final episode of our Ice Age series will be out next Sunday, Saturday for those of you who are subscribers, where we will explore the end of the Ice Age, the Big Melt, but also this unusual period where the climate started getting colder again, known as the Younger Dryas. That episode will be coming next weekend. In the meantime, please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. Don't forget you can also listen to us and all'll be doing us a big favour. Don't forget you

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