Demise of the Neanderthals

Climate Link To Neanderthal Demise Abates
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 13, 2007; A10

The case isn't closed yet, but modern humans are looking awfully
guilty in one of the biggest whodunits in prehistory: the case of the
demise of the Neanderthals.

So say scientists who have measured with unprecedented precision what
the climate was like when humankind's closest relatives went extinct
about 30,000 years ago.

Contrary to a popular hypothesis that Neanderthals succumbed to a
suddenly colder climate, the new research indicates that southwestern
Europe, where our beetle-browed cousins made their last stand, enjoyed
relatively mild weather when their last campfires went cold.

"We found there was a lot of rain but no major change in climate,"
said Chronis Tzedakis of the University of Leeds, a leader of the
study published in today's issue of the journal Nature. "It is hardly
something we can invoke to explain their demise."

That pretty much leaves one suspect: the butler -- or more precisely
the predecessors to all butlers and to modern humans, generally, who
were making their initial sweep across Europe at the time.

More at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091202323.html?hpid=moreheadlines

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