Neanderthals and modern people splitting Of a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago, with Neanderthals leaving Africa for Europe and Asia long before Modern people joined them Hundreds of thousands of years later. There, Neanderthals split up to Spain and Siberia. Our prehistoric cousins probably reached Asia about 190,000 to 130,000 years, with another major migration to central and eastern Eurasia probably between 120,000 and 60,000 years. But how did they get there?
Because there are not enough archaeological evidence to rebuild their migration paths, a team of anthropologists have turned to computer models. Their simulations mapped potential routes that Neanderthals could be followed to reach Asia, and suggest that traveling during warmer periods and following river valleys, they could have crossed about 2,000 miles (3,250 kilometers) in less than 2,000 years.
“Our findings show that despite obstacles such as mountains and large rivers, Neanderthals could have crossed northern Eurasia surprisingly quickly,” Emily Coco, co -author of A Study Published yesterday in Plos One magazine, said at New York University Statement. “These findings give important insights into the paths of ancient migrations, which can not be studied by the archaeological registry currently and reveal how computer simulations can help discover new indications of ancient migrations that have formed human history.” Coco started the study as a doctoral student at New York University and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Algarve.
She and her colleague’s models were responsible for temperature, land, ancient rivers and glaciers. While scholars have previously used a similar approach to simulate human and animal movement, the anthropologists are the first to apply it to Neanderthals, according to the statement. In doing so, they found possible migration paths for two periods of time characterized by a warmer climate: about 125,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago. The different roads that used river valleys would have taken Neanderthals to the Siberian Altai mountains of Eurasia along the same northern route through the Ural Mountains and southern Siberia within 2,000 years. Significantly, the roads conform to well -known Neanderthal archaeological sites as well as areas occupied by Denisovans, with which scientists know that Neanderthals breeding.
“Neanderthals could be thousands of kilometers from the Caucasus mountains to Siberia in just 2,000 years following river corridors,” Radu Iovita, the other co -author of the study and associate professor at the center of NYU for the study of human origins, said in the statement. “Others guessed about the possibility of this fast, long -distance migration based on genetic data, but this was difficult to prove due to limited archaeological evidence in the region. Based on detailed computer simulations, it seems that this migration was an almost invisible result of landscape conditions during past hot climate periods.”
Coco and Iovita specify, however, that their model does not consider every possible element that could affect Neanderthal movement, such as resources, climate change, short -term weather patterns, vegetable preferences and previous occupations, among others. However, in the absence of archaeological records, computer simulations give a viable method of tracking the steps of prehistoric people – although it is not nearly as creative as Looking for pits in Viking migration roads by navigating the Norwegian coast of Norwegian Norwegian coast.
