A Summary of: ”Neanderthals and Early Humans May Not Have Mingled Much” by Nicholas Wade

A Summary of: ”Neanderthals and Early Humans May Not Have Mingled Much”

By NICHOLAS WADE

New information in the dating of fossils suggest that the Neanderthals, a very muscled, large boned human species that had adapted to living in the ice age Europe, disappeared almost immediately on contact with the modern humans who migrated to Europe from the near east about 44,000 years ago. Neanderthal bones that have been found from several sites have been dated as young as 29,000 years ago, which suggest that there was an overlap between the two human species. This raised the question if there was interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals.

Reports show that using improved methods of radiocarbon dating, based on a way to remove contaminants, show most, and maybe all, Neanderthal bones in Europe are or will be found to be at least 39,000 year old. Thomas F. G. Higham , a radiocarbon dating specialist at oxford University, and Ron Pinhasi, an archaeologist at University College Cork in Ireland, have dated the bones of a Neanderthal child under the age of 2 whose remains were found in the Mezmaiskaya Cave in the northern Caucasus Mountains. A second Neanderthal baby, found in a lower layer in the cave, was previously dated 29,000 years. The first baby, since its bones were found in an upper layer, must be younger but was 39,000 years old when the improved radiocarbon dating technique was performed.

Radiocarbon dating relies on the measuring of radioactive isotope of carbon or carbon 14, which is consumed during a person’s lifetime and then slowly decays after death. There is very little carbon 14 left in the remains of specimens that are more than 30,000 years old, and even the smallest amounts of carbon 14 can make a specimen seem much younger.

Dr. Higham created a use of ultrasound that removes the contaminants and leaves the whole molecules of collagen that is recovered from fossil bone.

After reviewing other Neanderthal dates with the new ultra filtration...