Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
Credit: PLOS One
Neanderthals may have started dying out 110,000 years ago, much earlier than scientists previously believed.
Researchers found a "population bottleneck", where Neanderthal genetic diversity suddenly collapsed, weakening their survival chances.
Instead of DNA, scientists studied inner ear bones, revealing a steep drop in variation at the start of the Late Pleistocene.
The semicircular canals, tiny fluid-filled tubes that control balance, showed reduced diversity, signaling a shrinking Neanderthal population.
Bottlenecks can be caused by climate change, disease, or competition, and may have pushed Neanderthals toward extinction earlier than expected.
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Neanderthals likely faced harsh environmental shifts, forcing them into smaller, isolated groups that struggled to recover.
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The lack of genetic diversity may have weakened Neanderthals, making them more vulnerable to extinction long before modern humans arrived.
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This breakthrough study, published in Nature Communications (Feb. 20, 2025), offers a fresh timeline for Neanderthal decline.
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Neanderthals' downfall may have begun thousands of years earlier than we thought, reshaping our understanding of human evolution.