Guilty! We killed the Neanderthals ... not the Ice Age like we
previously thought (or hoped) Struggled: Neanderthal man, like
above, fared worse than we thought in the build-up to the Ice
Age, according to experts Our ancestors rather than climate
change drove Neanderthals to extinction in Europe, new research
has shown. Evidence suggests the distant cousins of early modern
humans had already started to decline long before a massive
volcanic eruption plunged Europe into deep freeze. The findings,
based on a study of volcanic ash layers, indicate that climate
was not the major factor in the Neanderthals' demise. Instead it
is more likely they were simply out-performed by early members
of our species, Homo sapiens, who had migrated from Africa. Most
experts agree that Neanderthals could not compete for natural
resources with early modern humans, who had better tools,
weapons, and But some believe climate played a major role in
their extinction. A catastrophic event around 40,000 years ago,
Europe's biggest ever