First modern humans in Europe had a larger ecological footprint than neanderthals

Science & Planet That modern man has a significant ecological footprint, is well known. But our first ancestors in Europe brought 40,000 years ago all ecosystems on a planetary and a lot more even than the neanderthals. This is evident from a new study in which scientists of the Royal Belgian Institute for natural Sciences, sta.

The results are published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports. “For the research were under more bones of neanderthals, modern humans, and animals that were found in the caves of Spy and Goyet in the province of Namur,” says paleontologist Mietje Germonpré, who, together with her colleague Patrick Semal involved in the investigation. “The remains were between 100 and 150 years ago excavated and are maintained in our collection.”

Read also the Neanderthals were just the same as we upright Gone

Scientists ask themselves for a very long time, wondering why the neanderthals 40,000 years ago have disappeared, and the homo sapiens is the sovereign lord. And whether that had anything to do with differences in diets and mobility. The new study throws out there a new light. the


it shows that the two mensensoorten the same ate – especially mammoth and reindeer, but also a woolly rhino, a holenbeer, a bison or a horse – but that they with a different intensity, chased and in an area that is not the same. So chased the modern man is much more and in a much larger area than the neanderthal. The result was that the mammoetpopulaties – which remained stable when the neanderthals still had in our area – dramatically began to calve when modern humans appeared on the scene.