A recent study led by Prof. Dr. Cosimo Posth of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen shows that the last Neanderthals in Europe experienced a drastic population decline before their extinction around 40,000 years ago. New DNA analyses and archaeological data confirm that their gene pool ultimately exhibited only limited diversity. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

There had already been evidence that the once widespread Neanderthal populations in Europe had declined sharply. The current study now suggests that during a cold period about 80,000 years ago, only a small, locally confined group survived in a climatic refuge in what is now southwestern France. About 65,000 years ago, this population spread across Europe once again. Genetically, nearly all late Neanderthals are descended from this single lineage.

For the study, the research team analyzed mitochondrial DNA from teeth and bone specimens. This form of DNA is more robust than nuclear DNA and can therefore be extracted even from very old samples. Ten newly sequenced individuals from Belgium, France, Germany, and Serbia were compared with 49 previously published datasets. In addition, the researchers used archaeological data from the ROAD database of the ROCEEH project at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities to integrate genetic and archaeological findings both spatially and temporally.

The results show that the climatic conditions of the Ice Age severely decimated the Neanderthal population. At the same time, the number of archaeological sites declined and became concentrated in southwestern Europe. It was from this region that the population later emerged which spread across the continent once again. The genetic homogeneity of late Neanderthals—from the Iberian Peninsula to the Caucasus—confirms this massive population shift.

In addition, the research team reconstructed demographic trends using statistical models. According to these models, there was a rapid and drastic decline in population between 45,000 and 42,000 years ago. Shortly thereafter, Neanderthals disappeared entirely from the fossil record.

“Genetically speaking, late Neanderthals were a very homogeneous group,” explains Posth. The low genetic diversity and the isolation of small remnant populations may therefore have contributed to their extinction. Modern humans, Homo sapiens, were spreading across Europe at that time and displacing the Neanderthals.

The study provides new insights into the complex population history of Neanderthals and demonstrates how closely climate change, demographic processes, and genetic diversity are interlinked.

Artistic rendering of the glacial landscape as Neanderthals would have encountered it during the Ice Age.
© Pas-de-Calais Department of Archaeology / Benoît Clarys

Publication:

Charoula M. Fotiadou, Jesper Borre Pedersen, Hélène Rougier, Mirjana Roksandic, Maria A. Spyrou, Kathrin Nägele, Ella Reiter, Hervé Bocherens, Andrew W. Kandel, Miriam N. Haidle, Timo P. Streicher, Nicholas J. Conard, Flora Schilt, Ricardo Miguel Godinho, Thorsten Uthmeier, Luc Doyon, Patrick Semal, Johannes Krause, Alvise Barbieri, Dušan Mihailović, Isabelle Crevecoeur, Cosimo Posth: Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals. PNAS,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2520565123

Academic contact: 

Prof. Dr. Cosimo Posth
University of Tübingen
Archaeo- and Palaeogenetics, Institute for Archaeological Sciences
Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment
Phone 07071 29-74089

cosimo.posth@uni-tuebingen.de 

PRESS RELEASE from the University of Tübingen

Further information:

• Prof. Dr. Cosimo Posth is a member of Academy of Sciences and Humanities Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 2024, he wasPrize thePrize by the Academy. 

• The study also involved researchers from the Academy’s “ROCEEH” project, as well as the Academy’s former WIN Fellow, Prof. Dr. Johannes Krause, who wasPrize the Gottfried WilhelmPrize this year.

• ROCEEH: The mission of the research center "The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans" (ROCEEH) at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities to develop a systemic understanding of "humanization" that integrates the three types of expansion, their interconnections, and the various dimensions of development. The project covers the period from three million years ago to 20,000 years ago and spans the region from Africa to Eurasia. The primary focus is on the development of human cultural abilities, as well as their background and characteristics.

  ROCEEH is a multidisciplinary research project at the intersection of the humanities and the natural sciences. The project consists of a team of researchers from the fields of cultural studies, archaeology, paleoanthropology, paleobiology, and geography, as well as a database specialist, based at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt and the University of Tübingen.

• ROAD Database: ROAD-WEB

• Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities

• Eberhardt Karls University of Tübingen

• Senckenberg Society for Nature Research