Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Mar 23;118(12):e2022466118.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2022466118. Epub 2021 Mar 8.

Reevaluating the timing of Neanderthal disappearance in Northwest Europe

Thibaut Devièse  1 , Grégory Abrams  2   3 , Mateja Hajdinjak  4 , Stéphane Pirson  5 , Isabelle De Groote  6   7 , Kévin Di Modica  8 , Michel Toussaint  9 , Valentin Fischer  10 , Dan Comeskey  11 , Luke Spindler  11 , Matthias Meyer  4 , Patrick Semal  12 , Tom Higham  11
Affiliations

Reevaluating the timing of Neanderthal disappearance in Northwest Europe

Thibaut Devièse et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Elucidating when Neanderthal populations disappeared from Eurasia is a key question in paleoanthropology, and Belgium is one of the key regions for studying the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. Previous radiocarbon dating placed the Spy Neanderthals among the latest surviving Neanderthals in Northwest Europe with reported dates as young as 23,880 ± 240 B.P. (OxA-8912). Questions were raised, however, regarding the reliability of these dates. Soil contamination and carbon-based conservation products are known to cause problems during the radiocarbon dating of bulk collagen samples. Employing a compound-specific approach that is today the most efficient in removing contamination and ancient genomic analysis, we demonstrate here that previous dates produced on Neanderthal specimens from Spy were inaccurately young by up to 10,000 y due to the presence of unremoved contamination. Our compound-specific radiocarbon dates on the Neanderthals from Spy and those from Engis and Fonds-de-Forêt demonstrate that they disappeared from Northwest Europe at 44,200 to 40,600 cal B.P. (at 95.4% probability), much earlier than previously suggested. Our data contribute significantly to refining models for Neanderthal disappearance in Europe and, more broadly, show that chronometric models regarding the appearance or disappearance of animal or hominin groups should be based only on radiocarbon dates obtained using robust pretreatment methods.

Keywords: Belgium; Neanderthal disappearance; ancient genomic analysis; compound-specific radiocarbon dating.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Calibrated age ranges of the Neanderthal specimen from Spy Cave. Dates obtained on collagen in Groningen are reported in red. Dates obtained on collagen and hydroxyproline at the ORAU are reported in blue and green, respectively. The calibrated ages were obtained using OxCal 4.5 (87) and the IntCal20 calibration curve (88).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
The four Neanderthal specimens from Spy Cave radiocarbon dated in this study: (A) right scapula (Spy 572a, https://www.morphosource.org/concern/biological_specimens/000S32268); (B, a) maxillary fragment and upper third molar (Spy 94a) associated with a maxillary fragment (B, b) (Spy 11a) and a mandibular fragment (B, c) (Spy 12a); (C) a first upper right deciduous incisor (Spy 589a); and (D) the lumbar vertebra (Spy 737a). Image by G. Abrams after pictures from M. Toussaint (A, D) and E. De Wamme (B, C; Copyright RBINS).
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
The Neanderthal Child Engis 2. (A) Skullcap and (B) second lower right deciduous molar (LRdm2) radiocarbon dated in this study. Image by G. Abrams after pictures from G. Focant (A, Copyright SPW) and A. Le Cabec (B). (C) The Neanderthal left femur from Fonds-de-Forêt radiocarbon dated in this study. Image by G. Abrams modified after pictures from E. De Wamme (Copyright RBINS).
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Calibrated age ranges of the Neanderthal specimens from Engis and Fonds-de-Forêt caves. The calibrated ages were obtained using OxCal 4.5 (87) and the IntCal20 calibration curve (88). Dates obtained on collagen in Groningen are reported in red. Dates obtained on collagen and hydroxyproline at the ORAU are reported in blue and green, respectively.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.
Bayesian age model for Spy, Engis, and Fonds-de-Forêt caves using compound-specific determinations. The data are modeled in a single-phase model and compared tentatively against the North Greenland Ice Core Project dataset from Greenland (89). Numbers indicate interstadials in Greenland.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Hublin J.-J., The last Neanderthal. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 114, 10520–10522 (2017). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Higham T., et al., The timing and spatiotemporal patterning of Neanderthal disappearance. Nature 512, 306–309 (2014). - PubMed
    1. Di Modica K., Toussaint M., Abrams G., Pirson S., The Middle Palaeolithic from Belgium: Chronostratigraphy, territorial management and culture on a mosaic of contrasting environments. Quat. Int. 411, 77–106 (2016).
    1. Pirson S., et al., Chronostratigraphic context of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition: Recent data from Belgium. Quat. Int. 259, 78–94 (2012).
    1. Semal P., et al., “Radiocarbon dating of human remains and associated archaeological material” in Spy Cave. 125 Years of Multidisciplinary Research at the Betche aux Rotches (Jemeppe-sur-Sambre, Province of Namur, Belgium), Rougier H., Semal P., Eds. (Bull. Soc. Roy. Belge Anthrop. Préhist., 2013), vol. 123/2012, pp. 331–356.

Publication types