Tough cavemen? No, Neanderthals were wiped out because it was chilly

NEANDERTHAL man has long been stereotyped as a club-wielding brute.

But tough as they had to be, their species may have been wiped out by... some cold weather.

A study analysing the European climate 40,000 years ago found two periods of freezing weather which coincide with the disappearance of Neanderthal tools from caves.

This provides evidence that Neanderthal populations fell during cold weather, as the woodland they lived in was destroyed and the animals they hunted for meat died.

Humans could adapt, thanks to our more varied diets of fish and plants, but the Neanderthals struggled.

The findings back up the theory long held by some experts that it may have been the climate which finally killed off our closest cousins. Scientists led by the University of Cologne analysed stalagmites from East Central Europe and found annual temperatures plummeted to -2C (28F) during two freezing periods 40,000 to 44,000 years ago.

Stone tools believed to have belonged to the Neanderthals have been found before that time, and those made by modern humans afterwards, but the cold spells coincide with a sudden lack of tools suggesting the Neanderthals were disappearing.

Professor Michael Staubwasser, who led the study, said: ‘As Europe went through various cold phases, modern humans were simply better able to adapt to the change from woodland to grassland.

‘The Neanderthals did not have the skills they needed to survive.’

Stalagmites hold clues to ancient climates as they contain water which fell into caves from above. This water, frozen in stalagmite form for thousands of years, contains carbon produced when soil was made by microbes consuming dead plant material.

The less carbon, the greater the likelihood soil was not being made because the ground was frozen. These readings, combined with measures of the oxygen, were compared with other climate records to suggest Europe was freezing at -2C in one period 43,300 to 44,300 years ago and another 40,200 to 40,800 years ago, the journal PNAS reports.

The cold and drought would have wiped out woodland and replaced cows with reindeer in Europe, which would have made things tricky for Neanderthals.

The last interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals occurred four to six generations before they went extinct.