New Dates For Neanderthals Shakes Up Long-Held Theory

Dating of Neanderthals gone awry? Remains of our hominin cousins previously found in Croatia's Vindija Cave return to the spotlight with new research that claims earlier studies got their age very wrong. (Credit Ivor Karavani) With every new find, our understanding of the twilight of the Neanderthals, our nearest hominin kin, advances. Or not. New research on some of the most famous Neanderthal fossils, from Croatia's Vindija Cave, suggest earlier analysis about their age and significance may be all wrong. Oops. More than 40 years ago, researchers in Vindija Cave unearthed hominin bones and a curious assemblage of stone and bone tools that seemed to be a mixed bag of technology styles: Some were of the type traditionally assigned to Neanderthals, while others seemed to have been made by anatomically modern humans (AMHs) who, according to the conventional human evolution and migration timeline, first arrived in Central Europe from our ...