Neanderthal family life revealed by ancient DNA from Siberian cave

[wnylib]

7. Maybe direct confrontation did cause

Neanderthals to go extinct, but not violent confrontation. A better word might be direct contact instead of confrontation. Intermating could have cause the Neanderthal traits to become so diluted that they disappeared as a separate species and simply merged with Homo sapiens. That would be likely if Neanderthals were greatly outnumbered by Homo sapiens.

On one hand, after being around for a few hundred thousand years, it seems like the Neanderthal population would have been larger than Homo sapiens who were newcomers. But, on the other hand, Neanderthal populations might have remained small in Europe and Asia due to the cold climate providing fewer resources to support a larger population. Then, the arrival of Homo sapiens might have made resources scarcer with more people using them. Scarcer resources and genetic merging might have caused Neaderthals to disappear.

.