Last Neanderthals Held Out in Southernmost Europe, Artifacts Suggest
The Neanderthals lived in Europe for 200,000 years before modern humans displaced them, but until now it's been unclear precisely where and when they made their "last stand." Now new evidence suggests that a group of Neanderthals survived
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/science/14neanderthal.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
on the Mediterranean coast until 28,000 years ago, about 2,000 years more recently than previously thought.
In a paper that appeared on the Web site of the journal Nature , an international team of archaeologists and paleontologists cited findings in Gorham's Cave on the Rock of Gibraltar. Their systematic study of 60 square feet of cave floor, penetrating through several layers of evidence, showed that so-called Mousterian toolmakers had lived there long after their kind has disappeared everywhere else.
Paleontologist Eric Delson of the City University of New York, who wrote an accompanying commentary, told the New York Times that the newly discovered artifacts "appeared to be solid" and that southern Iberia "was indeed a region where Neanderthals survived long after modern humans were dominant elsewhere in Europe." He noted that only tools, and no bones, have so far been discovered, though.
(((Not only were those Neanderthals grimly holding onto Gibraltar, they were British Neanderthals.)))
