Neanderthals went extinct due to ‘inbreeding and small populations, not because of us’

INBREEDING and small populations could have led to the extinction of Neanderthals, a new study suggests.

Neanderthal extinction could have occurred without environmental pressure or competition with modern humans.

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They disappeared 40,000 years ago, around the same time anatomically modern humans started migrating to the Near East and Europe.

But researchers in the Netherlands suggest they did not disappear due to modern humans.

The authors said: "Did Neanderthals disappear because of us?

"No, this study suggests. The species' demise might have been due merely to a stroke of bad, demographic luck."

Using data from extant hunter-gatherer populations as parameters, scientists developed population models for simulated Neanderthal populations of various initial sizes.

They then simulated for their model populations the effects of inbreeding, Allee effects - where reduced population size negatively impacts individuals' fitness, and annual random demographic fluctuations in births, deaths, and the sex ratio.

They did this to see if these factors could bring about an extinction event over a 10,000-year period.

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According to the findings, inbreeding alone was unlikely to have led to extinction.

However, reproduction-related Allee effects where 25 per cent or fewer Neanderthal females gave birth within a given year, could have caused extinction in populations of up to 1,000 individuals.

Researchers suggest that together with demographic changes, Allee effects plus inbreeding could have caused extinction within the 10,000 years allotted in the population models.

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