Rabbit-Hunting Helped Modern Humans Gain Upper Hand

DNA analysis that the Neanderthals started declining in numbers very soon after the first modern humans set foot in Europe. Part of the reason may have been the new diseases that modern humans brought to the Neanderthals, and the fact that the latter had no immunity against them, unlike the modern humans. Climate change also had a big part to play in the decline of the Neanderthals, with some authors suggesting the cause of the change was a series of volcano eruptions, which could explain why they declined so fast. It seems one could say with a reasonable degree of certainty that there was no one single reason why the Neanderthals died out and modern humans thrived, but each of the reasons so far identified allows us a deeper understanding of this stage in human evolution and greater insight into how our own species came to be where it is today. For more information: Rabbits and hominin survival in Iberia Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: Bernard Dupont]]>