Neanderthal Demographic Estimates
@article{BocquetAppel2013NeanderthalDE, title={Neanderthal Demographic Estimates}, author={Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel and Anna Degioanni}, journal={Current Anthropology}, year={2013}, volume={54}, pages={S202 - S213} }
This article offers a critical review of population estimates for the Neanderthal metapopulation based on (paleo-) biological, archaeological, climatic, and genetic data. What do these data tell us about putative Neanderthal demography? Biological data suggest a similar demographic frame (life-history traits, such as potential maximum longevity, age at menarche, and duration of gestation) between Neanderthals and modern humans. Archaeological data have revealed a contradiction between the…
63 Citations
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The extent of demographic changes needed over a period of 10,000 years to lead to Neanderthal extinction is examined, finding a slight but continuous decrease in the fertility rate of younger Neanderthal women could have had a significant impact on these dynamics, and could have precipitated their demise.
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A parsimonious neutral model suggests Neanderthal replacement was determined by migration and random species drift
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A neutral model of species drift is developed showing that rapid Neanderthal replacement can be explained parsimoniously by simple migration dynamics, and suggests that although selection and environmental factors may or may not have played a role in the inter-species dynamics of Neanderthals and modern humans, the eventual replacement was determined by the repeated migration of modern humans from Africa into Eurasia.
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introduction Neanderthals lived in Eurasia alongside anatomically modern humans (AMHs). The oldest evidence of a Neanderthal population was found at Zuttiyeh (Israel), with an age around 200,000…
Ecocultural range-expansion scenarios for the replacement or assimilation of Neanderthals by modern humans.
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Random drift with a determined outcome: a parsimonious null model of Neanderthal replacement by modern humans via neutral species drift
- Environmental SciencebioRxiv
- 2017
It is shown that, given that the two species occupied a similar ecological niche, modern humans were destined to replace the Neanderthals even under a neutral scenario in which neither species has a selective advantage.
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