Throughout the shift from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic, Neanderthal populations throughout Europe, specifically on the Iberian Peninsula, experienced a constant decrease resulting in their termination.

At the very same time, anatomically modern-day people spread out throughout Europe.

This duration was likewise defined by strong weather variations, with rotating cold and warm stages: fast warming stages taking place over just a few centuries contrast with more progressive cooling durations (so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger occasions), which are disrupted by extreme cold stages brought on by huge iceberg discharges into the North Atlantic (Heinrich occasions).

The exact timing of the Neanderthals’ termination and the arrival of modern-day people stays uncertain, so a prospective encounter in between the 2 types can not be eliminated.

Hereditary analyses of bones from historical excavations in contrast with today’s population suggest a blending in Eastern Europe in the early migration stages of modern-day people

Later on blending of the 2 populations on the Iberian Peninsula is possible due to significant dating unpredictabilities, however has actually not yet been shown.

In the research study, University of Cologne’s Professor Yaping Shao and associates utilized a mathematical design to mimic exploratively the possibility of both groups conference on the Iberian Peninsula.

The design takes into consideration the dominating environment changes and imitates the populations of both groups in addition to their connection and interaction.

“Repeated runs of the design with various specifications permit an evaluation of the plausibility of various circumstances: an early termination of the Neanderthals, a little population size with a high threat of termination, or an extended survival that would permit blending,” Professor Shao included.

“In the majority of the runs, nevertheless, the 2 groups did not fulfill.”

In all 3 situations, the population is extremely conscious weather changes.

In those cases where the population might stay steady enough time, blending of the 2 types was possible.

With a low possibility (1%), at the end of the simulations there are little percentages of 2 to 6% of the overall population that have genes from both groups.

This blending would have been more than likely in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula, a location where contemporary human beings might have gotten here early enough before the Neanderthal population collapsed entirely.

“By connecting environment, demography, and culture, our vibrant design uses a wider explanatory structure that improves the interpretive power of historical and genomic records,” stated University of Cologne’s Professor Gerd-Christian Weniger.

A paper on the findings appears online in the journal PLoS ONE

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Y. Shao et al2025. Paths at the Iberian crossroads: Dynamic modeling of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic shift. PLoS One 20 (12 ): e0339184; doi: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0339184