Neanderthals survived on a knife’s edge Between 400,000 and 45,000 years ago

Amazing stuff! 350,000 years on knife's edge? Really!

"Between 400,000 and 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals had most of Eurasia to themselves, hunting large game, harvesting plants, expertly knapping stone tools, and fashioning clothing from animal skins. But their existence was precarious. Two new studies show many Neanderthals lived in small, far-flung groups; likely experienced significant inbreeding; and survived a close brush with extinction about 75,000 years ago. ...

The team found that Neanderthal sites and skeletal remains were widely distributed across the continent, and their genomes relatively diverse, until about 75,000 years ago, Then, as an ice age gripped the continent between 75,000 and 65,000 years ago, “we see the number of sites decline,” ... Archaeological data show some Neanderthals found refuge in southwestern Europe, taking shelter inside caves in the valleys of southern France, while abandoning or dying out in the rest of the continent. ..."

Neanderthals survived on a knife’s edge for 350,000 years | Science | AAAS

A high-coverage Neandertal genome from the Altai Mountains reveals population structure among Neandertals (open access)

Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals (open access)

Fig. 1 Neandertal D17 and its relationship with other Neandertals. (A) Locations of high-coverage Neandertal genomes used in the study.