That’s what this study suggests. But I wonder, did those volcanoes erupt in sync with the Laschamps magnetic reversal? Because if they did, then the magnetic reversal was actually the real culprit.
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“Volcanoes Killed Off Neanderthals, Study Suggests”
Thus reads the title in the National Geographic News.
Catastrophic volcanic eruptions in Europe may have culled Neanderthals to the point where they couldn’t bounce back, according to this article.
However, modern humans apparently escaped extinction due to their far-flung fallback populations in Africa and Asia.
About 40,000 years ago in what we now call Italy and the Caucasus Mountains, which straddle Europe and Asia, several volcanoes erupted in quick succession, according to a study published in the October 2010 issue of the journal Current Anthropology.
It’s likely the eruptions reduced or wiped out local bands of Neanderthals and indirectly affected farther-flung populations, the team concluded after analyzing pollen and ash from the affected area. (See volcano pictures.)
See more of this article, which addresses the following questions
The more volcanic ash a layer had, the less plant pollen it contained
The most powerful eruption in Europe in the last 200,000 years
Did those volcanoes erupt in sync with the Laschamps magnetic reversal?
The post Did Volcanoes Kill Off the Neanderthals? appeared first on Ice Age Now.
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June 3, 2021 at 07:48PM
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