Storm Gifford of the New York Daily News –
A new study is shedding light on how and why Neanderthals died out.
The predecessor to humans today, Homo sapiens, vanished about 42,000 years ago. Prevailing theories posited that Neanderthals gradually vanished after breeding out or were outsmarted by Homo sapiens for resources. Some scientists believe that they just died out organically, while others think the population shrunk too much to hunt and mate.
But one research team believes that the flipping of Earth’s magnetic poles around 40,000 B.C. is a likely reason the Neanderthals disappeared.
