An archaeological find in the south of France suggests that modern humans and Neanderthals coexisted for a period of almost 10,000 years.
“This literally rewrites all our history books,” said Ludovic Slimak, one of the authors of the study, which was published in the journal Science Advances.
In the article, specialists report the discovery of fossilized remains of homo sapiens, including a child’s tooth, and various pointed tools that could have been used to cut, scrape or as spear points.
The remains were discovered in the Mandrin Grotto, a cave located in southern France, about 87 miles (about 140 kilometers) from the city of Marseille.
The most accepted theories about the colonization of homo sapiens indicate that this species arrived in Europe from Africa about 40,000 years ago.
However, given that the fossils and tools found date back to 54,000 years ago, experts believe that homo sapiens would have arrived in Europe about 12,000 years earlier than we thought.
This evidence, experts say, suggests that homo sapiens and Neanderthals may have coexisted for more than 10,000 years, which in turn casts doubt on the theory that Neanderthals were rapidly outcompeted by homo sapiens.
“They were not replaced overnight by modern humans,” said to the BBC Chris Stringer, researcher at the Natural History Museum in London.
Experts even support the theory that the Mandrin Grotto could have been inhabited by both species alternately.
“Sometimes Neanderthals took advantage, another time modern humans. It was a more finely balanced lake”, said the specialist.
They also said the finding of the points suggests that early humans may have used advanced weaponry, such as spears and even bows and arrows.
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