Neanderthal extinction

Neanderthal extinction was the disappearance of Neanderthals as a distinct human population roughly 40,000 years ago. Interbreeding left some Neanderthal ancestry in living humans, so disappearance did not mean complete genetic erasure.

Neanderthal demography: The population size, structure, and genetic variation of Neanderthals across time and regions. Small, fragmented groups were vulnerable to local losses and demographic collapse.
Neanderthal: An extinct human species or subspecies that lived across Europe and parts of western and central Asia. The extinction concerns the end of this population, not the disappearance of all its inherited DNA.
Svante Pääbo: A Swedish geneticist who helped establish paleogenetics and led the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome. His work revealed interbreeding, changing extinction from a story of total genetic replacement.
Assimilation model: An account of human population change in which expanding groups absorb some ancestry from populations they encounter. It explains Neanderthal disappearance partly as incorporation into Homo sapiens rather than simple replacement.
Neanderthal genome: The DNA sequence reconstructed from Neanderthal remains, enabling comparisons with living and ancient human populations. Genetic evidence estimates interbreeding and reveals how much ancestry survived the population's disappearance.
Interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans: The exchange of genes between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens through reproduction. Interbreeding incorporated some Neanderthal ancestry into expanding modern-human populations.
Upper Paleolithic: A later phase of the Paleolithic associated with expanding modern-human populations and diverse material cultures. Its spread overlaps the final Neanderthal populations in parts of Europe.
Chris Stringer: A British paleoanthropologist known for research on human evolution and the origins of modern humans. His work on modern-human expansion informs debates about when and where Neanderthals disappeared.
Replacement model: An account in which one population largely replaces another without substantial interbreeding. It contrasts with evidence that some Neanderthal ancestry persists in people today.
Neanderthal admixture in modern humans: Neanderthal-derived genetic ancestry present in many populations outside sub-Saharan Africa. Its distribution helps reconstruct encounters, while leaving open how much interbreeding aided Neanderthal persistence.

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