Intelligence Not Responsible for Neanderthal Demise

LEIDEN, NETHERLANDS—Will Roebroeks of Leiden University and Paola Villa of Boulder’s University of Colorado Museum surveyed the archaeological record for evidence to support the idea that the Neanderthals died out because modern humans were better hunters with better weapons and a broader diet. “The explanations make good stories, but the only problem is that there is no archaeology to back them up,” Roebroeks told The Guardian. Villa adds that it is important to compare Neanderthals to their modern human contemporaries, not their successors. “The evidence for cognitive inferiority is simply not there. What we are saying is that the conventional view of Neanderthals is not true,” she said.