Editing Neanderthal extinction (section)

===Climate change===
{{see also|Neanderthals of Gibraltar#Lifestyle of the Gibraltar Neanderthals}}
Their ultimate extinction coincides with [[Heinrich event]] 4, a period of intense seasonality; later Heinrich events are also associated with massive cultural turnovers when European human populations collapsed.<ref name=bradtmoller2012>{{cite journal |first1=M. |last1=Bradtmöller |first2=A. |last2=Pastoors |first3=B. |last3=Weninger |first4=G. |last4=Weninger |year=2012 |title=The repeated replacement model – Rapid climate change and population dynamics in Late Pleistocene Europe |journal=[[Quaternary International]] |volume=247 |pages=38–49 |doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2010.10.015 |bibcode=2012QuInt.247...38B}}</ref><ref name=wolf2018>{{cite journal |first1=D. |last1=Wolf |first2=T. |last2=Kolb |first3=M. |last3=Alcaraz-Castaño |first4=S. |last4=Heinrich |year=2018 |title=Climate deteriorations and Neanderthal demise in interior Iberia |journal=[[Scientific Reports]] |volume=8 |issue=1 |page=7048 |doi=10.1038/s41598-018-25343-6 |pmid=29728579 |pmc=5935692 |bibcode=2018NatSR...8.7048W}}</ref> This climate change may have depopulated several regions of Neanderthals, like previous cold spikes, but these areas were instead repopulated by immigrating humans, leading to Neanderthal extinction.<ref name="Staubwasser">{{cite journal |last1=Staubwasser |first1=M. |last2=Drăgușin |first2=V. |last3=Onac |first3=B. P. |year=2018 |title=Impact of climate change on the transition of Neanderthals to modern humans in Europe |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America]] |volume=115 |issue=37 |pages=9116–9121 |bibcode=2018PNAS..115.9116S |doi=10.1073/pnas.1808647115 |pmc=6140518 |pmid=30150388 |doi-access=free}}</ref> In southern Iberia, there is evidence that Neanderthal populations declined during H4 and the associated proliferation of ''[[Artemisia (plant)|Artemisia]]''-dominated desert-steppes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=d’Errico |first1=Francesco |last2=Sánchez Goñi |first2=Marı́a Fernanda |date=April 2003 |title=Neandertal extinction and the millennial scale climatic variability of OIS 3 |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S027737910300009X |journal=[[Quaternary Science Reviews]] |language=en |volume=22 |issue=8–9 |pages=769–788 |doi=10.1016/S0277-3791(03)00009-X |bibcode=2003QSRv...22..769D |access-date=March 14, 2024 |via=Elsevier Science Direct|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The data reveal that sudden climatic change, although crucial locally, had a limited effect on the worldwide Neanderthal population. Interbreeding and assimilation, which were hypothesized as causes in the death of European Neanderthal populations, are successful only for low levels of food competition. Future research will examine models of interbreeding, and hybridization may be evaluated using genomic records from the last ice age (Fu et al., 2016).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Timmermann |first=Axel |date=June 2020 |title=Quantifying the potential causes of Neanderthal extinction: Abrupt climate change versus competition and interbreeding |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |language=en |volume=238 |pages=106331 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106331|doi-access=free |bibcode=2020QSRv..23806331T }}</ref>