They had died a while before.) Unlike Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons are not a separate species from Homo sapiens. In fact, they’re the earliest known European example of our species—living between 35,000 and 10,000 years ago—and are actually modern in every anatomical respect.

Here of some of the well-tested methods of dating used in the study of early humans: Potassium-argon dating, Argon-argon dating, Carbon-14 (or Radiocarbon), and Uranium series.

To date the remains this go-round, researchers still used radiocarbon dating. But this time they dated the amino acid hydroxyproline extracted from collagen preserved in the bones and prepped it in a way that does a particularly fine job of removing contaminants.

Cro-Magnons, who lived approximately 25,000 years ago, introduced tools such as the bow and arrow, fishhooks, fish spears and harpoons that were constructed from bones and antlers of animals. Logs were hollowed out to create canoes. Crossing rivers and deep-water fishing became possible.

The new radiocarbon findings show little evidence that the two species peacefully coexisted within Europe. But geneticists who have decoded the Neanderthal genome reported last year that some 2.5 percent of the modern human genome is derived from Neanderthals.

Neanderthals inhabited Eurasia from the Atlantic regions of Europe eastward to Central Asia, from as far north as present-day Belgium and as far south as the Mediterranean and southwest Asia. Similar archaic human populations lived at the same time in eastern Asia and in Africa.

Measurement of our braincase and pelvic shape can reliably separate a modern human from a Neanderthal – their fossils exhibit a longer, lower skull and a wider pelvis. Even the three tiny bones of our middle ear, vital in hearing, can be readily distinguished from those of Neanderthals with careful measurement.

Humans and one supposes Neanderthals, learn very fast in the early stages as the brain grows to its final size. Presumably, the Neanderthal child had the capacity to learn more because he had longer to do so. As an adult, he would’ve then, possibly, been smarter than modern human adults.

East Asians

no? Well that’s because modern humans have survived by bringing other things that are more effective at killing than fists to fights. Like guns. So in a fist fight, a modern human would simply pull out a gun a shoot the neanderthal dead, effectively beating him.

roughly 1410 cm3

A Neanderthal man could bench press 500 pounds, and the women about 350. Both genders hunted.

Although we know that Neanderthals died out 40,000 years, until now no one really knew for sure why it happened. Some say they were killed by pathogens carried by their neighbouring Homo sapiens. Since 2014, scientists have been developing a strong case that Neanderthals tended to conceive with their close relatives.

Most likely no. Neanderthals are thought by most to be stronger than modern humans, on average, but not THAT much stronger. But an adult chimpanzee is at least twice as strong, on average, as the strongest modern humans, which makes them at least twice as strong, on average, as the average Neanderthal, roughly.

The upshot is that the Cro-Magnon mtDNA matches that of modern humans and does not contain patterns found in Neandertal mtDNA, the team reports online today in PLoS ONE. That result argues against the inbreeding hypothesis, says Barbujani.