Centuries ago, Homo sapiens and varieties of archaic humans lived in their own enclaves throughout different parts of the world. Before we spread to the corners of each continent, our original stomping grounds were in Africa. But as we were evolving there between 200,000 years and 30,000 years ago, who had been occupying the other continents? 

A few thousand miles north of where our species took shape, another archaic human group called Eurasia home: Neanderthals. From England to Central Asia, Neanderthals developed their own culture to survive in environments that humans had not yet entered.

Where Did Neanderthals First Appear?

The exact location where Neanderthals first originated is hard to pinpoint, but fossil evidence suggests they were most prevalent in Western Europe. DNA analysis originally established the divergence point between Neanderthals and modern humans between 300,000 years and 500,000 years ago, but a 2019 study from University College London suggested that it should be moved to at least 800,000 years ago.

The basis for this claim lies in the Atapuerca Mountains of Spain, where researchers have kept a close eye on fossils at a 430,000 year-old site called Sima de los Huesos (“Pit of the Bones”). Here, researchers examined fossilized teeth containing similarities with Neanderthal dental features, like small molars and premolars.

The Sima fossils were likely Neanderthal ancestors based on this connection, and in asserting an earlier divergence point, the study accounted for the long amount of time it must’ve taken for this specific dental shape to evolve.

Read More: Cro-Magnon vs. Neanderthal: What Is the Difference? 

Fossils and Tools

Although the earliest incarnation of Neanderthals continue to stir debates, fossil evidence scattered across Europe and Asia has shaped an increasingly coherent map showing where the prehistoric hominins called home. Many valuable Neanderthal fossils were first found in Western European countries like France, Italy, and Germany. The namesake for the hominins originates from the Neanderthal (or Neander Valley), a valley of the river Düssel in Western Germany and home to a set of Neanderthal fossils discovered in 1856. 

While most Neanderthals spent their days in Europe, some populations ventured farther south and east. Neanderthal fossils have been observed in Middle Eastern countries like Israel, Iran, and Iraq, and evidence of a Neanderthal family was even found as far east as Chagyrskaya Cave in central Siberia.

Many Neanderthal discoveries can be attributed to the Mousterian tool culture, which existed 160,000 years to 40,000 years ago, during the latter half of the Middle Paleolithic. The culture’s name is taken from Le Moustier, a famous archaeological site in Dordogne, southwest France where a whole Neanderthal skeleton was found in 1908. 

A 60,000 year-old Mousterian tool site in Norfolk, England called Lynford Quarry contained stone tools like hand axes, as well as the remains of at least nine woolly mammoths, showing the hunting tendencies of Neanderthals. 

Read More: Reconstructing the World Where Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals First Got Together

Neanderthals Traveling East

Just like their intrepid human cousins, Neanderthals were capable of traveling long distances on foot. Their expansion east of Europe, past the gateway of the Caucasus Mountains, may have occurred through more than one route. A 2023 study published in PLOS One references two possible routes that Neanderthals could have taken into Asia: a northern route along the Greater Caucasus and a southern route along the Lesser Caucasus. 

The study focused on the southern route, which follows the Southern Caspian Corridor (SCC). Compared to surrounding areas, the SCC provided necessary sources of freshwater and had mild climate conditions during Middle Isotope Stage 4 (MIS 4), a cold and glacial period within the Pleistocene about 70,000 years to 59,000 years ago.

As a result, the SCC was a biodiversity hotspot and a refugium during climate change where migrating Neanderthals — who used the route not just once, but repeatedly — may have interbred with humans who had arrived from the Persian Plateau. 

According to the study, Neanderthals traveling the SCC route used different technology than the ones traveling the northern route; Those in the northern route were associated with the Micoquian industry (existing 130,000 to 70,000 years ago), while those in the SCC appeared to use exclusively Mousterian tools. This suggests that the eastward-bound Neanderthals were separated into two distinct cultural and genetic groups, specifically when glacial periods caused them to lose connection entirely. 

Neanderthals’ impressive journey east logged upwards of 2,000 miles, but based on the range of their fossils and the tools they left behind, they didn’t make it far beyond Eurasia. Humans instead came to be the predominant hominin species spreading across the world while Neanderthals’ existence was cut short about 40,000 years ago.

Article Sources

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Jack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and previously interned at Recycling Today magazine.