Maybe modern humans were smarter, more innovative, better at coming up with new ways to control territory and secure food. At the start of the simulation, Europe is inhabited by “bands” of Neanderthals that randomly move around and die out. Every so often, a band of modern humans migrates out of Africa and joins the European fray. It doesn’t necessarily prove that humans didn’t have a selective advantage, or that climate change didn’t influence the Neanderthals’ fate, Kolodny cautioned. In the case of our species, modern humans happened to have the deck stacked in our favour.

Source: National Post November 01, 2017 17:48 UTC