The youngest known Neanderthal remains include those…
23373 BCE to 21646 BCE
The youngest known Neanderthal remains include those from Hyaena Den (UK), which are estimated to be over 30,000 years old, and the Vindija Neanderthals (Croatia), recently re-dated to between 32,000 and 33,000 years ago.
While no definite Neanderthal specimens younger than 30,000 years ago have been found, evidence of fire use in Gibraltar suggests that some Neanderthal populations may have persisted there until around 24,000 years ago.
Possible Neanderthal-Modern Human Admixture
One of the most debated discoveries is a 24,500-year-old burial at Lagar Velho (Portugal), where Early European Modern Human skeletal remains with apparent Neanderthal traits have been found. The site, excavated in 1998, yielded the nearly complete skeleton of a four-year-old child, buried with pierced shells and red ochre—a practice associated with symbolic behavior.
The child’s cranium, mandible, dentition, and postcranial features exhibit a mosaic of both Neanderthal and modern human traits, leading some researchers to interpret the remains as evidence of extensive interbreeding between the two populations. However, this conclusion remains controversial.
If the child is indeed a hybrid of anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals, it would have major implications for our understanding of Neanderthal interaction with Early European Modern Humans and could challenge existing taxonomic classifications, suggesting that Neanderthals were not entirely separate from Homo sapiens but part of an overlapping, interbreeding lineage.
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Southwest Europe
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