New research findings show that Neanderthals lived alongside modern humans for thousands of years – we were practically BFFs, or perhaps 'frenemies

Far from wiping out Neanderthals overnight, modern humans co-existed with their shorter and stockier cousins for thousands of years, giving plenty of time for the two groups to share ideas – and even squeeze in a bit of time for sex.

The most accurate timeline yet for the demise of our closest relatives, published in the journal Nature on Aug 20, shows that Neanderthals overlapped with present-day humans in Europe for between 2,600 and 5,400 years before disappearing about 40,000 years ago.

Pinpointing how and when the Neanderthals became extinct has been tough because the mainstay process of radiocarbon dating is unreliable for samples that are more than 30,000 years old, due to contamination. But the latest six-year project by researchers at the University of Oxford uses modern methods to remove contaminants and accurately date nearly 200 samples of bone, charcoal and shell from 40 important archaeological sites across Europe.

A diorama exhibit shows how a Neanderthal family may have lived in a cave in the Neanderthal Museum in Krapina, Croatia. – Reuters

The data showed that Neanderthals vanished from Europe between 39,000 and 41,000 years ago. But rather than being replaced rapidly by modern humans, their disappearance occurred at different times across different sites from the Black Sea to the Atlantic. “Now that we are using better techniques, the picture is becoming clearer in terms of how the Neanderthals disappeared from Europe,” says lead researcher Tom Higham. “Our results suggest there was a mosaic of populations.”

Scientists already know from DNA evidence that there was some interbreeding between the two groups, although it’s not clear whether this occurred once or many times. Recent studies have suggested between 1.5% and 2.1% of the DNA of modern non-African human populations originates from Neanderthals. “In a way, our close cousins, as Neanderthals are, aren’t extinct,” according to Higham. “They carry on in us today.”

Paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved in the research, says the new findings are “striking” and back up the idea that modern humans and Neanderthals may have learnt from each other. He believes interbreeding probably first occurred in Asia soon after modern humans began to leave Africa around 60,000 years ago, so the latest evidence indicates the two populations may have been in some kind of contact for up to 20,000 years – much longer than in Europe alone.