They once put a big kink in the assumed Neanderthal timeline, now they fit right in.
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00:00 [music]
00:03 Neanderthals were humanity's closest relatives, sharing 99.6% of our DNA,
00:08 but they went extinct while we continued on.
00:11 And understanding the how, why, and when of that disappearance
00:14 has been one of archaeologists' greatest unanswered questions.
00:17 And a new radiocarbon dating of Neanderthal remains from the Spy Cave in Belgium
00:21 may have just helped provide some evidence for the when.
00:24 Originally, the specimens were thought to be quite young, around 24,000 years old,
00:28 but Neanderthals were thought to have gone extinct around 40,000 years ago.
00:31 So using improved radiocarbon sample collecting techniques,
00:35 primarily accounting for any contaminants,
00:37 or rather than going after collagen to collect the radiocarbon date of the creature's demise,
00:41 scientists instead extracted the building blocks of collagen,
00:44 specifically particular amino acids,
00:46 giving them samples uncontaminated by environmental conditions or modern man.
00:51 This revealed that the previously theory-breaking Neanderthal remains from the Spy Cave
00:55 were actually between 44,200 and 40,600 years old,
00:59 or nearly twice the age as previously dated.