Why did Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis die out?
No one can be totally certain. It could be that they were not very numerous and that the arrival of Homo Sapiens shoved them away from hunting grounds into areas where they lost contact with other groups of Neanderthals and so died out because of inbreeding and disease perhaps brought by Homo Sapiens and to which they had little immunity. On the whole Neanderthals didn’t travel far – preferring to stay in the areas where they were born and brought up – that can be deduced from their tools which were mostly made of local materials and not rock etc that had travelled several hundred/thousand miles. That in turn would suggest that they became isolated from other groups when competition for prime hunting grounds stepped up. In addition the suggestion is that they tended to hunt in large groups, co-ordinating attacks to drive prey into areas such as rivers, marsh land etc where it could be despatched. If so and when their numbers were reduced they simply may not have had the wit or the inge
