A team of Romanian researchers, alongside colleagues from US, UK, Germany and Austria, took part in a study looking at the causes of the disappearance of the Neanderthals.

They analyzed the stalagmites in several caves in the country to look for data regarding climatic variability. They concluded that sudden climatic changes impacted the Neanderthals, Stirileprotv.ro reported.

The climate of 40,000 years ago was marked by sudden and extreme changes. These changes are registered in the thin calcium carbonate strata of the stalagmites found in caves.

“We had two stalagmites from the Rodnei Mountains, in the Tăușoare Cave, and another from the Mehedinţi Mountains, and we looked at the stable oxygen and carbon isotopes, which provided us with data regarding climate variability and environment variability, in general,” Virgil Drăgușin, from the Emil Racoviţă Speleology Institute in Bucharest, told Stirileprotv.ro.

(Photo: Pixabay)

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