News
29 February 2008
New theory on how Neanderthals became extinct
Brookes’ lecturer, Dr Simon Underdown, studied the tribal group, the Fore of Papua New Guinea that practised cannibalism and suffered from a form of mad cow disease called Kuru - a type of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE).
Subsequently, he investigated possible links to the Neanderthals who are known to have practised cannibalism.
The new research explores the impact that a Kuru-like disease could have had on the process of Neanderthal extinction, developing a model focusing on how the spread of the disease could lead to the demise of the Neanderthal population.
Dr Simon Underdown said: ‘Why the Neaderthals became extinct remains one of the most tantalising questions in human evolution. This new theory suggests that mad cow like diseases could perhaps have played a role in wiping them out along with other factors like climate change."
Dr Simon Underdown is a Biological Anthropologist and member of the Brookes’ Human Origins and Palaeoenvironmental Research Group. His findings are published in the journal Medical Hypotheses.
Find out more on the Discovery Channel.
