Early Europeans

New research suggests that the dispersal of anatomically modern Homo sapiens into Europe was more rapid than previously thought, writes John Noble Wilford in the NY Times (23.2.2006). " That, in turn, would mean that their coexistence with Neanderthals was briefer and that their introduction of cave art, symbolic artifacts and personal ornamentation occurred much earlier." Paul Mellars of Cambridge University, UK, believes that Neanderthals and the new arrivals overlap by only 6,000 years in Central and Northern Europe.