As I understand it

[boris]

Modern Humans - us - have only been in Europe for 35,000 years.

Modern Humans have been in Australia - Aborigines - longer than that.

For 100,000 years Neandertals dominated Europe and ate Homo sapiens.

They made constant war on Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens only moved into Europe after the Volcano in Italy - Campi Flegrei erupted.

The reasons for the Neandertal extinction - we carry their DNA as hybrids - was they ran out of women to breed with and were inbred with family members bonking each other.

Also humans - us - could run long distances while the Neanders could only sprint fast for short distances.

Also humans had dogs and long range weapons while Neanders only had a spear they used for close quarter hunting and fighting.

So despite being super strong and being able to see in the dark and smell better than humans (they smelled bad but they had a better sense of smell) they went extinct.

If you accept they were a different species - I do not really accept that because when they crossed bred with modern humans they produced viable female young offspring - so basically the same species.

If we were two different species then the off spring would be sterile - like a mule or hinney - although it is possible to cross breed a llama with a camel and they produce viable offspring. 

So if modern humans have only been in Europe for 35,000 years and Aborigines have been in Australia for 50,000 years - why did they remain in the Stone age?

They actually do have Neandertal DNA but they didn't have any flint or animals they could domesticate. 

Or I could be wrong. 

[boris]

Aborigines are 5% Denisovan which is similar to Neandertals.

Amazing. Why did the Neandertal become extinct?

That Volcano Campi Flegrei - mostly it would appear.

Humans - us - were dominated by them in Europe for 100,000 years - and only after that Volcano did humans take over Europe and push them back - because we ate rabbits and birds while Neandertals only ate big game which died off.

Amazing that Humans have been in Australia longer than Europe.

[boris]

The huge step for humanity was the wolf - we didn't domesticate them - they domesticated us and themselves.

Neandertals never domesticated the wolf - we did - and that was a huge evolutionary advantage.

[boris]

The lack of mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited through females, from Neanderthals in living humans has been suggested as evidence that only male Neanderthals and female Homo sapiens could mate, but there is also some evidence that male hybrids may have been less fertile than females.

[boris]

I am fascinated by the Neandertals.

It seems modern humans were in Australia longer than in Europe because Neandertals kept them out.

The humans here never progressed from the Stone Age whereas in Europe they went into the Bronze Age and the Iron Age and evolved.

I don't know, but from what I have read and learned - it is because of two things in the Rest of the world but not here - Flint and Goats, Cattle, Sheep, pigs and horses.

These things drove Civilisation - the first animal to be domesticated was the Goat - there were no goats here.

[boris]

Neandertals became extinct because they ran out of women.

They left their genes in us though and we are better for it.

We are a Hybrid species.

Fascinating

[boris]

[boris]

Aboriginal Australians have Neanderthal DNA

Paleogeneticists realized about 10 years ago that most Europeans and Asians inherited 1% to 2% of their genomes from Neanderthals. And Melanesians and Australian Aboriginals get another 3% to 6% of their DNA from Denisovans, Neanderthal cousins who ranged across Asia 50,000 to 200,000 years ago or so.

So Aborigines are 2% Neanderthal and 6% Denisovan.

That 8% makes them really primitive and almost a different species