Czech cave sheds light on Neanderthal-Homo Sapiens transition

Sometime just over 40,000 years ago, the last surviving cousins of the modern humans, Homo Neanderthals, likely met their Homo sapiens kin in the modern-day Moravia region of the Czech Republic, a new paper suggests. It is based on the excavation of 10 layers of sediment in a cave in the region that date back to between 28,000 and 50,000 years old.
The Pod Hradem Cave in the eastern Czech Republic was first excavated in 1956-1958, and again in 2011-2012. The advanced techniques used during the second excavation revealed portable art objects, never-before-seen in the region, as well as raw materials that suggest long-distance travel. The dig turned up over 20,000 objects that include animal bones, stone tools, and weapons, as well as an engraved bone bead — the oldest of its kind found in Central Europe.

Czech cave sheds light on Neanderthal-Homo Sapiens transition