November 17, 2011
Complex computational modeling provides clues to Neanderthal extinction
Computational modeling that examines evidence of how hominin groups evolved culturally and biologically in response to climate change during the last Ice Age also bears new insights into the extinction of Neanderthals. Details of the complex modeling experiments conducted at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado Denver will be published in the December issue of the journal Human Ecology, available online Nov. 17.
ASU Senior Sustainability Scientist Michael Barton authored the article, “Modeling Human Ecodynamics and Biocultural Interactions in the Late Pleistocene of Western Eurasia.” The article was co-authored by ASU Senior Sustainability Scientist John Martin “Marty” Anderies, an associate professor of computational social science in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Sustainability; as well as Julien Riel-Salvatore, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver; and Gabriel Popescu, an anthropology doctoral student in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU.