NEANDERTHALS and the ancestors of people living today were European neighbours for up to 5,400 years, new research suggests.
The same study indicates that Neanderthals disappeared gradually at different times in different locations, rather than undergoing rapid extinction.
Scientists used new dating evidence for 200 bone, charcoal and shell samples from 40 key European sites to show that the two human groups overlapped for a significant period of time.
Lead researcher Professor Thomas Higham, from Oxford University, said: "Other recent studies of Neanderthal and modern human genetic make-up suggest that both groups interbred outside Africa, with 1.5 per cent to 2.1 per cent or more of the DNA of modern non-African human populations originating from Neanderthals.
"We believe we now have the first robust timeline that sheds new light on some of the key questions around the possible interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans. The chronology also pinpoints the timing of the Neanderthals' disappearance, and suggests they may have survived in pockets of Europe before they became extinct."
Neanderthals were a human sub-species distantly related to, but genetically different from, modern humans, or Homo sapiens. They had already been living in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years when the first modern humans migrated out of Africa.
It is thought they died out because they were unable to compete with our ancestors for food and resources.
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