The timing of Neanderthal disappearance and the extent to which they overlapped with the earliest incoming anatomically modern humans (AMHs) in Eurasia are key questions in palaeoanthropology. Determining the spatiotemporal relationship between the two populations is crucial if we are to understand the processes, timing and reasons leading to the disappearance of Neanderthals and the likelihood of cultural and genetic exchange. Serious technical challenges, however, have hindered reliable dating of the period, as the radiocarbon method reaches its limit at ∼50,000 years ago. Here we apply improved accelerator mass spectrometry (14)C techniques to construct robust chronologies from 40 key Mousterian and Neanderthal archaeological sites, ranging from Russia to Spain. Bayesian age modelling was used to generate probability distribution functions to determine the latest appearance date. We show that the Mousterian ended by 41,030-39,260 calibrated years bp (at 95.4% probability) across Europe. We also demonstrate that succeeding 'transitional' archaeological industries, one of which has been linked with Neanderthals (Châtelperronian), end at a similar time. Our data indicate that the disappearance of Neanderthals occurred at different times in different regions. Comparing the data with results obtained from the earliest dated AMH sites in Europe, associated with the Uluzzian technocomplex, allows us to quantify the temporal overlap between the two human groups. The results reveal a significant overlap of 2,600-5,400 years (at 95.4% probability). This has important implications for models seeking to explain the cultural, technological and biological elements involved in the replacement of Neanderthals by AMHs. A mosaic of populations in Europe during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition suggests that there was ample time for the transmission of cultural and symbolic behaviours, as well as possible genetic exchanges, between the two groups.

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This paper examines the origins of language, as treated within Evolutionary Anthropology, under the light offered by a biolinguistic approach. This perspective is presented first. Next we discuss how genetic, anatomical, and archaeological data, which are traditionally taken as evidence for the presence of language, are circumstantial as such from this perspective. We conclude by discussing ways in which to address these central issues, in an attempt to develop a collaborative approach to them.

Die Philosophie löst Knoten auf in unserm Denken; daher muß ihr Resultat einfach sein, das Philosophieren aber so kompliziert wie die Knoten, welche es auflöst. 1 L. Wittgenstein, Zettel, § 452 'language' here is a technical term referring to sets specified as collections of strings made up of symbols taken from a finite alphabet. Thus, for example, the set of integers Z = {…, -1, 0, 1, …} may be represented in binary by the language made up of strings over the alphabet Σ = {0, 1} as Z = {…, 10000001, 00000000, 00000001, …}, for an 8 bit system. 3 2 The idea that the brain is an analog, parallel processor that nonetheless implements serial, digital processes is supported by evidence coming from different fields, such as neural computation (Sarpeshkar 1998(Sarpeshkar , 2009, neurobiology (Alle & Geiger 2006, Shu et al. 2006) and neuropsychological models (Zylberberg et al. 2011). This, in fact, adds an extra dimension of variation to the ones to be proposed below, namely the possibility that the neural computations underlying certain behaviors follow the analog, parallel path instead of the digital, serial one. We will have nothing to say about that in this paper, but see Balari & Lorenzo (to appear: chap. 8) for discussion.3 Unless otherwise stated, and in addition to Chomsky's original papers cited in the text, our basic references in the following informal presentation of language and automata theory are