The Last Neanderthals

For hundreds of thousands of years Neanderthals have roamed the lands of what is today Europe and western Asia. But how did they survive, and what caused their decline? Tristan Hughes delves into the fate of the last Neanderthals and continues our Ice Age mini-series with Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum. They explore how Neanderthals thrived across diverse climates and investigate the intriguing story of Neanderthals' eventual decline alongside the arrival of Homosapiens 60,000 years ago. Professor Stringer also shares the fascinating evidence of interbreeding that has left traces of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans and groundbreaking insights from recent archaeological and DNA research, that shed light on why Neanderthals went extinct. Presented by Tristan Hughes. The audio editor and producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

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• 1:36Tristan Hughes?

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• 2:18Tristan Hughes?

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• 3:03Tristan Hughes?

  It's 55,000 years ago. For hundreds of thousands of years, Neanderthals have roamed the lands of what is today Europe and Western Asia. Over that time, they've been able to survive and thrive in a whole host of different climates and environments, stretching from the coasts of Iberia and southern Britain to Iraq and Western Asia and even Siberia. They lived in caves, these natural places of shelter. They carved effective tools out of wood, ansler, bone, and stone. They made art. They lit fires. They had their own methods of communication, although what they were, we don't know. And yet, 55,000 years ago, this was a species in decline.

• 3:47Tristan Hughes?

  And what's more, a new species was about to emerge onto the scene, one that would come into direct contact and potentially conflict with Neanderthals: Homo sapiens, us. It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Today, we're continuing our Ice Age mini-series this February by exploring the enigmatic story of the last Neanderthals and why they ultimately went extinct. This is a really exciting field. Over the past few years, new information has come to light thanks to a mix of archaeological and DNA research, revealing how late Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred some 50,000 years ago.

• 4:29Tristan Hughes?

  Many of us in the world today have Neanderthal DNA in our genomes. Yet the Neanderthals themselves soon went extinct. Many reasons have been put forward as to why this occurred, closely linked with the arrival of modern humans in their territories. To talk through the possibilities, I was delighted to interview Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum. Chris is one of the leading lights in the field of human evolution. He has also been on the podcast several times before to talk about all things varying from the origins of Homo sapiens, to the first Britons, to the mysterious story of a massive cranium discovered in China called Dragonman. Now he's back to explain the story of the last Neanderthals. Enjoy.

• 5:15Tristan Hughes?

  Chris, as always, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  It's a pleasure to be with you again.

• 5:20Tristan Hughes?

  Now, you're a very modest man, but you are one of, if not the oracle, when it comes to Neanderthals. You've been in this field of research for decades, so very, very grateful for your time. And to talk about this particular part of the Neanderthal story, one which still feels very mysterious, yet one where there's a lot of research going into at the moment. I mean, what ultimately happens to the Neanderthals is quite the topic.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Yes, it is. It's a topic that's obviously exercised scientists since they were first found. They're not here now, so what happened to them? And did we play a role in their extinction?

• 5:52Tristan Hughes?

  And how rich a record do people like yourself and scientists have for wanting to try and learn more about why they ultimately disappear?

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Well, yes, so for this time period, if we focus on their last time, let's say between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago, we've got a lot of Neanderthal sites. We have a lot of them with archaeology, so Neanderthals made characteristic stone tools which we can recognise. And we know that the Neanderthals spread all the way from Western Europe over to at times to Siberia, so they had a very wide geographic range.

• 6:26Tristan Hughes?

  That's the length of Eurasia.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  It's a huge area, absolutely. It's possible they even extended into places like China at times, but that's not so certain. But they had a very wide geographic range and they have a huge range in time. Of course, the Neanderthals are around for hundreds of thousands of years, although we think of them as being cold adapted. We think of Neanderthals alongside mammoths and reindeer. They also lived in warmer conditions, so it was often very warm. In places like Europe, we find them alongside elephants and hippopotamuses in Italy 250,000 years ago. So they were wide ranging and quite adaptable in the areas in which they lived. And of course, in terms of fossils, the best known ones are from Europe. That's where we have the best evidence. That's where they were first discovered. As

• 7:12Speaker 03

  we move further east, there are less Neanderthals. We've got good samples from places like Israel, from Iraq. But as we go further east, the actual fossil sample runs out. But we've got DNA, of course, adding to the story now.

• 7:26Tristan Hughes?

  Plus we've got DNA as well from Neanderthals.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  Yes. So in 2010, we got the first high quality reconstruction of a Neanderthal genome. And now we've got several Neanderthal individuals with high quality genomes from Europe and from Asia. And of course, it's even now possible to get DNA from cave sediments. So this is a great thing for the future, that even at a site where you haven't got a single Neanderthal fossil, you could have a trace of those Neanderthals if they were at the site at all. Maybe they urinated in the cave, maybe a woman gave birth in the cave, that could have left a trace which can be picked up from DNA. So you don't even need Neanderthal fossils now. And this means in the future, we'll have an even better picture of their range from looking at sites where we've just got Neanderthal archaeology. The sediments in those caves

• 8:12Speaker 03

  may well contain their DNA as well.

• 8:14Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, it's so interesting, Chris, because I remember chatting to your colleague Adrian Lister and also David Meltzer about the woolly mammoth and that DNA evidence for these great beasts of the Ice Age as well. And it seems similar with Neanderthals in the fact that there must be so much DNA out there from pee, from poo, from where they ate and stuff. So so much more to gain, to learn about them from just doing more studies of those sites that we know Neanderthals were once in.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  That's right, yes. And so we've had an explosion of data in the last 10 years and that explosion is going to carry on.

• 8:47Tristan Hughes?

  So you mentioned 60,000 years ago, Neanderthals, they occupy this huge geographic range stretching from modern day Europe all the way to Eastern Asia. So were there almost different lineages of Neanderthals by that time? So you have Neanderthals that wide reaching name, but almost, is it subspecies beneath?

• 9:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the Neanderthals, obviously, as I mentioned, they go back hundreds of thousands of years. And so they must have diversified in that time. But what's interesting is that the picture we have of the late Neanderthals is that there's actually quite low diversity. So a lot of those early lineages have either disappeared or we haven't found any traces of them yet. The Neanderthals are relatively, you know, compared with Homo sapiens today, the Neanderthals have much lower variation. Some of their populations in the last 20,000 years are even quite inbred. So they're having to breed with close relatives, which is not good for the gene pool, of course. So we think that in the last 20,000 years, the Neanderthals were relatively low in diversity, probably relatively low in numbers.

• 9:49Tristan Hughes?

  And those last 20,000 years, do you mean between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, when we have that last evidence from the Neanderthals in the world?

• 9:55Speaker 03

  Yes, that's right. So at the moment, looking at radiocarbon dates or Neanderthal sites and where we have Neanderthal archaeology, at least in Europe, it's very difficult to find evidence of them, good evidence of them after 40,000 years ago. Now, we can't say the same as we go further east because the record is much less well dated. So in Iraq, they're around probably until 45,000 years ago, possibly younger. And even further east, I mentioned they were in Siberia, places like that. We don't have a good fix on how late they went in some of those other regions. So it's possible they extended and survived further east later. It's also possible that they died out across their range, you know, in quite a short time, around 40,000. We're not certain of that at the moment.

• 10:37Tristan Hughes?

  So is it fair to say that even by 60,000 years ago, Neanderthals having already been around in the world for hundreds of thousands of years, have they already passed their peak at that time in terms of numbers across the world?

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Yes, I mean, it's always difficult to estimate numbers. Obviously, we've got archaeological sites where you can attempt to estimate numbers. But the genetic data suggests, as I mentioned, that they were low in diversity in that period between 40,000 and 60,000, they were low in diversity. But we do have surviving Neanderthal DNA, evidence of it, that comes from earlier sites, and that suggests they were more diverse 100,000 years ago. Now, that's the last interglacial, I mean, the last interglacial, the warmest stage was about 120, 125,000 years ago, when it was as warm or maybe even slightly warmer than today, where we're coming back to those temperatures now, of course, unfortunately, you know, with global warming, but that was a warm period, and interestingly, the Neanderthals actually thrived, although, as I say, we think of them as cold-adapted.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Actually, that could have been their peak time in terms of numbers. Probably they were large numbers of Neanderthals 120,000 years ago. And then after that, with the decrease of suitable environments, with the decrease in temperatures, their numbers may have shrunk and their ranges perhaps shrank as well.

• 11:51Tristan Hughes?

  And Chris, can you please explain why genetic diversity and studying it is so important for understanding whether species like Neanderthals are successful, they're enduring well, or they are starting to decline?

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Yes, so when we look at modern species that are threatened, of course, we think of, you know, particular groups of tigers, particular populations of elephants, populations of gorillas. Some of these are very threatened, they're low in number and they're low in diversity. And once a population gets down to a few thousand, it really is at risk from diseases, from very rapid climate change, from some kind of exploitation, some kind of competition can tip them over the edge to extinction. So we're aware of that today, with people trying to save some of the last rhinos, for example, in certain areas. Well, the Neanderthals, probably in their last 20,000 years, we could say that they probably were a threatened species in the same way. They were low in numbers and low in diversity.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  That's bad for the gene pool, of course, because if you've got low variation, you may get a buildup of what you can, in simple terms, bad mutations may build up in the gene pool. It also limits your ability to adapt genetically to changing conditions if you've got low numbers and low diversity. So it was bad news for them and possibly they were already a species in trouble by sixty thousand years ago, even before Homo sapiens made a significant impact on them.

• 13:14Tristan Hughes?

  So they'd be quite fragile to changing climates, for instance?

• 13:17Speaker 03

  Yes, rapid climate change had probably been pruning their numbers. So the climate from about a hundred thousand years ago, the climate in Europe was fluctuating dramatically. Every few thousand years, it fluctuated from nearly as warm as today to bitterly cold. And that happened over and over again, every few thousand years. And some of these switches in climate were very rapid. Probably even in the lifetime of a single Neanderthal, they might have seen the environment that they were used to completely changing, perhaps from relatively benign woodlands and things to a glacial tundra. Or if they were adapting to cold conditions, they might see it suddenly change into much warmer conditions. And that would be a challenge for them too, because they're adapted to one environment and then it rapidly changes.

• 14:00Tristan Hughes?

  Let's talk about the intelligence and the lifestyle of these Neanderthals before we move on to the arrival of Homo sapiens and that impact on the Neanderthal numbers. First of all, the toolkit. When we think of ancient human species alongside Homo sapiens, we think of things varying from very simple stone tools all the way back in the Old One with very early human species, to the hand axes of Homo erectus. With the Neanderthals and the late Neanderthals, how complex is their toolkit by then?

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, well, you really need an archaeologist to answer that one properly. But from my point of view, yeah, we know that the Neanderthals were capable technologically. They were more capable than probably, I would have said twenty years ago, I would have said that there was a quite a big behavioural gulf between us and the Neanderthals, that we were making all these complex tools and making art and so on, and the Neanderthals largely weren't doing that. What we've learnt in the last twenty years is that Neanderthals were doing a lot of the things that we used to think were probably unique to Homo sapiens. So this behavioural gap has considerably narrowed. Some people think it's disappeared completely. I don't go that far. But they were very capable technologically. So, yes, they were largely making stone tools, of course, was their main way of making.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Things for food processing and weapons, but of course it wasn't the only material. And we've got to remember that wood would have been very important for them. And unfortunately, in most cases, the evidence of all that wood technology has disappeared. There are a few rare examples where we find wooden artefacts, but that must also have been important for them. So for example, we know that they were making wooden spears. And we know that some of their stone points must have been mounted on handles as spears, either throwing spears or for thrusting.

• 15:41Tristan Hughes?

  And it's actually like resin or something like that, some sort of natural glue.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  And and some of these may just have been simply pushed into a wooden shaft. But in other cases, it looks like they were even able to make resins, quite complex technology to treat tree material, tree resins and sap and so on. Treat these with heat to make them into a kind of glue which enables you to fix the head on to the shaft. So they were capable of that. They certainly in many situations were capable of making fire. It seems it will, and that would have been very important for their survival. And even art, there's evidence now that Neanderthals were marking cave walls. They certainly were making marks on bones and things. And there's quite a debate about, you know, how much artistic expression then in Neanderthals had.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  In my view, we haven't yet got a representation by a Neanderthal of a person or an animal. That still seems to be unique to Homo sapiens. But in terms of their adaptations to different situations, we know now that they were, in some cases, adapted to living by the coast. So from our excavations in Gibraltar, twenty years ago or more, we were able to show that there they were adapting to coastal living. They were collecting and eating mollusks from the sea. They were even butchering at times dolphin and seal. Now, the seals, they might well have been out and clubbed baby seals, but it's possible the dolphin was a stranding. But they certainly were very used to those coastal environments and they were exploiting them for food.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  And again, that's something that twenty or thirty years ago would have been much more debatable.

• 17:14Tristan Hughes?

  And shall we then imagine you've got these small groups of Neanderthals, some living by the coast, others hunting mammoth or living further inland. So they've adapted, even with this kind of low genetic diversity, they are still in pockets across Eurasia, surviving off different foods and drink and so on and so forth. But at the same time, there must be communication, maybe behavioural activities like burial as well. So these are kind of. Intelligent but isolated small communities throughout this geographic landmass.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Yes, I mean, it's difficult to really map how much these Neanderthal groups were connecting with each other. So there are different views on this. Some people think that they did have quite wide communication networks. We can look at that to an extent with the movement of raw materials. For example, stone tool resources move across the landscape. And by and large, it looks like Homo sapiens extended their networks much wider. But the Neanderthals certainly were mobile and they certainly must have been in contact with other groups because they were, they were exchanging mates. So there are a couple of sites where we can even look at the mating patterns of Neanderthal groups. And at least from the sites where we've got the data, it looks like the males were largely staying in one location

• 18:29Speaker 03

  and the females were coming into those locations from elsewhere. So what's sometimes called a patrily local mating system. So within a particular Neanderthal site, in mitochondrial terms, which is the lineage is inherited through mothers to their children. The mitochondria suggests that the males are closely related to each other, but the females are more diverse in mitochondria. So that must indicate there is movement of people, and in this case, the movement of women into particular Neanderthal groups.

• 18:58Tristan Hughes?

  People can deduce that from the surviving DNA or from the surviving remains?

• 19:01Speaker 03

  That's right, yes. So there are Neanderthal sites where even from the mitochondrial DNA preserved in the cave sediments, as well as in the individuals' DNA themselves, you can show this this pattern of small diversity in the males of the Neanderthals compared with large diversity in the females.

• 19:18Tristan Hughes?

  So there is this Neanderthal world that's existing some 60,000 years ago. So let's introduce our other main protagonist into this story, protagonist species. Chris, when do we start to see Homo sapiens emerging onto the Neanderthal scene?

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Well, yes, so that's an interesting question where, again, we're getting new data all the time. So there seems to be an early incursion of Homo sapiens into Neanderthal areas even more than 200,000 years ago.

• 19:44Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, wow.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  So there's a site in southern Greece, Epidima Cave. It's actually a complex of caves. Vertically in a in a sea cliff in southern Greece. And in one of those caves, they found two skulls very close to each other, which for a long time were thought to be two Neanderthal skulls, maybe a hundred and fifty thousand years old. But I've been involved in work which has shown that, first of all, the skulls are not the same age. They seem to be brought together through deposition in the cave, but they don't actually belong together because they're not the same age. And what's interesting is, one of the skulls, it's only the back of a skull, looks like a Homo sapiens. So it doesn't show Neanderthal features in the back of the skull.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  It shows Homo sapiens features. And that fossil is at least two hundred and ten thousand years old. So incredibly, if that data are correct, there was a Homo sapiens living in southern Greece more than two hundred thousand years ago. And what's interesting is, maybe thirty or forty thousand years later, you've got a Neanderthal fossil at the site. So the sapiens seems to have disappeared and the Neanderthals are in occupation. So this could be an early and, what you could call it, unsuccessful dispersion of Homo sapiens from Africa through Western Asia, as far as Greece, perhaps it went even further, we don't know. But it was one which then disappeared and the Neanderthals come back. But interesting, that presence of sapiens outside of Africa more than two hundred thousand years ago does square with genetic data

• 21:11Speaker 03

  that suggests that there was a rather mysterious interbreeding event between Homo sapiens, early Homo sapiens and early Neanderthals, maybe three hundred thousand years ago. So that, again, would imply there was either Neanderthals got into Africa, but more likely sapiens came out into Neanderthal territories, did some interbreeding with them, and actually affected their mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome diversity. They seem to pick up a sapiens-like mitochondria and Y chromosome. And that estimate suggests that maybe five percent DNA was exchanged between the groups, maybe three hundred thousand years ago. So that's still a mysterious and poorly understood time. But that epitome fossil from Greece is maybe a clue

• 21:53Speaker 03

  to the sort of movements, early movements out of Africa, which ultimately were not sustained by Homo sapiens.

• 21:58Tristan Hughes?

  But this is also important to highlight, isn't it, Chris? With the kind of focal area of Neanderthals that we think of with Eurasia, Europe and so on. And the focal point for the evolution and emergence of Homo sapiens. These were two completely different areas of the world. So for much of the time, they were separate from each other.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Yes, the fact that that we and the Neanderthals developed these distinctive anatomies suggests that they. Evolution was largely separate over hundreds of thousand years, certainly at least half a million years on on present thinking. We and the Neanderthals evolved separately, but being separate doesn't mean being completely separate. So within that separation and distinction of building up different characters, now and again, these groups met and exchanged DNA. And this is a pattern which we now know from modern species that are closely related. So when we look at birds and mammals. Maybe twenty percent of these closely related species are doing a bit of interbreeding with each other. And so it seems that this is a way for those species to actually improve their genetic diversity, because as they go their separate way.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  They take particular genetic pathways and they may lose diversity. So by interbreeding with your neighboring species, you may pick up some diversity that you've lost and that could be useful for you. So it looks like species do this, they largely closely related ones, at least for maybe a million years, maybe two million years. They may continue to be able to exchange DNA with their closely related species. And it looks like that's what happened, which certainly is what happened with us and Neanderthals. And also it happened with us and Denisovans and even Denisovans and Neanderthals were interbreeding with each other. And I know we haven't talked about Denisovans yet, but they were a lineage that we know about, living over in the Far East.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  So there are actually these three major lineages evolving us in Africa for most of the last half a million years. Neanderthals in Eurasia, mainly the western part in the last half a million years, and over in the Far East. Denisovans also evolving in that time period over the last half a million years.

• 23:59Tristan Hughes?

  It is also really interesting, just quickly, this idea that maybe Neanderthals, when they were at their peak and had a lot of genetic diversity, living in all these various different landscapes, if earlier Some Neanderthals had actually made it to Africa and met earlier Homo sapiens. That's fascinating to consider. I know it's not proven, but still quite interesting to think about.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Yes, it's certainly possible. So the Neanderthals reached right down in southern Israel. So they're only a few hundred kilometres from Cairo there. So of course, you know, these populations wouldn't have known Africa was separate from Western Asia. For them, it was just a landscape that they might have traversed, maybe following their food, you know, migrating herds and so on. So certainly it's not impossible that just a sapiens came out of Africa several times. It's possible Neanderthals even came into Africa at times and we can't map that at the moment. And then there are areas like Arabia. So you've got the huge area of the Arabian Peninsula, a massive area. We know that sapiens were there about ninety five thousand years ago from just a single hand bone fossil.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  But Neanderthals were probably there as well some of the same time. So that's a whole area again where we we have a lot to learn about when populations were in those regions.

• 25:09Tristan Hughes?

  Just so you can also describe to us now, Chris, as you're here. So the differences in bodily structure between a Neanderthal, a late Neanderthal and a Homo sapien going out of Africa, let's say sixty thousand years ago, what were the key differences in their structure?

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. So looking at the whole body skeleton, the Neanderthals were by and large were shorter and wider, very wide shoulders, very wide pelvis. They've got a big, almost bell shaped rib cage. So it's a rib cage that's differently shaped to our own. There's a suggestion that all the organs of the trunk of the Neanderthals were bigger. So the lungs might have been twenty percent bigger than our lungs. And that might have also applied to the kidneys, the liver and so on. So their trunks were very bulky and their pelvis is wide, partly to accommodate that extra bulk in the trunk. They're powerfully built, so the bones are strong and thick. They have large muscle insertions. The articular connections are quite wide. So the skeleton's built to withstand a very demanding lifestyle.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  Whereas in sapiens, we've got by and large a more likely built skeleton, relatively taller, slimmer frame, maybe a bit less muscularity. So this partly is a reflection of genetic inheritance, partly.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  The cold adaptation, so in colder conditions, it's good to have a short and wide body to minimise your skin surface area to maintain heat. So that might partly explain the Neanderthals' overall difference, but also it could be a difference of lifestyle. That possibly sapiens were increasingly using technology to take the weight off their skeletons. So using tools to do some of the heavy lifting, some of the heavy work, rather than having to use muscles. With like sledges or something like that maybe? Yes, it could be, and the use of strings and nets and ropes and, you know, maybe having a more efficient weapon system. Throwing spears largely compared with thrusting spears, which the Neanderthals might have much more been inclined to use.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  And so the body shape is certainly distinct between us and the Neanderthals. And that's also true for the cranium, for the head. So our, our braincase shape is high and rounded, whereas Neanderthal skulls, in keeping with most of these earlier humans, the skulls were longer and lower. And the brain within is longer and lower in shape compared with the sapiens one. At the front, of course, there's a strong brow ridge for the Neanderthals, which again is a common feature of all these earlier humans to have a strong brow ridge over the eyes. The face in the Neanderthals is very characteristic, perhaps one of their most distinctive features is that the nose is very large and projecting. But it's part of a complex in the face where the whole middle of the face is pulled forwards and the cheekbones sweep back.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  So that's very distinctive, that's found in, in a Neanderthals for hundreds of thousands of years. And when we look at their teeth, they've got relatively large front teeth and they seem to have used their front teeth as a third hand to grip things in their mouths. When they were manipulating food or, or other objects to maybe to work tools, they held them in their front teeth. So the front teeth are quite large and they've not got much of a chin on the lower jaw. And their ear bones are even distinctive, so these tiny little structures which we can't even see buried deep in our temporal bone. From C T scanning, we can look at the shape of those bones that partly to transmit sound and also concerned with balancing the head. They are different in shape from Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

• 28:31Speaker 03

  And the difference is between us and Neanderthals in those ear bone shapes is as great or even greater than we find between, let's say, gorillas and chimpanzees. So that's really quite a distinctive feature which is laid down before birth. So it's got to be pretty fundamental genetically.

• 28:47Tristan Hughes?

  So the toolkit for the Homo sapiens, as you've highlighted there, Chris, different lifestyle, different use of technology, presumably with Homo sapiens. So when they are moving into Neanderthal territory, will they also be bringing in their small groups their own technologies, their own toolkit with them?

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Yes, that's right. So we assume that Homo sapiens was bringing its own technology and using perhaps a wider range of resources. Neanderthals did make use of quite difficult to work material like bone and antler and ivory. The Neanderthals did use those materials, but to a lesser extent than Homo sapiens did. So we get a wider range of technology. Of course, again, all the wood technology that they would have had has disappeared. So we can't tell how different they were there. But it also seems that in some cases Homo sapiens are even associated with bows and arrows. And that, of course, is really complex technology, where you've got to have careful selection of the wood to make the bow. You've got to be able to make the bow and the right sort of strength and size. You've also got

• 29:46Speaker 03

  to make your arrow shafts in maybe the same wood or a different wood. You've got to make your string for the bow out of animal or plant tissue, and that's a complex task. And you've got to mount, of course, quite a light projectile head on the end of the arrow to make it effective. So it looks like bows and arrows were being used at least by some early Homo sapiens groups. And that enables you, of course, to do killing at a distance, which is a lot less dangerous than having to get close to your prey. It's thought that in many cases, Neanderthals were what's called confrontational hunters. They were having to get close into their prey, acquiring a lot of strength, of course, a lot of courage as well, and then having to stab the prey with a thrusting spear. That's very effective, of course, but it's also more dangerous and it requires a lot more physical strength.

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• 32:55Tristan Hughes?

  Are there any key archaeological sites that highlight these Homo sapiens with the big, successful dispersal out of Africa some 60,000 years ago? Are there any key sites that show them finally reaching Neanderthal territories in Europe?

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Well, yes, I mean, there are an increasing number of sites showing this early penetration. So one of the most famous ones recently published is Groton Dran.

• 33:18Tristan Hughes?

  Yes, that's right.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  In southern France, in the Rhone Valley. And there you've got what's now a rock shelter, it's partly collapsed, but this has a long history of occupation by Neanderthals, going back to at least 70,000 years. And the Neanderthals were there most of the time from 70,000 years down to probably 40 or 42,000 years ago, when we get the appearance of Homo sapiens. But at about 54,000 years ago, there's one brief occupation by a completely distinctive group, based on their technology. So they're not making the typical Neanderthal stone tools, which are these quite larger flake tools. They're making, in this industry, you've got thousands of tiny little points, which are interpreted by some people as being arrowheads.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  And this industry is completely distinct from anything known in Western Europe at the time. It's there briefly, maybe an occupation of less than 100 years, and there's just one fossil tooth from that level. There are teeth from other levels that show they were Neanderthals, but that one level with this industry called the Neuronian, after a nearby site, this industry is associated with Homo sapiens. There's one tooth, which is a deciduous tooth, a milk tooth, but it's a Homo sapiens child. So it looks like Homo sapiens managed to come up the Rhone Valley, probably, we assume, travelled from further east along the Mediterranean coast, up the Rhone Valley, into this area, where there are several sites showing this Neuronian industry, but only there for less than 100 years, and then disappearing again. And Neanderthals come back.

• 34:50Tristan Hughes?

  And that was all obtained from one milk tooth that survived.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  Yes, that's right. There's just one tooth. There are several teeth in the other levels and one milk tooth, which you can show structurally. Unfortunately, you haven't got the DNA from it, but structurally, it's a Homo sapiens child. But interestingly, when we come into the later Neanderthal levels, we've also got this wonderful skeleton of Thorin, nicknamed Thorin from Lord of the Rings. And this is a male Neanderthal skeleton. It's still being excavated. And this is in the levels after fifty four thousand years ago, and Thorin has even got DNA. And that DNA is distinct, not only from sapiens, but also from many of the other Neanderthals. So I talked about the low diversity of Neanderthals overall, but Thorin actually has a distinct lineage

• 35:35Speaker 03

  from most of the other late Neanderthals. And that suggests that there were pockets of diversity surviving in Europe until less than fifty thousand years ago. And Thorin represents one of those pockets. And interestingly, his closest relatives in Gibraltar, there's a Neanderthal from Forbes Quarry. It was found in eighteen forty eight. It's one of the very first Neanderthal finds, even before the one from the Neanderthal, Neander Valley in Germany. And that Forbes Quarry Neanderthal, we've got DNA from that, and the DNA is similar to Thorin's. So there is a similarity between Gibraltar and the Rhone Valley in this late time, suggesting that there were surviving pockets of Neanderthal diversity, but Thorin's lineage too disappeared.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  So by forty two thousand years ago, we've got Homo sapiens occupying Rockmunderen. So the Neanderthals have disappeared from there.

• 36:24Tristan Hughes?

  But that's interesting also to highlight. It is not just Homo sapiens arrive, Neanderthals disappear straight away. It's several thousand years that this, all of this is happening in Western Europe as a good example. But it must also be fascinating for you and others, and just me thinking about it, to consider those first meeting points, some sixty or fifty thousand years ago, between groups of Homo sapiens and groups of Neanderthals already living in their isolated areas across Eurasia. And I'm guessing the variety of responses there must have been. It's not all the same everywhere that these first meeting points happen. Maybe there's cooperation or there's conflict straight away. The language barrier, this is fascinating to think when these two types of humans meet.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Yes, I mean, it must have been an incredible time, and it's a shame to be able to time machine to go back and see exactly what happened. But yes, you're right. I'm sure there were. Many different encounters, different kinds of encounters between these populations. So when they first met, and of course, we've mentioned that they could have met even more than two hundred thousand years ago, they also met, and we haven't talked about it, they also must have encountered each other in Western Asia a hundred thousand years ago, because we've got early Homo sapiens at sites like Shkul and Kafsei in Israel about a hundred thousand years ago, and we know Neanderthals were at least in the vicinity at that time. And what's interesting is that the industries at Shkul and Kafsei, for some people, they even look a bit Neanderthal-like. People have speculated there could have been contact

• 37:51Speaker 03

  between the populations, which even influenced them culturally. And so when we look at the situation after sixty thousand, yes, we've mentioned Groat Mandran, where there's this brief occupation by Homo sapiens. And when we come to forty five thousand years ago, we've got better evidence of sapiens establishing themselves in places like Romania and Chechnya and Germany and even Britain. It looks like Homo sapiens were reaching these areas in probably small numbers, pioneering groups, but encountering the Neanderthals. So possibly to begin with, the groups avoided each other. These were strange people, not known to each other, and maybe the first reaction would have been to try and keep apart. But obviously, as climates change and move them around, as population numbers maybe grew, it was more

• 38:35Speaker 03

  likely they were going to be in contact with each other. And of course, these could have been hostile encounters with actual warfare between them, but equally, they could have been more peaceful. We've evidence, of course, that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens did interbreed. So that suggests direct contact. But at the moment, with our knowledge, it's actually very difficult to know how often they're in the same place at the same time. We just don't have the precision of dating. And when there are sites with occupation by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, and I mentioned Epidemic Cave, I mentioned Groat Mandran, of course, the occupations suggest separate occupations at the moment. But at Groat Mandran, it's possible that you've even got occupation within a year or two by one group or the

• 39:19Speaker 03

  other. So they are very close to each other in time and space. And obviously, from the interbreeding, we know at times they were there. The same time. So we can't actually map how often they competed with each other. But clearly, there would have been economic competition because of course they're going to be wanting to hunt the same animals. They're going to want to collect the same plant resources and they're going to want to live in the best environments, the best cave sites, the best valleys for hunting and so on.

• 39:44Tristan Hughes?

  I was going to ask that. I mean, when they are ultimately sharing that same environment, even if they are peaceful. Is that competition for economic resources, is it ultimately inevitable and one group will ultimately suffer more than the other?

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Well, yes, I think even when we look unfortunately at our own species today, you know, we we have this competition between different groups of our species today and it can be fierce. And it can be deadly. And so that must have happened at times. And so. In terms of looking at why the Neanderthals disappeared, I I tend to think it's going to be a combination of features rather than one single thing. But yes, I'm sure that, you know, the Neanderthals, as I mentioned, they already were potentially vulnerable. In terms of their low numbers and their low genetic diversity, and it might not have needed much to tip them over the edge to extinction. And perhaps the appearance of another species that was even at times just a few percent better at exploiting the environment. Could have tipped them over the edge, but it clearly wasn't all a one way.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  Traffic of Neanderthals disappearing because I'd mentioned Epidemic Cave and I'd mentioned Glockmunderen, where the Neanderthals came back. And that's what happened in Israel too. So we have evidence of Homo sapiens at places like Schuyland Caffsay a hundred thousand years ago. But when we move on in time, the Neanderthals are back in occupation of the area and sapiens seem to have disappeared for a while. So. It wasn't all a one way traffic. And that changing environment, that changing landscape would have complicated the picture. Because some of those changes of environments might have benefited Homo sapiens and other changes might have benefited the Neanderthals.

• 41:16Tristan Hughes?

  Chris, what I also found so interesting there is amongst all of those things that potentially they were competing for would be the best cave sites. And I'm guessing, maybe not limited number, but the best sites would have already been identified by Neanderthals. So could you imagine cave sites being a key area either where there was competition or there? There were meetings between these two.

• 41:37Speaker 03

  Yes, certainly. Yes, these would have been in the landscape caves were important. They were important shelters, gathering points, points of safety, of course. And often these caves are very visible on the landscape because they're higher up, people can see them. Obviously, if people are building a fire in there, you'd have had a smoke signal showing that there's someone in the cave. So, yes, these would have been focuses of attention for both of the groups.

• 41:59Tristan Hughes?

  So let's talk about interbreeding because this is the other amazing facet of research regarding this cooperation between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals when they start meeting each other. So what is this amazing research that has emerged, revealing this mixing between the two species?

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Yes, so it's data from the last fifteen years mainly. So we had the first bits of Neanderthal DNA, mitochondrial DNA, recovered back in nineteen ninety seven incredibly from the skeleton from the Neander Valley in Germany, the one that gave its name to the group, which was amazing. But that was only mitochondrial DNA and that had showed no signs of any mixture because it was for the mitochondrial DNA, the Neanderthals were distinct from anyone alive today. There was no sign of that Neanderthal kind of mitochondrial DNA in people today. So that reinforced the idea of a clear genetic separation between them. But as the data built up in the early two thousands, people started to reconstruct more of the whole Neanderthal genome.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  And in some of those, there was evidence of a greater complexity because it was clear that there were some populations of Homo sapiens today, in fact, the ones outside of Africa. They seem closer to the Neanderthal in genomic structure than Africans did. And that's very strange to explain. Why? If there was no interbreeding, why would people outside of Africa seem closer to the Neanderthals than people who came from Africa? And of course, that led to the suspicion that those people outside of Africa had some Neanderthal DNA in their genomes, leading to this greater similarity. And in two thousand and ten, that was convincingly demonstrated because the the first high quality Neanderthal genome was reconstructed, mainly based on material from Croatia, from Vindia.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  And that showed that when we look at the genomes of people around the world today, people in Europe and Asia, Australia, the Americas, they have around two percent of Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. And that is thought to be there because of interbreeding that happened maybe fifty thousand years ago.

• 44:01Tristan Hughes?

  And that's interesting. So us today, you, me, in this room, we have Neanderthal DNA in our blood, in our body.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  That's right, in our genomes, yes. So around two percent of our DNA comes from that interbreeding, maybe fifty thousand years ago. And it means that people in Africa, in a sense, are less closely related to Neanderthals than we are. So even though I would say we did not evolve from Neanderthals, incredibly, the Neanderthals are still partly our ancestors. So it's sort of, it seems contradictory, but you know, we didn't evolve from Neanderthals, but they are partly our ancestors because today, people have calculated that there could be as much as forty percent of the Neanderthal genome around. If you take all the Neanderthal DNA today, surviving in the world in our genomes, if you put it all together, it might reconstruct as much as forty percent of the whole Neanderthal genome.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  And so, interestingly, there's far more Neanderthal DNA around today because there are billions of us than there was at the time the Neanderthals arrived.

• 45:02Tristan Hughes?

  But Chris, it's also so interesting because if it is not just conflict and competition for resources, but as the science proves, there's evidently mixing and cooperation between Neanderthal groups and Homo sapiens when they're arriving, why ultimately then do Neanderthals lose out in this interbreeding, in this cooperation element with early Homo sapiens?

• 45:24Speaker 03

  Yes, so of course that brings us on to the question of how the interbreeding happened. And obviously, if we go down to the details, we obviously know how it happened on a one-to-one basis, and Neanderthal mate with the Homo sapiens. But when we move on to how that was happening, what was the process before that happened? We don't know, of course, how many of these conflicts were friendly and how many might have been more hostile. And we will learn more about this, but it's quite possible, of course, that there were at times, if the groups had been Been on the landscape for long enough and adapted to the presence of the other groups. They might have exchanged partners in a peaceful way as modern hunter gatherer groups do at times. They exchange partners peaceably and it's it's a kind of negotiated thing to exchange partners. So that could be what happened in some places.

• 46:09Speaker 03

  But of course, the other possibility is what we see sometimes in hunter gatherer groups. And sometimes in, say, chimpanzees and so on. You will see a group of males who run out of female mates. They will raid another group and steal some females. And of course, that could have happened as well. Maybe some of these pioneering groups, largely males, actually stole some Neanderthal females and brought them into their group. And then they interbred with them. And thus Neanderthal DNA was introduced into Homo sapiens in that way. So not necessarily a nice start to the process. But certainly, those babies were then successfully brought up in the Homo sapiens groups and ultimately integrated with the Homo sapiens groups. And through later generations, that Neanderthal DNA, a lot of it disappeared.

• 46:54Speaker 03

  So it seems that within a few thousand years, most of the Neanderthal DNA that had been acquired had been selected away. But bits of it were actually enhanced and became more common. And that's a very interesting area, of course. But it suggests that some of these bits of Neanderthal DNA could have been advantageous for our Homo sapiens people forty or forty-five thousand years ago.

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• 48:38Tristan Hughes?

  So it seems that the interbreeding is more successful within Homo sapiens groups than within Neanderthals groups. And do we think that is just, like, could there also be a physical bodily structure reason for that too?

• 48:50Speaker 03

  Yes, I mean, that's one of the interesting questions. So obviously, we know there was a two-way exchange of DNA maybe 300,000 years ago between us and Neanderthals. But at that time, the lineages, of course, were more closely related. They were closer to the common ancestor. But by the time we get to 60,000 or 50,000 years ago, the groups had diverged even further genetically and physically. And so it's possible, and this is one of the strange things, when we look at all the early Homo sapiens fossils that we've got, all of them have signs of Neanderthal interbreeding in that period between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago. Whether we're looking at China or whether we're looking at Europe. But when we look at the Neanderthals from the same time period, oddly, none of them show any signs of recent Homo sapiens interbreeding.

• 49:35Speaker 03

  Now, that might mean that it only went one way, that the groups, for some reason, didn't tolerate interbreeding with each other in one direction or the other. So whereas the sapiens were tolerant of Neanderthal interbreeding, maybe the Neanderthals were not tolerant of sapiens coming into their group and interbreeding with them. That's possible. But it's also possible there were incompatibilities. And these could have been genetic incompatibilities. There's some recent work that suggests that Neanderthals had some distinct blood groups. From Homo sapiens, including in the recess system. So possibly there were some genetic incompatibilities. When a Neanderthal mother in her own group was trying to give birth to a hybrid baby, maybe those births were less successful. But there also could be physical reasons.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  The pelvic shape is different between Neanderthal females and Homo sapiens females. And the Neanderthal head shape of a baby is slightly different to a sapiens baby's head shape. So possibly the birth process was more complicated for a Neanderthal mother to give birth to a hybrid baby than from a Homo sapiens mother to give birth to a hybrid baby. So that also could have been part of the process, but ultimately largely it's movement of DNA in one direction into Homo sapiens. And that's also bad news for the Neanderthals because I've mentioned that they're low in numbers. And they're also losing their prime age individuals. We don't know if it's male or female or both into the sapiens groups. So they're losing prime age breeding individuals into the Homo sapiens groups.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  And that depletes their own gene pool.

• 51:05Tristan Hughes?

  They can't be replaced.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. They're losing people and they can't replace them.

• 51:09Tristan Hughes?

  So do you think that the arrival of Homo sapiens on the scene is either the catalyst or the cause for the extinction of Neanderthals?

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I think it's it's impossible to say how much of it was purely down to us. But I think it's a combination of things. There also was climate change going on and there were some severe cold shocks in this period between forty and fifty thousand, which actually impacted both groups. But interestingly, there is some evidence of exchange of information between the groups as well. Because some of those early sapiens groups at forty five thousand years ago seemed to be adapting quite well to cold conditions. They're already, some of them, in really quite cold conditions. And it's possible that that is a sign that they picked up some Neanderthal adaptation. So the Neanderthals were, of course, well adapted to cold conditions culturally.

• 52:00Speaker 03

  The kind of stone tools you need, the best animals to get for skins to wear, how you process the skins. All of those things perhaps could have been useful. So by taking in Neanderthal members into their groups, they could have picked up some of that Neanderthal knowledge of how to live in the cold, and that would have been very useful for Homo sapiens. And genetically, the genetic inheritance was also useful because it seems that a lot of our immune systems outside of Africa have elements of Neanderthal DNA in them. And that makes sense because, of course, we had evolved in Africa with African diseases and pathogens and so on. Coming out of Africa into Western Asia and then into Europe, we were going to be encountering new diseases, new pathogens and so on. The Neanderthals had evolved in those areas for hundreds of thousands of years.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  They would have had genetic defences to those diseases. We didn't have them. By interbreeding with Neanderthals, we got a quick fix to our immune system. So that was also an advantage for us.

• 52:55Tristan Hughes?

  But on the flip side, maybe certain groups, Homo sapiens, could they have been bringing diseases with them from Africa that Neanderthal groups who they encountered and maybe were cooperating with, but as a side effect, they were more vulnerable to those diseases?

• 53:08Speaker 03

  Yes, I mean, it could have been a two-way process. Once they're mixing, of course, diseases will go either way. And in both cases, there could be immune problems, that you won't have the immunity. So it could have affected Neanderthal numbers if they were also small in number and Neanderthal numbers were shrinking and Homo sapiens numbers were increasing. Again, that would have had a bad impact on the Neanderthals. But as a parallel, some people have thought, yes, you think of the way smallpox decimated populations in the Americas and in Australia when it was brought there by people travelling from Europe. We tend to think of that, but of course, these were diseases that spread in large numbers of people in urban centres. So in those cases, the populations are closely packed together and it's much easier to transmit the diseases.

• 53:52Speaker 03

  When we go back to 50,000 years ago, populations are more scattered and living in smaller numbers. So I think that purely disease is not going to be enough of an explanation in the situation we're in because these populations are small in number and they're spread out more.

• 54:06Tristan Hughes?

  So let's go to the end, and you mentioned Gibraltar earlier, and I'd like to revisit Gibraltar now. So roughly 40,000 years ago, the Neanderthals have either gone or on their very, very last legs. But geographically, topographically, Gibraltar, you know, this great rock, this fortress at the southern toe of the Iberian Peninsula, overlooking the entrance into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean. As a story, people love this idea of Gibraltar as this stronghold, maybe like that last enclave for Neanderthals before they go extinct. How credible is this and what information is there for Neanderthals in Gibraltar at this late stage?

• 54:46Speaker 03

  Neanderthals certainly thrived in Gibraltar for tens of thousands of years and we've got a number of sites where they were living and I've worked at Van Gogh Cave and Gorham's Cave there. And of course, we've got DNA from the Forbes Quarry Neanderthal and the Devil's Tower.

• 55:00Tristan Hughes?

  And those are all sites in Neanderthals?

• 55:01Speaker 03

  So there's all sites in Gibraltar. So Neanderthals certainly were thriving at times in Gibraltar. It's of course a relatively benign environment, while further north there would have been, you know, much, much worse conditions, much colder conditions. Gibraltar and the whole of the south of Iberia would have been at times a refugium in which Neanderthals could survive. And I mentioned the similarity between the DNA of the Forbes Quarry Neanderthal from Gibraltar and Thorin's DNA. So there's that connection which we can pick up in Thorin, maybe 50,000 years ago, between Gibraltar and the Rome Valley. But although it's been claimed that Neanderthals survived even down to 30,000 years ago in Gibraltar, and I was actually, my name's on a paper that suggested that 20 years ago,

• 55:46Speaker 03

  I think the data now show that there's no evidence Neanderthals survived any longer in Gibraltar than they survived anywhere else. And I think they were gone from there by 40,000 years ago. And I know it's claimed that, you know, this benign environment in Gibraltar allowed them to survive longer. But of course, that benign environment would have been attractive to Homo sapiens as well. And we know there were Homo sapiens in southern Iberia 42,000 years ago. So I don't know what would have kept them from going to Gibraltar if it was such a nice environment. So I personally don't think Gibraltar has any evidence to be the last stronghold of Neanderthals. It could have been one of their last strongholds, but equally, I've mentioned that we really don't have data from many areas further east for when the Neanderthals disappeared.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  So they could have survived longer there, but maybe they survived in pockets further east that we haven't yet discovered.

• 56:36Tristan Hughes?

  I will ask about Britain, last of all. I mean, do we have much evidence for the last Neanderthals in Britain? From the archaeological record.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  There's not as much evidence from Britain as we would like to have for the last Neanderthals. So we have evidence of their stone tools at sites that go back to probably certainly forty five or fifty thousand years ago. In Jersey, there's intriguing evidence on the island of Jersey of a population that might even had mixed Neanderthal Homo sapiens features. So there are some teeth which were thought to be Neanderthal teeth, discovered more than a century ago in La Cotta St. Brelad. But we studied them recently and intriguingly, there are two different individuals. And both these individuals in their teeth show features that we think are typical, both of Neanderthals and of Homo sapiens. And they're roughly forty five thousand years old. So that's exactly the time when there might have been a mixed population.

• 57:26Speaker 03

  So not much evidence as we would like, but it's possible there was even a kind of mixed heritage population on Jersey about forty five thousand years ago. And when we come back to mainland Britain, we've got evidence now from Wogan Cabin. So Wogan Cabin is a fantastic site situated under Pembroke Castle.

• 57:45Tristan Hughes?

  Quite a site.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  It is quite a site and I think you've you've been there, haven't you? So you know what it's like. But that site has evidence of early Homo sapiens occupation. So there's even an LRJ point. Now, this industry, the Incumium ranovitzian, Yermanovitzian. This is an industry which we know typifies a Homo sapiens expansion in Europe about forty five thousand years ago. Which is present in places like Chechnya, is present in Germany, is present in Belgium and it's present at Wogan Cabin. So this was a spread of sapiens previously undetected, probably about forty five thousand years ago, reaching right over into Western Britain. And were the Neanderthals still there at that time? Well, we can't be sure.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  But I think Wogan Cabin will be one of the places that will show the evidence of that or not.

• 58:33Tristan Hughes?

  Chris, this has been absolutely fantastic. Is there anything else you'd like to mention before we wrap up about the last Neanderthals and this facet of Neanderthal history?

• 58:41Speaker 03

  I don't think there's anything particular, but obviously watch this space because in the next year, we're going to see yet more fantastic publications about this period of time between forty and fifty thousand years ago.

• 58:51Tristan Hughes?

  Brilliant. Chris, always a pleasure. Thank you so much.

• 58:54Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  Well, there was Professor Chris Stringer, Oracle of Neanderthal and.

• 59:01Tristan Hughes?

  Mesapian Studies explaining all about the last Neanderthals. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you for listening. The fourth and final episode of our Ice Age series will be out next Sunday, Saturday for those of you who are subscribers, where we will explore the end of the Ice Age, the big melt, but also this unusual period where the climate started getting colder again, known as the Younger Dryas. That episode will be coming next weekend. In the meantime, please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad-free

• 59:42Tristan Hughes?

  and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 1:00:01Speaker 06

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Everybody, listen up!

• 1:00:15Speaker 06

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.