[LatteLazy]

Isn't technology the only good explanation in that case?

1. Humans without tech can't even settle there.

2. Humans develop tech (textiles, fire etc).

3. Humans suddenly don't just settle there, they out-compete neanderthals.

Step 2 took too short a time for major genetic changes. So the changes were behavioural. Seems logical to my non-anthropologist brain...

[raxxorrax]

I could imagine another case were Neanderthals had technology or the wrong faith, were declared witches and heretics and consequently prosecuted until extinction. Age old story and a clear pattern in human history. Being out-competed sounds very unlikely because neanderthals probably were generalists too so at least some would have survived. You generally don't out-compete people by advanced technology. The opposite seems true with modern humans.

[CRConrad]

> Being out-competed sounds very unlikely because neanderthals probably were generalists too so at least some would have survived.

SF author Philip José Farmer wrote at least one novel, I think a series of novels, where they did, and still live among us. Discreetly, on the fringes of society.

[prepend]

It’s a pretty big geographic space. I can’t imagine a religion that would span the entire continent and be responsible for genocide.

Seems like there would be many different religions between both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

Even in the Middle Ages not all of Europe was a single religion.