Climate change has detrimental real world consequences. Just ask the Neanderthals. Oopps! They're extinct and a new study argues climate change hastened their extinction.

In the case of the Neanderthals, it was global cooling and not global warming that did in this subspecies of human in the genus Homo that became extinct between 40,000 and 28,000 years ago, said a new study published in Journal of Human Evolution.

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 A team led by Dr. Jamei Hodgkins, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Colorado Denver, found evidence that during colder periods, Neanderthals worked harder to remove meat and marrow from bones of animals they had slaughtered than they did during warm periods.

She said this seems to indicate Neanderthals struggled to get enough calories during periods when the climate was colder. This conclusion supports existing theories that changes in the climate (most probably caused by a massive volcanic eruption) led to the extinction of the Neanderthals 40,000 years ago.

This eruption apparently caused temperatures to fall by 1 to 2 degrees. As a result, ice and snow spread further south to Neanderthal homelands that had been previously snow free.

"Our research uncovers a pattern showing that cold, harsh environments were stressful for Neanderthals," said Dr. Hodgkins.

"As the climate got colder, Neanderthals had to put more into extracting nutrients from bones. This is especially apparent in evidence that reveals Neanderthals attempted to break open even low marrow yield bones, like the small bones of the feet."

The researchers examined butchered remains of red deer, reindeer and roe deer found at two Neanderthal sites in the Dordogne Valley in southwest France. They examined how the carcasses of deer and other animals were butchered and used for food. They said splitting the bones for marrow was a sign of food scarcity in a colder climate.

Dr. Hodgkins' findings add more evidence to support the theory that climate change might have been a key factor in the extinction of the Neanderthals.

"Our results illustrate that climate change has real effects," said Dr. Hodgkins. "Studying Neanderthal behavior is an opportunity to understand how a rapidly changing climate affected our closest human relatives in the past.

"If Neanderthal populations were already on the edge of survival at the end of the Ice Age, the increased competition that occurred when modern humans appeared on the scene may have pushed them over the edge."

Tagsneanderthals, Climate Change, Journal of Human Evolution., Dr. Jamei Hodgkins, University of Colorado Denver