The Neanderthals were a people native to Europe during the Pleistocene period, who became extinct between forty and thirty thousand years ago. Challenging the commonly held view that extinction was caused by the arrival of our ancestors, Clive Finlayson provides evidence that their extinction actually occurred because the Neanderthals could not adapt fast enough to changing ecological and environmental conditions, not their relationship with modern humans.

Preface and acknowledgements; 1. Human evolution in the Pleistocene; 2. Biogeographical patterns; 3. Human range expansions, contractions and extinctions; 4. The modern human-Neanderthal problem; 5. Comparative behaviour and ecology of Neanderthals and modern humans; 6. The conditions in Africa and Eurasia during the last Glacial Cycle; 7. The modern human colonization and the Neanderthal extinction; 8. The survival of the weakest; References; Index.