Actually, I misspoke. The Younger Dryas was an example of rapid climate change. As the world's climate was coming out of the last ice age, something happened (possibly the draining of giant Lake Agassiz into the North Atlantic) that reversed the warming trend in the northern hemisphere back into a glacial climate. The Younger Dryas took place 12,900–11,500 years ago. The change in temperature was not as abrupt as what we're currently seeing with increases of 2-3°C in Alaska and Siberia just since the 1950s. The Younger Dryas was perhaps 10°C degrees cooler at its coldest.
"Getting bogged down in a marsh, falling into "riparian" gullies, getting mired in sticky mudflows, falling through the thin ice of a lake, and getting caught in river bank cave-ins of river ice are some of the hazards mammoths would face. Judging by what they were eating, it appears that the time of death was usually late summer or early fall, precisely the time when melting and solifluction would have been at a maximum and travel most dangerous. Most of their remains are associated with river valleys and fluviatile and terrestrial sediment. There is no direct evidence that any mammoth simply froze to death." (Farrand, 1961)
Foreigner1, the reports of frozen mammoths with well-preserved flesh are greatly exaggerated. There are only a handful of mammoth remains found with any flesh remaining. In all cases, the internal organs were rotted, or the body was partly eaten by scavengers, or both, BEFORE the animal became frozen. "The Berezovka mammoth, perhaps the most famous example, showed evidence of very slow decay and was putrefied to the point that the excavators found its stench unbearable." (Weber 1980)
Oh, and there wasn't a quick change in the environment as A.Mercer seems to suggest above.
The environmental change (into a glaciated period) was over many thousands of years -- not decades as we are seeing now. Climate change has always taken place over many thousands of years. What we're seeing now is unprecedented.
Damn, the first part of my post was truncated. I was saying that Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans coexisted for many thousands of years. That coexistence seemed to end when Homo Sapiens underwent some sort of change 40K-75K years ago.
75k years ago. While our skeletal fossils show no appreciable change, our toolkit changed, became more complex (Aurignacian), and we began to produce art and developed elaborate burial rituals. We also began spreading into Europe. This is when the slow demise of the Neanderthal began.
We don't know the nature of this change. Some suggest Homo Sapiens developed the ability to think symbolically, or perhaps our language abilities radically improved. We can only guess.
Before this change the two species coexisted or seemed oblivious to each other. Afterwards, the Neanderthals' world slowly compressed to a small part of the Iberian peninsula where their last stand took place. Near the end Homo Neanderthalis remains began showing some of the same characteristics as Homo Sapiens, a more modern toolkit and some artwork. It's not known if these were trade goods or if they were also making the same leap Homo Sapiens had made -- albeit too late to save them.
There are only a handful of mammoth remains found with any flesh remaining. In all cases, the internal organs were rotted, or the body was partly eaten by scavengers, or both, BEFORE the animal became frozen. "The Berezovka mammoth, perhaps the most famous example, showed evidence of very slow decay and was putrefied to the point that the excavators found its stench unbearable." (Weber 1980)
The environmental change (into a glaciated period) was over many thousands of years -- not decades as we are seeing now. Climate change has always taken place over many thousands of years. What we're seeing now is unprecedented.
We don't know the nature of this change. Some suggest Homo Sapiens developed the ability to think symbolically, or perhaps our language abilities radically improved. We can only guess.
Before this change the two species coexisted or seemed oblivious to each other. Afterwards, the Neanderthals' world slowly compressed to a small part of the Iberian peninsula where their last stand took place. Near the end Homo Neanderthalis remains began showing some of the same characteristics as Homo Sapiens, a more modern toolkit and some artwork. It's not known if these were trade goods or if they were also making the same leap Homo Sapiens had made -- albeit too late to save them.