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Tim Bouma

This seems pretty far-fetched: Neanderthals went extinct because they didn’t have sunscreen?

I prefer the theory that Neanderthals got out-competed by Homo Sapiens because they could not figure out trade.

Ultraviolet radiation played a big role in the extinction of the Neanderthals.The Wall Street Journal

Aug 07, 2025

What happened Neanderthals?

Our ancestral cousins went mysteriously extinct around 40,000 years ago, while Homo sapiens did not.

The demise of one and survival of the other continues to flummox paleoanthropologists—but some researchers now think sunscreen and tailored clothing might have played a role.

Around the time Neanderthals bit the dust, a weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field resulted in exposure to higher doses of harmful ultraviolet radiation.

Clothing would have offered some protection. Both groups wore animal skins, but evidence suggests Neanderthals tended to wear loose-fitting cloaks, while Homo sapiens sewed form-fitting garments. Homo sapiens also coated themselves with mineral pigments, which would have functioned as an ancient SPF.

It is unlikely that these differences in behavior alone would explain the Neanderthals’ demise, but researchers think that their exposure to increased radiation would have had detrimental effects.

The increased exposure occurred when Earth’s north and south magnetic poles began to wander from their traditional positions.

The rotation of the planet and its molten core help generate a protective magnetic field that keeps the planet’s ozone layer robust and protects inhabitants from highenergy particles that constantly flow from the sun. The field is anchored at the poles, where magnetic forces are most concentrated. But small changes in the core can cause the poles to wander.

During the twilight of the Neanderthals, such a wandering caused the magnetic field to drop to about 10% of its average strength. Scientists call this the Laschamps event.

To test the effects of the Laschamps, Agnit Mukhopadhyay, a University of Michigan space scientist, and his group created 3-D models of what Earth’s magnetic field would have looked like during the event. The results, published in the journal Science Advances, showed where the magnetic field was compromised, allowing radiation and particles to slip through.

Researchers know the magnetic field went haywire way back then by examining minerals smaller than the width of a human hair found within ancient deep-sea sediments and volcanic rocks. These tiny grains, which contain iron, become magnetized, and their alignment offers clues about the state of Earth’s magnetic field at the time.

The researchers’ analysis suggests Earth’s northern and southern latitudes up to 40 degrees would have been disproportionately affected by the weakening. This area in the Northern Hemisphere—including what is today Spain—is where many Neanderthal and Homo sapiens populations lived.

“As an anthropologist, I was intrigued, because I think a lot about how climate and weather might have affected Homo sapiens and other species, but I never thought about space,” said Raven Garvey, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and Mukhopadhyay’s co-author.

For about a millennium or two, during the Laschamps event, Earth would have experienced higher levels of invisible, cosmic radiation.

But the impact of a thinner ozone layer wasn’t just about increased radiation exposure. It also would have affected cloud cover, wind belts, rainfall and general weather patterns.

Mukhopadhyay’s group suggested two theories of what helped Homo sapiens, who interbred with Neanderthals, to survive: the use of a primitive kind of sunscreen known as ocher—a naturally occurring pigment composed of iron oxide often used for cave art—to protect their bodies from the sun, and clothing that hugged the body and covered more skin.

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