Neanderthals may have been sprinters not endurance runners

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2192192-neanderthals-may-have-been-sprinters-not-endurance-runners/

We may have to rewrite what we know about Neanderthals — they were sprinters rather than long distance joggers, and occupied forests, not bleak tundra-like wasteland.

Neanderthals died out around 40,000 years ago. Evidence had suggested they were adapted to the cold, harsh conditions of the last ice age and Neanderthal fossil remains have often been associated with ice age mammals such as mammoths, woolly rhinos, horses and reindeer.

However, a new analysis suggests a different view. “A closer look at the layers in which their fossils are found suggest Neanderthals actually lived at the same times and places as animals that are associated with warmer, woodland ecologies,” says John Stewart at the University of Bournemouth, who led the study.

In such an environment, hunting in short bursts would be more favoured, says Stewart, “more power sprint than endurance jog.”