Lack of brainpower for socialising may have wiped out Neanderthals

Neanderthals' bigger eyes and bodies meant they had less brain space to dedicate to social networking, which may explain why they died out and Homo sapiens conquered the planet, a study said yesterday.

An enigmatic branch of the human family tree, Neanderthals lived in Europe, Central Asia and Middle East for up to 300,000 years, but vanished from the fossil record about 30,000 years ago.

Why they disappeared is one of the hottest topics in anthropology. Theories range from climate change to aggression from their H. sapiens cousins.

Now experts from Oxford University and London's Natural History Museum suggest the answer lies in available brainpower.

Neanderthals were stockier than anatomically modern humans who shared the planet with them at the time of their demise, but their brains were the same size, the team writes in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, which deals with biological research.

As a result, Neanderthals "would have required proportionately more neural matter" to maintain and control their larger bodies, they say.