At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/01/siberian-neanderthal… …. a new study in PNAS reveals that Neanderthals trekked as far north as the Altai Mountains in Siberia, carrying with them a tool kit used to kill and butcher bison and horses …
… this seems to be the latest outpost of their eastwards expansion, for whatever reason they may have decided to migrate. In the Chagyrskaya Cave some 74 remains of Neanderthals were found, and 90,000 stone and bone tools. The cave deposit was 3.5m thick. The tools were similar to Neanderthal tools from eastern Europe, giving them a huge spread with a big signature in central Asia.
At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/01/new-study-debunks-my… … a new study debunks the idea Cahokia, as far as southern Illinois is concerned, had abandoned the region as a result of Mississippi flood events, a popular explanation that surfaced a few years ago. Other theories point to resource scarcity or drought, all things difficult to define as far as life and death are concerned. The new study says Native Americans continued to occupy the region up to the European colonisation period. They were known as the Illinois Federation of tribes to the early settlers and grew maize, hunted bison, in a landscape of mixed small farms, and gardens …
… In contrast, the Mississippian Culture, which had spread through the easter States between AD700 and 1500, leaving behind those distinctive mounds, appears to disappear from the landscape. A series of migrations, tribal wars, and ecological change are blamed, dating around 1500 to 1600. However, did the so called plague also affect North America and lead to a drop in population, followed by conquest by migrants from elsewhere – or the adoption of a more mobile way of living.