Analysis reveals the impact of external factors on Neanderthal and modern human populations, suggesting a complex evolutionary narrative.
Evolutionary history is often misinterpreted as a deterministic progression of adaptive superiority, ignoring that survival frequently depends on geographical contingency rather than prior optimization. This paper analyzes the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) not as a selective gradient, but as a structural annihilator that reduced both Neanderthal and European Sapiens populations to systemic incoherence. By applying the framework of non-derivable bifurcation, I argue that the repopulation of Europe was a structural replacement by external lineages rather than an internal evolutionary continuation. Within this model, Neanderthal genetic residue (1–2%) in modern humans is redefined as a "structural fossil": fragmentary information from a collapsed trajectory absorbed by the new dominant system. Ultimately, the disappearance of Neanderthals is revealed as a contingent bifurcation, demonstrating that history only appears deterministic when the exogenous shocks that broke its prior trajectories are erased.
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Claudio Bresciano (2026) studied this question.
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