Reply to Van Peer: Direct radiocarbon dating and ancient genomic analysis reveal the true age of the Neanderthals at Spy Cave

Van Peer (1) contests the conclusions of our article on Neanderthal disappearance in Northwest Europe (2), but we think his argument may reflect a misunderstanding of the stratigraphy at Spy Cave and/or incomplete reading of our article. We provide here a response to his arguments.The idea that the discovery time of the Neanderthal bones impacts the results is not scientifically valid and indicates an incomplete review of the literature. Among the oldest radiocarbon dates obtained on the Spy Neanderthals are those measured on collagen from material collected on the slope: Spy 737a (OxA-10560) and Spy 94a (GrA-32623) (3, 4). In addition, although found on the slope, the maxillary …