来自亚利桑那州立大学和科罗拉多大学丹佛分校的研究者利用计算机建模方法，对末次冰期时古人类在文化层面及生物学层面如何应对气候变化进行了研究，而此项研究的结果还透露了关于尼安德特人如何灭绝的相关信息。Michael Barton是将计算机建模方法应用于考古学的先锋，他综合三个进化系统（生物、文化、环境）建立了理论方法论框架，以此来进行研究。研究结果显示尼安德特人之所以消亡，并不是因为他们越来越不适应气候的变化，而是因为他们的行为习惯比现代人类还要复杂。
此项研究的协作者Julien Riel-Salvatore说，长期以来人们一直认为现代人类比尼安德特人的适应能力更强，从而使其灭绝，但或许事实并非如此，正是由于尼安德特人在诸多方面都达到了黄金的适应效果，才导致它们难以适应气候变迁而消亡，它们是成功的牺牲品。
来自不同学科的研究者共同利用数据追溯10万年前居住在欧亚大陆西部的尼安德特人的行为方式变化，他们发现随着时间的变化，尼安德特人的迁移频率逐渐增加，这很可能是由气候变化引起的。Barton说，末次冰期时，尼安德特人和现代人类祖先的采集狩猎区域都大为扩展。研究者利用计算机模型分析了这些变化引起的结果，其中就包括尼安德特人与现代人类之间的杂交。Riel-Salvatore说，计算机模拟显示尼安德特人比之前想象的要灵活得多，聪明得多。不过现代人类可能将尼安德特人视作伙伴，久而久之，尼安德特人就融入了现代人类，仅仅是作为一个在身体特征上能被辨识的族群存在了。
Modeling Human Ecodynamics and Biocultural Interactions in the Late Pleistocene of Western Eurasia
C. Michael Barton, Julien Riel-Salvatore, John M. Anderies and Gabriel Popescu
Given the complex and multidimensional nature of human evolution, we need to develop theoretical and methodological frameworks to account for and model the dynamic feedbacks between co-operational biological and cultural evolutionary systems to better understand the processes that produced modern human behavior. Equally important is the generation of explicit theory-based models that can be tested against the empirical paleoanthropological record. We present a case study that examines evidence for culturally-driven behavioral change among Late Pleistocene hominins that altered the social niche occupied by hominins in western Eurasia, with consequences for subsequent biological and cultural evolution. We draw on a large sample of 167 Pleistocene assemblages across western Eurasia and employ mathematical and computational modeling to explore the feedbacks between cultural and biological inheritance. Shifts in land-use strategies changed the opportunities for social and biological interaction among Late Pleistocene hominins in western Eurasia with a cascade of consequences for cultural and biological evolution, including the disappearance of Neanderthals from the fossil and archaeological records, and the acceleration of cultural evolution among ancestors of modern humans.
