Climate change in Europe between 90 and 50 kyr BP and Neanderthal territorial habitability

Period 4 (64–51 kyr BP). In the fourth period, there was an increase in high probability niches everywhere particularly in Balkans and Western Europe (Fig 5). In this period, the per- centage of suitable niches for Neanderthals increases slightly both if we consider P > 0.8, and for P > 0.9 reaching respectively 3.5% and 1.1% (Fig 12). Fig 8. Highly favorable areas for the Neanderthals: Maxent’s estimated probability of suitable conditions allways greater than 0.9 over time (in black regions). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308690.g008 Fig 7. Highly favorable areas for the Neanderthals: Maxent’s estimated probability of suitable conditions allways greater than 0.8 over time (in black regions). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308690.g007 Fig 6. Heat maps of Maxent modelling results: Estimated probability of suitable conditions for the Neanderthals, for period P5 (51 kyr– 50 kyr). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308690.g006 PLOS ONE Neanderthal habitability PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308690 February 26, 2025 8 / 17