Over 14,000 years ago when most of Europe was covered in ice and snow during the last ice age of the Pleistocene Neanderthals were able to survive in the very southern tip of the Iberian peninsula in the region of Gibraltar for much longer than elsewhere in Europe because of the plant and animal biodiversity in this "refuge". An international team has reconstructed the landscape near Gorham's cave in Gibraltar by analysing paleobotanical data from geological deposits.
The biodiversity in the area was "unique" compared to the rest of Europe at the time (much of which was under masses of thick ice anyway) and enabled the Neanderthals to survive here 10,000 years longer than in the rest of Europe.
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