Homo Sapiens had several tries at settling Europe

[Duncan Head]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/nov/14/try-try-and-try-again-why-did-modern-humans-take-so-long-to-settle-in-europe

[Mark G]

Does it say wether there were Neanderthal home secretary's nudging their boats back?

[Aetius]

Being half Finnish on my mother's side I have an occipital bump like the Neanderthals. I wonder if this is due to the crossbreeding or some other genetic factor...

John

[Imperial Dave]

Does it say whether there were Neanderthal home secretary's nudging their boats back?

[RichT]

"The behaviour of Homo sapiens was a big factor in our 'success', I think. Maybe we networked better, or accumulated knowledge more effectively, and so learned how to extract resources more intensively than Neanderthals did."

It's usually the case, or at least it used to usually be the case, that explanations for one group of homo sapiens overwhelming another group of home sapiens in historical times centre around better weapons and tactics. Why would this not apply also to sapiens-Neanderthalensis interactions (rhetorically).

[Aetius]

Another factor perhaps was that there was on average 1,500 female Neanderthals of breeding age at anyone time. Waves of Homo Sapiens Sapiens could have simply outbred them. diluting Neanderthals genetic material in modern day humans...

John

[Nick Harbud]

The fecund shall inherit the Earth?     

[Mick Hession]

The fecund shall inherit the Earth?     

Pedantically no - but their numerous descendants will 

[Aetius]

Is this where be fruitful and multiply comes from...

John

[Erpingham]

It was all a translation error.  When homo sapiens turned up, they misinterpreted what the Neanderthals told them as "Go forth and multiply!" .

[Aetius]

John

[aligern]

IIRC the latest thinking on Neanderthal replacement is that there was very little direct combat between the human types.  The Neanderthals were simply out competed for the fertile valleys and the climate changed to favour more open terrain which made life more difficult for the Neanderthals who needed close terrain for their ambush tactics.  Apparently the Neanderthals used only hand held spears whereas Homo Sapiens could use throwing spears, with an atlatl device and bows.  Those hunting weapons would  better suit an open terrain.
It has been suggested that Sapiens operated in larger groups than the Neanderthals  and was capable of assembling even larger numbers because they had religion and shamans were capable of uniting groups.  The recent discovery of Gobleke Tepe suggests that hunter gatherers  in EME may have come together in large numbers for seasonal meets, feasts and probably planning and territory allocation, For example colonisation projects might well have been joint affairs with several groups contributing, or they may  have been a matter of one large group splitting. The Neanderthals most likely simply avoided the incoming Sapiens because they do notvappear to have worked together.
One area where Neanderthal settlement may have held up the advance of Sapiens was in the Palestine corridor where HS's  progress was long held up.  It has even been theorised that some sirt of memory of devils may have started with nemories of Neanderthal cannibals who ate  captured Sapiens and stole their women.  The theory goes tgat Sapiens bred bigger and more aggressive males to take on the Neanderthals dominating the route North.  I'd say jury's out on that one.  We should remember that The combined numbers of all humans invEurope will have been small, leaving   plenty of room for all except when climatic pressures ( not the least, Ice Ages!) enforced competition.
Roy

[Duncan Head]

IIRC the latest thinking on Neanderthal replacement is that there was very little direct combat between the human types.

Other than that required to give us an average of 2% Neanderthal DNA, of course.