Why was it that only the Homo sapiens reached the Neolithic Revolution?

[guy]

I have read that there were several different Homo species in prehistoric times (H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis, H. erectus, etc.). Why is it that only the Homo sapiens went from hunter-gatherer to agricultural farming in the Neolithic Revolution, and all the others died out? Maybe the Homo sapiens had a larger brain and were thus more intelligent, but couldn't some of the other species have coexisted with them?

 

[geebee1]

Human evolution is the phenotypic history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids ("great apes") and mammals. The study of human evolution uses many scientific disciplines, including physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, linguistics and genetics.

The term "human" in the context of human evolution refers to the genus Homo, but studies of human evolution usually include other hominids, such as the Australopithecines, from which the genus Homo had diverged by about 2.3 to 2.4 million years ago in Africa. Scientists have estimated that humans branched off from their common ancestor with chimpanzees about 5–7 million years ago. Several species and subspecies of Homo evolved and are now extinct, introgressed or extant. Examples include Homo erectus (which inhabited Asia, Africa, and Europe) and Neanderthals (either Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) (which inhabited Europe and Asia). Archaic Homo sapiens evolved between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago.

The dominant view among scientists concerning the origin of anatomically modern humans is the hypothesis known as "Out of Africa", recent African origin of modern humans, ROAM, or recent African origin hypothesis, which argues that Homo sapiens arose in Africa and migrated out of the continent around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, replacing populations of Homo erectus in Asia and Neanderthals in Europe.

Scientists supporting an alternative multiregional hypothesis argue that Homo sapiens evolved as geographically separate but interbreeding populations stemming from a worldwide migration of Homo erectus out of Africa nearly 2.5 million years ago. Evidence suggests that an X-linked haplotype of the Neanderthal origin is present among all non-African populations, and Neaderthals and other hominids, such as Denisova hominin may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to modern humans. Archaic genetic contribution contradicts total Eurasian replacement around 100,000 years ago.

Let's not forget the Neanderthals. They left Africa some 300,000 years before us, crossed the Alps and met up with us some 200,000 years later. We lived alongside them, mated with them, produced viable offspring, were found in communal burial sites, clearly we fought with them and then they died out some 12,000 years ago. Some say it was us that wiped them out.

Whatever the truth of the matter, we have between 1 and 4.5% Neanderthal DNA in modern Humans. That's their legacy.