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Due to its geographical location and climate, northwestern Europe was at the edge of the hominin range throughout most of the Palaeolithic period. The pattern of the presence and absence of hominins through time, and the implications for their survival skills, have been the focus of considerable research. Here, we take the relatively rich late Middle Palaeolithic record from northern France as a starting point for examining the demographic processes underlying hiatuses in the Palaeolithic record. What did this involve in terms of changes in the distribution and abundance of Neandertal populations, and interactions between populations, during the glacial–interglacial cycles? Definitions in the ecological literature of terms such as ‘refugia’ and research on the nature of population responses to Pleistocene climatic fluctuations may be helpful in posing this and other questions regarding human evolution. Current understanding of Neandertal ecology and comparative data support the argument that rather than tracking preferred habitats, northern populations of Neandertals suffered local extinctions. The archaeological record and genetic studies of Neandertals and carnivore species potentially provide information relevant to this hypothesis, but interpreting this evidence is challenging. This process of repeated regional extinction would have been an important factor in the demography of hominin populations, and may have been at the root of the development of the Neandertal lineage.