NEANDERTHALS, HUMANS INTERBRED 100k YEARS AGO.
Neanderthals may have been mating with modern humans 1,00,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought, a new study based on DNA analysis has found. Scientists have provided the first genetic evidence of a scenario in which early modern humans left the African continent and mixed with now-extinct members of the human family prior to the migration 'out of Africa' of the ancestors of present-day non-Africans, less than 65,000 years ago. "It's been known for several years that Neanderthal and humans inter-bred. But that data refers to an event dating to around 47,000 to 65,000 years ago, around the time that human populations emigrated from Africa", said Professor Adam Siepel.
"The finding shows a signal of breeding in the 'opposite' direction from that already known. That is, we show human DNA in a Neanderthal genome, rather than Neanderthal DNA in human genomes", said Siepel.
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