It was somewhat held that Neanderthals were completely different to us, Homo Sapiens. There's a new twist to this story arising from the studies made by the team/s led by Dr Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany and Dr David Reich, of Harvard Medical School in Boston.
- The prevailing scientific theory at the moment is that human beings first evolved in Africa.
- A part of this group of individuals migrated out of Africa and they populated the rest of the world.
- With the recent study, Neanderthal DNA was found in the blood of Europeans, Asians and Australasians. Neanderthal DNA, however, is not found in the blood of Africans whose ancestors remained in the continent.
- This implies that the group of Africans who migrated out of Africa interbred with Neanderthals at some stage during their migration out of Africa around 80,000 years ago.
Notes: Previously, getting DNA from the remains of Neanderthals themselves is difficult because their DNA did not preserve too well. Scientists have Neanderthal bones that are 30,000 to 40,000 years old. So in this study, 97% of the Neanderthal DNA was gathered using a new method that allowed them to collect Neanderthal DNA from bacteria and fungi, something which would be interesting to read about in the future.
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