Scientists have long agreed that early humans mated with Neanderthals, but a pair of recent studies have shed light on when exactly this DNA mixing occurred. Such a revelation could help geneticists learn more about our past — and crucially, our future.
The studies, published Dec. 12 in the journals Science and Nature, provide information about the timelines of Neanderthal and early human interactions, and reveal that ancient interbreeding left strands in modern DNA that can still be seen today. The fact that Neanderthals and early humans interbred has been known since the first Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, but these studies suggest the interactions happened more recently than scientists once thought.
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