Neandertals Found: Inside Our Genome!

Yes, indeedy. We Sapiens-Sapiens, we get around.

By comparing Neanderthal DNA with that of living humans from around the world, the scientists have found evidence that--sometime between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago--modern humans and Neanderthals interbred.

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...the new research shows that modern humans in Africa have a lower percentage of the Neanderthal genome than non-Africans do--implying that the founder group that left Africa interbred with Neanderthals before moving on to populate the other continents. "Likely, it took place somewhere in the Middle East or in northern Africa, perhaps at the gateway as they were migrating out for the first time," says Harvard University geneticist David Reich, who performed the population genetics analyses.