Confirmed: All non-African people are part Neanderthal

ByAlasdair Wilkins

7/18/11 7:00PM

Comments (289)

The evidence has been mounting for years that early humans and Neanderthals interbred, but now it's pretty much a certainty. Part of the X chromosome found in people from outside Africa originally comes from our Neanderthal cousins.

It's kind of amazing to think that, as recently as just a few years ago, the scientific consensus was that humans and Neanderthals were completely separate species and probably didn't interbreed. Since then, a ton of new evidence has come to light to change that position, and now new research from Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal more or less completes this big reversal.

https://gizmodo.com/confirmed-all-non-african-people-are-part-neanderthal-5822357

It’s been known for some time that our modern human ancestors interbred with other early hominin groups like the Neanderthals. But it turns out they were even more promiscuous than we thought.

New DNA research has unexpectedly revealed that modern humans (Homo sapiens) mixed, mingled and mated with another archaic human species, the Denisovans, not once but twice—in two different regions of the ancient world.

All we know about the mysterious Denisovans comes from a single set of human fossils found in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia. In 2008, scientists first discovered a bone from a pinky finger in the cave, and concluded it belonged to a previously unknown ancient hominin who lived between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago. They called the species the Denisovans (pronounced “De-NEE-soh-vens”) after the cave where the fossilized finger was found.

https://www.history.com/news/denisovans-interbreeding-discovery