Fossils indicate that Humans and Neanderthals inter-bred with each other
May 7th, 2010 - 7:12 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt
New York, May 7 (THAINDIAN NEWS) New study suggests that humans and Neanderthals may have interbred some time in history, before the eventual extinction of the Neanderthals. The Neanderthals existed on this planet between 13,000 and 30,000 years ago. Scientists also believe that the Neanderthals were very similar to the modern humans.
Scientists have long debated whether the two creatures had mated. However scientists say they now have evidence to back their earlier claims. The evidence was presented at an annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.
The researchers said they looked at the DNA samples of modern human beings and found signs of “leftover” Neanderthals in it. However, the report said the interbreeding might have occurred after the migration of humans from Africa, because the genetic diversity is found in excess of all modern human beings except Africans.
This is the first time that DNA has been used from living people.
“Seven years ago, I really thought that it would remain impossible in my lifetime to sequence the whole Neanderthal genome,” according to Dr. Svante Paabo who belongs to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
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- Modern humans, Neanderthals 'had sex' - Oct 25, 2009
- Analyzing DNA directly from 30,000-year-old modern humans now made possible - Jan 01, 2010
- Modern humans not uniquely evolved species - Sep 06, 2011
- Foolproof way to read ancient DNA samples developed - Jan 01, 2010
- Neanderthal brains 'were like modern human ones at birth' - Mar 24, 2011
- 49,000-yr-old Spanish murder site indicates 'Neanderthals were cannibals' - Dec 22, 2010
- 30,000-yr-old finger bone found in Siberia is from 'mystery human relative' - Dec 23, 2010
- Neanderthals may have gone extinct because of their small population size - Jul 17, 2009
- Half a gram of Neanderthal bone enough to discover genome - Feb 13, 2009
- Scientists decode half of the Neanderthal genome - Dec 10, 2008
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