rhamphotheca:

Did Humans Mate With Neanderthals? (no, probably not)

by Megan Gannon

There has been a long-standing debate over whether humans had sex with Neanderthals and recent studies have pointed to shared genes as evidence of such interspecies dalliances.

But new research claims that common ancestry, not interbreeding, better explains why people of European and Asian descent share 1 to 4 percent of their DNA with Neanderthals. Some of us may not be part caveman after all.

The new version of events, as told by scientists at the University of Cambridge, looks like this: Neanderthals and modern humans once shared a common ancestor who is thought to have lived across Africa and Europe about half a million years ago. But then 350,000 to 300,000 years ago, the European range and the African range of this ancestral species became separated. The European range evolved into Neanderthals, while the African range became modern humans…

(read more: Live Science)       (image: Mauro Cutrona)