We made love, not war, with Neanderthals

What does it mean to be part Neanderthal? We’ve known since 2010 that if you have any non-African ancestry you probably carry Neanderthal DNA. Since this groundbreaking finding, new research on ancient DNA is showing that this wasn’t a fluke. Growing evidence of widespread interbreeding between ancient human populations is forcing scientists to rethink how our genetic identity was formed.

Last month, Svante Pääbo and his colleagues at the Max Plank Institute in Leipzig published the highest quality Neanderthal genome sequence yet, from a 50,000-year-old toe bone found in a Siberian cave. This new genome reveals surprisingly intimate details about the life of the Neanderthal woman to whom the bone belonged.

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