Latest Neanderthal Stories

  Modern humans do show some traces of DNA from Neanderthals, but a new study from Swiss researchers suggests that any breeding between the two was a relatively rare event. The new model, based on DNA samples from modern humans in France and China, shows that successful breeding between the two species occurred at a rate of less than 2 percent, according to researchers at the University of Geneva and the University of Berne in Switzerland. The research, published Monday in the...

  [ View Video] New analysis of two-million-year-old hominid bones found in South Africa provide the clearest evidence of evolution’s first major step toward modern humans, evidence that is leading some experts to believe the findings will change longstanding views on the origins of humans. The well-preserved bones, from Australopithecus sediba, are from a part-human, part-ape species that have never been seen before now. The hands are similar to man, it has sophisticated ankles...

  Mandenka, Biaka and San tested for DNA evidence of ancient interbreeding inside Africa The past is present when it comes to human evolution. That seems to be the takeaway from new research that concludes "archaic" humans, somewhere in Africa during the last 20-60 thousand years, interbred with anatomically modern humans and transferred small amounts of genetic material to their offspring who are alive today. University of Arizona geneticist Michael Hammer and a team of...

  A new study finds that our ancestors bred with more archaic hominin forms around 35,000 years ago, before they migrated out of Africa. In fact, up to 2% of the genomes of some modern African populations may originally have come from a closely related species, the researchers said. It is widely accepted that the species Homo sapiens originated in Africa, and eventually spread throughout the world.  However, paleontologists have long wondered whether modern humans came from a...

  Sexual encounters with Neanderthals produced offspring who inherited vital genes that have helped modern humans combat illness and disease, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science. The scientists extracted material from the leg of a Neanderthal and the fingerbone of a Denisovan, an apparent sister species, which yielded readable DNA.  An analysis of the DNA revealed that most of us have some of the genes of these ancient humans. Indeed, the Neanderthals...

  According to a new study, the first ancestor of modern humans to master the art of cooking was homo erectus. Harvard University researchers said that the ability to cook and process food allowed homo erectus, the Neanderthals and homo sapiens to make huge evolutionary leaps that differentiated them from chimpanzees and other primates. The scientists back-up claims by previous studies that suggest homo erectus may have known how to cook.  They based their results on an analysis of...

A Stanford University scientist is claiming that interbreeding between human ancestors and Neanderthals that took place between 65,000 and 90,000 years ago may have helped our kind survive and gain evolutionary dominance. According to Peter Parham, an immunology expert at the California university's medical school, crossbreeding between the two species "provided humans with a ready-mixed cocktail of disease-resistant genes when the species first ventured out of its native Africa," Graeme...

The 300,000 year reign of the Neanderthals most likely came to an end because of simple numbers, as modern humans outnumbered their predecessors by a 10-to-1 margin, researchers from Cambridge University claim in a new study.Once the hoards of homo sapiens poured into Western Europe, they overwhelmed Neanderthals, effectively making them "a minority in their own land," Guardian Science Correspondent Ian Sample wrote on Thursday. The sheer numbers of these new residents quickly ended...

The role of grandparents in helping to nurture children dates back some 30,000 years, when the life expectancy of the human population began to increase significantly, a team of American anthropologists claim in a new study.In fact, according to David Derbyshire of the Daily Mail, as the number of people reaching advanced age began to rise, the researchers discovered that the "older generation" could have "played a key role in the evolution of mankind.""With older...

Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution."This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," says Dr. Labuda. His team places the...