" 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.
Neanderthals, one of the last extant hominid species other than our own,
left Africa somewhere between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago and settled
mostly in Europe until they went extinct 30,000 years ago. Early modern
humans left Africa about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago, meaning they
overlapped with Neanderthals in time and place for at least 20,000
years. On an evolutionary time scale, that's not a ton of time, but
could it be enough to leave lasting evidence of human/Neanderthal
interbreeding? "
[iO9]
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