DNA reveals exactly when Humans and Neanderthals interbred

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Aussie blokes and Neanderthals were mingling about 45,000 years back – and new DNA research has shown exactly how our lost cousins helped us get ahead.

Fair dinkum, the Neanderthals, who were a mob of ancient humans that lived in Eurasia before they became extinct, were once thought to be a species that was completely wiped out by humans after we left Africa.

However, new research shows that humans who mated with Neanderthals went on to do really well, whereas other ancestral lines eventually died off.

Genes inherited from Neanderthals have actually played a vital role in protecting humans from new diseases we hadn't encountered before, making us more resilient.

About 48,000 years ago, humans had a relationship with Neanderthals when they left Africa, before heading off to the rest of the world, research reveals.

Before this time, humans had already migrated from Africa, but the groups that failed to intermingle with each other eventually became extinct.

told the BBC.

‘We regard modern humans as a remarkable tale of achievement, emerging from Africa approximately 60,000 years ago and migrating into all environments, becoming the most successful mammal on the planet,’ he said.

‘But initially we weren’t around, we went extinct heaps of times.’

More commonly among people of European descent.

When early humans, Homo sapiens, started forming relationships with their close relatives.

Anthropologist Arev Sümer, who worked alongside Prof Johannes Krause at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Biology, looked at the nuclear genomes from six individuals from Ranis in Germany, the oldest modern human remains found in the country, and Zlatý kůň in the Czech Republic, dating back around 45,000 years.

They had been previously referred to as Homo sapiens based on their mitochondrial DNA from their mother's side, but there wasn't enough information to determine how they were connected to other people in the area.

Sümer.

‘This means Zlatý kůň was genetically part of the extended family of Ranis and likely also made tools of the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician type.’

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