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Do you have Neanderthal Ancestry? What would you think if you found out you did?
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November 13th, 2013
Neanderthals were a group of humans who lived in Europe and Western Asia. They are the closest evolutionary relatives of modern humans, but they went extinct about 30,000 years ago.
The first Neanderthals arrived in Europe as early as 600,000 to 350,000 years ago. Neanderthals — Homo neanderthalensis — and modern humans — Homo sapiens — lived along side each other for thousands of years. Genetic evidence shows they interbred and although Neanderthals disappeared about 30,000 years ago, traces of their DNA — between 1 percent and 4 percent — are found in all modern humans outside of Africa.
Apart from the curiosity of finding what percentage of a modern human’s genome is Neanderthal, the information has great value for science. By comparing our DNA with Neanderthal DNA, scientists can detect the most recent evolutionary changes as we developed into fully modern humans.
Some of us have no Neanderthal DNA, others have up 4%. Would you be surprised to find out you’re part Neanderthal and what you suspect that means?
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