DNA is writing the missing pages of Neanderthal history as well as our own
Latest findings and updates on DNA studies...long but a very good article
The Neanderthals live on in us
The two naked men are a magnet for visitors to London’s Natural History Museum. Stars of a new exhibition, the life-sized models look electrifyingly real. One is grey-haired, tattooed and slim. He’s one of us, Homo sapiens, modelled on a 33,000-year-old skeleton found at Goat’s Hole, in Pembrokeshire, UK. The other is burly with a large, squashed nose, a noticeable brow-ridge, a matted beard and sporting a striped tattoo across his shoulders. He is a Neanderthal, Homo neanderthalensis, modelled from the remains of a 40,000-year-old skeleton found at Spy Cave in Belgium.
Squinting out at their audience, the two gnarly men represent an extraordinary meeting of two human species. Although these individuals never met, other members of their species certainly did, during thousands of years of co-existence in Europe. Then, 35,000 years ago, Neanderthals vanished from the face of the Earth.
The faces of the museum visitors are etched with the same question that has haunted us for a century and a half. What happened when the paths of these two Homo species crossed? Were we responsible for wiping them out? The audience gets an extraordinary answer to these questions when they visit the last display of the museum.......
https://cosmosmagazine.com/life-sciences/neanderthals-live-us
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